Make and Play! A Collection of Fun Handmade Horse Toy Ideas
How about making some handmade horse toys? Spending time crafting horse-themed toys with familiar materials can greatly expand children’s creativity.
When kids and adults play with the finished toys, the ingenuity and discoveries from the making process will make it even more fun.
There are endless ways to play, from pretending to run a ranch to doll play.
We’ve gathered ideas you can make with easy-to-find materials like origami paper, recycled items, and paper cups, so please try them at home or in early childhood settings!
Make and Play! A Collection of Fun DIY Horse Toy Ideas (1–10)
Cute zodiac felt finger puppets!
Not just for kids—you’ll want to make and collect them for yourself too! Here’s a cute finger puppet idea.
You’ll need a template, felt in various colors, eye parts, scissors, stuffing, thread, and a needle.
It’s great for those who are good at crafts, but if you’re not confident or you’re a beginner, you can also use fabric glue to stick the felt pieces together and aim to finish that way.
If you customize the mane and eye parts, you’ll end up with a horse that has a totally different look.
Puppet horse
You can put it on your hand and make the mouth chomp! Here’s a handmade horse puppet idea.
You’ll use a sock, foam sheets, felt, yarn, and googly eyes.
Stack two half-circle pieces of foam sheet and tape the straight edges together, then attach them to the cut end of the sock with a hot glue gun.
Line the contact surfaces of the foam with pink felt and glue on teeth made from white felt.
Finally, add the facial features, a yarn mane, and felt ears—and you’re done!
A rocking horse that adults can ride
It’s a toy where, when you ride it and rock your body back and forth, the wooden horse moves forward little by little.
You cut the horse’s body, two legs, seat, and handle out of a single piece of wood and assemble them.
The reason the horse moves forward is the mechanism of the back legs.
The front legs are firmly fixed to the body, but there is a gap around the back legs.
After the front legs touch down, the back legs lift slightly and move forward to meet the front legs… Repeating that motion makes it advance.
Finish it by painting it in any colors you like.
Make a clear horse out of a plastic bottle!
Why not try a craft project using recycled materials? In this idea, you’ll make a horse out of plastic bottles.
Cut the bottles with scissors and glue the pieces together while imagining the overall shape of the horse.
Instead of fixing the shape from the start, you’ll turn the cut parts into a horse by using them creatively—an idea that really stimulates creativity.
Use clear plastic bottles to create a mysterious, beautiful transparent horse.
Since you’ll be assembling as you glue, a hot glue gun will come in handy.
The candy box transforms! A moving horse
Let’s make a horse using a box of your favorite snacks! Since the package will become the pattern, pick a box with a design you like.
First, cut the box into three rings of equal width.
Place one ring horizontally, and to its left, place another ring vertically.
Staple the touching edges to create the horse’s body and neck.
Take the remaining ring, turn it horizontally, align its left end with the others, and attach it along the underside of the body.
Flatten the part that sticks out on the left so it juts out, and staple it.
Then, cut the head, legs, ears, and tail from the leftover box pieces and glue them on.
If you hold the part sticking out on the left side of the body and pull the tail on the opposite side, the neck will move.
3D horse made of Perler beads
Iron beads are a handmade toy you can even find at 100-yen shops.
You arrange small pipe-shaped pieces on a pegboard and fuse them with the heat of an iron to enjoy all kinds of designs.
Basically, you make flat designs, but like this horse idea, you can combine flat pieces to create three-dimensional results too.
Iron beads are sold in a wide variety of colors, so try making a horse in your favorite shades.
Add a horn and it might even become a unicorn!
Mole animal horse
Pipe cleaners are great for wrapping and making accessories, but how about trying a three-dimensional horse made with pipe cleaners? You’ll need two full-length pipe cleaners, two shorter cut pieces, a pair of eye parts, and a small bell.
Pipe cleaners are covered with short fibers, but the ends are wire and can easily prick your fingers, so be careful as you finish.
You can also change the colors or adjust the size to bring the horse closer to the image you have in mind.
Give it a try and have fun experimenting!
Let’s make a rocking horse!
Here’s an idea for a sawbuck: cross two 1-meter pieces of wood and fasten them with screws, then attach a 50 cm piece horizontally as the step to complete it.
Depending on the region, it’s also called a “yattoko.” The building process is simple, so even beginners in woodworking can make it.
Key points: when crossing the two pieces, make sure the outer edges of the wood don’t extend past the rider’s shoulders.
Also, if you place the step too high, it becomes difficult to mount, so for a beginner-friendly version, attach it at a lower position.
Mini ranch diorama
Let’s make a miniature horse diorama.
First, cut the Styrofoam to fit the display box.
Then apply plaster, paint it, lay down the grass, and place trees, stones, and flowers.
Finally, set the horse figurine wherever you like, and it’s complete! This idea suggests a landscape reminiscent of a pasture, but feel free to create any scene you prefer.
A tool called a grass applicator is used to make the grass stand upright, and green powder is sprinkled on to add variation to the grass.
The attention to detail is so fine that it looks like a real landscape!
Challenge yourself to making stilts
Nowadays you can buy stilts made from all kinds of materials, but this is an idea for making traditional stilts using real bamboo! First, prepare two bamboo poles for the uprights, choosing ones that are as similar in thickness as possible.
Then prepare one bamboo piece for the footrests, and make sure it is thicker than the uprights.
After cutting the two upright poles to the same length, cut the footrest bamboo into two pieces, each a little longer than one bamboo node.
Split each of those pieces in half to make four, then pair them up and tie one end of each pair together with string.
Open the untied ends, sandwich an upright between them, and tie securely from multiple directions to finish.
Be careful: if the knots are loose, the footrests may drop when you step on them.