My teenage daughter was going to perform with her color guard in the Storybook Parade at the local elementary school. It’s quite fun for the kids. The drum corp and the color guard lead the parade along with one of the local firetrucks, and all the elementary kids dress as a storybook character and make a big parade around the entire school. This is the big tradition for Halloween. They dress up one of the school buses as a space shuttle, and throw candy out of it to the kids before they line up to parade.
My preschooler and I have cheered on my Mr E for the past 2 years in the parade, so I was excited to see my daughter get to perform in it as one of the big kids. This year my son had moved on to the intermediate school where they just parade around the inside of the school. Gee, how fun.
My teenager and seven other girls were going as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. She was Bashful and had the complete costume including my lovely yarn beard. Then, she found out all freshmen at school had to take a benchmark exam. It’s basically a practice exam for those darn standardized tests. Unfortunately, she had to give up Bashful and my awesome yarn beard to another color guard girl.
This beard was so fun and easy to make, so I just had to share! It came out so much better than I thought, and you can make it while sitting on the couch watching an episode of Revolution or any other hour long television drama. If you have ever made a tutu from strips of tulle tied to an elastic waistband, this is nearly the exact same thing except it’s yarn and ribbon.
Yarn Beard
Supplies:
1 skein – Thick & Quick Wool-Ease yarn – Lion’s Brand (sold at most craft stores and Walmart)
3/8 inch grosgrain ribbon – choose a color fairly close to the yarn color
Scissors
2. Next, cut the yarn into beard hairs. Cut approximately 65 pieces of yarn.
Make sure to cut the yarn to be 2X (two times) the length of the beard needed. For this example, I cut 1 yd pieces so that the final finished beard was about 18 inches in length.
3. Begin in the middle of the ribbon and work outward. Fold one piece of yarn in half, slip the loop of the yarn piece under the ribbon, then insert the two loose ends of the yarn piece over the ribbon and into the loop and pull tight — like shown in the picture.
For the outer part of the beard, use about 50 pieces of cut yarn.
Do the exact same on the other side of the beard. Snip off the excess raw edge from the knot. Then move out the yarn ties from the scrunched middle to hide the tied edges of the second ribbon.

For a braided version, it might be necessary to add a few more beard “hairs” of yarn to the top ribbon.
Have fun!
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13 comments
I love this beard. So fun and easy. I also love the pic of your daughter. She looks so thrilled. Your dwarf is funny too.
Hahaha! Love it!
That is a hoot! Perfect addition to a Halloween costume. Pinned for later!
This is so fun! thanks for sharing, i’m sure i’ll be using this some time in my parenting future 🙂 http://www.handmadeintheheartland.com/
Thanks for sharing this on our Brag About It Party! We just laughed out loud and had to come check it out. Love so much. Made us smile big.
Sharon and Denise @ BeBetsy.com
So, so funny! I love it!!
Hugs from Spain!!
Thank you for posting this! My son wants to be Hagrid for Halloween and we will definitely be using your method for the beard.
Oh that will be an awesome costume! I think we’ll be making a white one, my son wants to be Gandalf.
This is super cute! Question though–about how much of a skein of yarn does one beard require to make? I’m looking at making a few dozen of these and want to make sure I get a good amount of yarn!
If it’s going to be about 18 inches in length, then probably about 3/4 of a skein each. I just made one for my son this past Halloween. He was Gandalf the White, and it took about that much of the skein.
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Would it be possible to use elastic instead of ribbon? This is for a play and we need to be able to put the beard on quickly
I think that would work just fine. I’d recommend a soft round elastic to be more comfortable.