This post is sponsored by FARMYARN. All opinions are my own!
Making crafts that actually look nice enough to display afterwards is always the best, isn’t it? Granted, all doting parents love to hang up anything their kids make, but sometimes they make something that just looks like it needs to be part of the decor. This winter dream catcher is one of those crafts your kids will love to show off in their room or play area!
My kids and I really enjoyed learning some of the history behind dream catchers, so read til the end for a few facts on these historical crafts! After looking at beautiful pictures of them we were excited to make our own. Of course the one we made wasn’t nearly as intricate, but for being made primarily from a five-year-old, I’d say it’s pretty amazing!
Crafting with FARMYARN
We’ve made dream catchers in the past, but this one was especially great because we used new yarn! As far as kids’ crafts go, using FARMYARN has become a fast favorite for how easy it is for little hands to work with.
It’s wider than your standard yarn, so it’s easier to hold on to. It also stretches suuuuuuper far which the kids LOVE and makes it last so much longer! The stretchiness is very kid-friendly and forgiving when you’re working with it.
Beyond the fact that it’s an ideal material for kids, here are a few more details about FARMYARN and why we love them:
- They repurpose scrap material which is great for the environment.
- The yarn is weatherproof, so you can use it for outdoor crafts. Also great for kiddos that habitually forget things outside!
- They have so many amazing colors!
- Again, the stretchiness cannot be overstated. It’s awesome! We seriously used so much less yarn than I expected with this craft because the top part can be stretched so much.
- FARMYARN also sells other scrap fabrics! We have a variety of stretchy prints, leathers, jean, and even seat belts. There’s so many opportunities to get creative with all their fun items to choose from!
- They are offering a special discount for TGC readers! Use the code GROW10 at checkout for 10% off your order!
They also are a small business based in the USA, and you all know that shopping small is more important than ever! I am genuinely excited to be sharing their products with you today, and I hope you’ll check them out!
But first, let’s see how FARMYARN held up to our craftivities! (Hint: amazingly)
Making the Winter Dream Catcher
Here here the materials you’ll need for your kids to make their own winter dream catcher craft:
- FARMYARN in blues, black, and white. (They have the perfect 4-pack set called “Elsa”– in honor of Frozen. If your kids are like mine, they’ll love using Elsa yarn!)
- A hoop. Can be wooden, plastic, or metal. We happened to have a metal one!
- Decorative items such as feathers and beads. We kept ours simple with only those two, but if you had snowflake gems or white pom poms that would be so cute as well!
- Scissors and hot glue gun
That’s it! Gotta love those low-key material lists 🙂 Now here’s the step-by-step on how my kids made this winter dream catcher.
1. Wrap the hoop
First you’ll want to wrap the hoop in the yarn. You can choose to do one color or mix up a few. We decided to go with black and white. I cut off about 18 inches of each expecting to have to cut more, but the stretchiness of FARMYARN made it all the way around the hoop!
To attach the first piece you could tie or glue it. To avoid a bump, I simply directed Lu to fold the end over the hoop and hold it in place as she started wrapping the yarn around it. The stretchy yarn held it snug and secure in place.
Then just continue wrapping it around. When changing colors, Lu would stop wrapping one and lay it flat across the hoop for the other color to wrap around it, and vice versa when switching back. Super easy and you can avoid the hassle of constantly attaching new pieces!
2. Make the web
Now to add the web across the hoop. Cut off a piece of yarn and tie it to a spot on the hoop. I cut off about 4 feet and it was more than enough! I ended up having enough overflow to just use that for one of the strings hanging down.
This yarn isn’t slippery so don’t worry about it sliding out of place! Each time the yarn reached the hoop again, Lu would just wrap it around the hoop once, tug it tight, and carry on. They never budged- and still haven’t even after we’ve handled them quite a bit, I might add.
When your kiddo is happy with how their web looks, they can just tie off the other end. As I mentioned, we had enough yarn left that it was able to dangle with the other strings!
3. Attach the hanging fabric strips
For this part you could choose to use yarn as well as other strips of fabric. We loved the way it looked with just the yarn and instead decided to change it up by braiding some of them. You could tie each piece on, but we used an even simpler method!
Decide how long you want the strings to be, and cut it double that length. With it folded in half, put the fold over the hoop. Bring the two ends up and behind the hoop to place them through the fold with the hoop in between. Pull it tight and voila- you added two strands at once!
Your kiddo can choose to only do a few strands, or have a bunch clustered together. They can all be the same length or vary. Although, if your child is on the younger side as mine are, the varying part may not be optional, haha!
4. Decorate the fabric strips
Now we’re getting down to the last part- decorating! We chose some dark/light blue and white beads to decorate with to stick with our winter themed. Since FARMYARN isn’t small and round like regular yarn, the beads fit snugly without having to tie a knot underneath them.
To put the beads on, we used a large plastic sewing needle to push the yarn through them. There is something so therapeutic for kids when sewing or stringing beads! Lu seriously did this on her own contentedly for at least a half hour.
She really liked that she could move them around however she wanted since there weren’t any knots, and I really liked not having beads fall off the yarn onto the floor!
The other way we decorated was by braiding a couple of the yarn strands. This was only Lu’s maybe third time or so braiding, but she really loved trying it over and over again! FARMYARN was super easy for her to handle and made it work more smoothly than skinnier strings that fall out of her hands more readily.
5. Add the feathers
This could technically be a part of step four, but it was the one part I had to do entirely for her, so I separated it. Tying the feathers makes them stick out sideways, so we had to glue them. To do this I used my handy-dandy glue gun and simply glued them into the curl of the yarn fabric. I put some along the bottom and a couple up higher by the beads.
That’s all! Making this winter dream catcher was such a fun craft for the kids. Because of the colors, Lu also considers it a Frozen themed dream catcher and likes to carry it while wearing an Elsa dress. Kids will find a way to make anything about Frozen, amirite?!
The History Behind the Dream Catcher
As promised, I want to share a few facts to discuss with your kids about the history behind dream catchers. As a homeschooling mom, I’m always looking for ways to connect our activities to learning. So as you and your kids make these winter dream catchers, here are 4 facts about the history of dream catchers!
- Many people know that dream catchers originated from Native American traditions. But specifically, there are legends of them starting in the Ojibwa and Lakota tribes. The Ojibwa legend states that a spiritual protector called “The Spider Woman” first made the dream catchers to protect her people as they grew in numbers and were further away from one another.
- They were believed to trap the bad dreams and let the good dreams pass through, hence the name!
- The way they felt this worked was that bad dreams were, essentially, confusing and muddled up. So they would get tangled in the web. Good dreams, on the other hand, were calm and clear, so they could slide right through the spaces in the web and down the feathers to the dreamer sleeping below.
- The materials traditionally used for dream catchers were a red willow hoop, twigs, and decorative items such as feathers, arrow heads, beads, and gemstones.
I hope your family has fun learning about and creating this beautiful craft! Since we still have a few more months of cold weather to look forward to, a winter dream catcher seems like an appropriate craft for kids who are dreaming of warmer days ahead. Don’t forget to check out FARMYARN’s website for some seriously awesome yarns and fabrics and use the code GROW10 for 10% off!
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