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I am creating a felt animal for my son for every letter of the alphabet in a new series: ABC Animals in Felt!

This week has been devoted to the letter V.  I could have made a vulture, but since I don’t really like vultures and we already made a bird last week (U is for Umbrella Bird), I didn’t give John a choice :)  A Great Horned Viper is super cool and a bit scary, but John says this is his favorite so far!  (All boy.)  He was excited about his felt viper!

All you need to make a Felt Great Horned Viper is:

• felt: tan, brown, pink, lime green, black (or you can use paper!)
• cotton balls
• hot glue gun (or Elmer’s if you’re just using colored paper)
• amazing Fiskar scissors (if you’re going to work with felt at all, you have to check these scissors out!)

** This craft uses a hot glue gun — please keep out of the reach of children — these are for adult use only!!

This is the only way this makes sense to me.  I cut the picture I drew out (free printable at the end of this post!) into pieces. Then, I assemble all of my felt pieces — I cut two each of the two long snake bodies and head.  Tip: I cut the bodies a bit wider than the printable suggests — this way you’ll be able to fit your cotton balls inside when you’re trying to hot-glue it together.  I made a bunch of brown spots for the back of the snake, they don’t need to all be the same.  I also cut some little lime green eyes and glued on a tiny black felt line on for his eyes.  I glued the body together and then filled one side with cotton balls and carefully glued the back of the snake on top.  I have found that it is easiest to have a fork handy to press the two sides together — this prevents burning your fingers….This felt project was definitely the most time-consuming, but it was worth it!

Here is the viper’s mouth.  I glued the pink mouth between the two tan mouths and then glued it on top of the body.  This was done by the seat of my pants, not super technical. I made four white rolls — two for horns on the top of his head and two for his big fangs inside his mouth — I simply rolled a little piece of white felt, hot-glue-gunned it and cut it until I felt the looked “right.” And now his horns are on his head!  Scary looking! And he is done!  A labor of love!  My son couldn’t wait to play with him. My son absolutely loves his Great Horned Viper. And some play-time pics with his viper eating his little animals….

I made a template, and a coloring page, for you to make your own viper!  I am not an artist, but I hope you find this helpful!  

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You can download the Viper printable here!

Book Extension

If you’re looking for a wonderful book to read with this activity, the letter Vv book from AlphaTales is all about the Viper.  I like that this book also talks about Valentine’s Day, which is another great V word still on the mind, though this is not the Great Horned Viper, I doubt that kids will be too upset by that :)  Vera Viper’s Valentine!  

Other Posts in the ABC Animals in Felt Series:

T is for Turtle

U is for Umbrella Bird

Here they all are, on our floor, where they are often, all around the house.  Oh well, they will be well-played with.  We’ll see how long they hold up :)

Happy Crafting,

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