Quinn came home with a super fun project in honor of Rodeo Break. He needed to make a hobby horse, aka DIY stick horse to ride during the kindergarten rodeo parade.

Need to make a stick horse for an upcoming rodeo or cowboy party? Check out this super easy stick horse tutorial using mostly items from the dollar store! — Pin this horse on a stick idea for later.

I couldn’t wait to get started on this project. I found some fun inspiration on Pinterest and created this easy DIY sock horse tutorial, no sewing machine necessary!

Stick Horse With Dollar Tree Supplies

Most of supplies can be found at a dollar store. I started by taking stock of what I already had at home and found yarn, filling from an old pillow, a zip tie and a glue gun.

Then I headed to the Dollar Tree to pick up a few more things including a mop, handkerchief, pair of socks, felt squares, electrical tape, googly eyes and twine. The mop was really only $1, it wasn’t the sturdiest mop but it was perfect for this project.

Stick Horse Supplies — Find most of the supplies at home or your local dollar store.

DIY Stick Horse

I unscrewed the mop head off of the handle and wrapped the handle in black electrical tape. While I worked on that, Quinn removed all the mop strands out of the mop head.

Pull mop strings out for stick horse — My 5-year old helped me make this DIY Sock horse.

Next we cut and measured an equal number pieces of yarn, The yarn we used was rather expensive for our simple project but it was the only skein I had on hand in a neutral color. I had no current plans for it and wanted to use as many supplies on hand as possible. So our horse has “fancy” yarn hair and “cheap” mop hair. 😉

Cut Equal lengths of yarn stick horse hair — Measuring and cutting long pieces of horse hair was fun and educational.

The mop provided a stick for the stick horse and hair for the horse head. Yarn and another long random stick could substitute if you don’t find a cheap mop.

Stuffing into sock stick horse — He also had fun stuffing the sock horse head with old pillow filling.

How to make a stick horse

Skip the wooden horse head and make a sock filled head instead. Using a sock makes it easy to customize the color of your stick horse too, make a brown stick horse or a pink one!

Then we stuffed the sock tightly with old pillow filling. We filled most of the sock but left some empty space at the end to stick the mop handle in.

Pull yarn through top of sock head stick horse — I used a large plastic needle to thread the yarn through the sock.

To add the hair I threaded the yarn into a large plastic needle we had on hand and poked it the yarn through the sock from the middle to heel of the sock.

Tie yarn around mop string stick horse — The yarn was tied over a mop strand, then the mop strand was tied over the first know.

tie mop around yarn hobby stick horse — This no mess stick horse hair idea was another easy idea for my little guy to help with.

Then we placed the matching mop strand perpendicular across the yarn strand and then tied the yarn over the mop strand. Finally we tied the mop strand over the first knot.

It’s a very simply hair system that doesn’t require any true sewing or hot glue. We kept adding hair and ended up using 30 pairs of yarn and mop hair to get a good horse mane.

Quinn attached most of our hair so it wasn’t really in a straight line, but it didn’t really matter. I filled in a few strands at the end and the mane turned out great.

nose and mouth on stick horse — I used felt and black thread to add the horse face.

felt ears for stick horse — More black felt was used to create the horse ears

Horse Head on a Stick

I used a hot glue gun to attach googly eyes and small black felt circles for the nostrils. Then I doubled black thread and made one long stitch to create the mouth.

I cut 2 quarter circles out of felt to create the ears. My first set were too small, so I had to try again. It really depends on the size of you sock horse and preference. I lightly pinched the felt together while sewing a couple of simple stitches to attach the ears to the head.

I pushed the end of the mop handle into the sock to attach the head. After adjusting the stuffing around it, I used a zip tie to attach the sock to the handle. I covered the zip tie by adding the handkerchief to the horse. That way he is clearly a cowboy horse. 🙂

bridle for stick horse — Twine from the dollar tree helped me simulate a horse bridle and reins.

I used two pieces of twine to create the horse bridle. The first one was tied tightly from the nose to the handle, pulling the nose down a little bit. The second piece of twine was attached from the from the bridle to the stick to look like a set of reins.

Giddy Up Stick Horse — A cowboy riding his hobby horse, he may or may not be making a horse sound too. 😉

Quinn loved his new stick horse and can’t wait to ride it in the rodeo parade next week. These simple sock stick horses would be a great idea for cowboy party favors.

Hobby stick Horse — Our hobby horse, sock horse or stick horse, whatever you call it, turned out pretty great!

So there you have it, an easy stick horse tutorial. So easy even I can do it and a kindergartener can do most of it too) 😉