DIY Terracotta Reindeer for Your Holiday Mantle

I had bought a few reindeer cookie cutters for sugar cookies and had them out on the bookshelf because of #apartmentlife #nostorage and really liked how minimal they looked with the other decorations. But our apartment isn’t nearly farmhouse chic enough to pull off cookie-cutter decor, so I pulled out the terracotta clay and made the easiest, most minimalist holiday DIY ever. DIY terracotta reindeer.

I love that my cookie cutter collection (say that 3 times fast) is getting more use beyond sugar cookies. It makes it that much easier to justify having multiple reindeer options 😆. Truthfully, I think any holiday shape would be beautiful in terracotta. I just happened to find the big reindeer in a Meri Meri set at Home Goods for half the cost it’s listed on Amazon and got the smaller, Wilton ones at Joann’s with their weekend coupon.

You’ll Need
Reindeer cookie cutters (big one, small ones)
terracotta clay
low grit sandpaper
high grit sandpaper (optional)

Roll out the clay to roughly 1/2″ thickness and cut out your reindeer! 1/2″ is the thickest the clay package recommended baking and was perfect for giving the reindeer enough heft to stand.

Gently stand up your reindeer to see if any legs need smooshing. To make them balanced, I gently flattened their feet against a table. Don’t worry about getting this perfect. The clay will shrink a bit in the oven and will require final sanding.

Bake according to package instructions. For the Sculpey clay, I had them in for 30 minutes. Once they’re completely cooled, use a low grit sandpaper to rough up and even the bottom of the feet. To get them super even, have the sandpaper flat on a table and drag the reindeer feet back and forth like your grating cheese.

Now when these guys first came out I wasn’t a huge fan of the flat terracotta color. It just looked a little too gingerbread to me and less like pottery. To bring some dimension to them, I wet sanded with a 220 grit. They perfectly match my plant pots now!

I have to admit that styling these tiny reindeer was the best part of the project. We don’t have a tiny Christmas village yet, but these reindeer are the first step! What cookie cutters would you use for this project?