Critters come ALIVE

Dump out your craft supplies for some fun homemade creatures

BY MARY RASCH

Try this. Place a bunch of crafting materials in front of you and your children. Bring out the glue gun, the googly eyes, the pipe cleaners. Bring out the paint, too! It’s amazing to see what happens. Fuzzy friends begin popping up all over the place! If you need some inspiration, take a look at these pictures. For those that need a little direction on how these simple critters are made, the material lists and instructions are provided below. Let the constructing begin!

Monkey Materials:

3 brown pipe cleaners

1 wooden bead with drilled hole

Brown and red Sharpie marker OR brown and red paint and paintbrush

Scrap of natural-colored paper

Scissors

Hot glue gun or glue

2 googly eyes

Instructions:

1. Start by twisting the middle of three pipe cleaners together as shown in the picture. Using four of the six ends, form two feet and two hands. You can do this by folding each limb in half, bending back the ends toward the body, using the bend as the feet and hands. Twist one of the last unused ends into a tail and the other into a nub in order to place the monkey’s head.

2. Paint the wooden bead or use a dark brown Sharpie marker. You can leave the mouth section natural wood and draw in the smile with a red Sharpie marker or red paint.

3. Cut two paper ears from natural colored paper. Create dimension by folding them in half before gluing them onto the sides of the bead.

4. Glue two googly eyes in place where desired.

5. Glue the head onto the nub created on your pipe cleaner body.

Tennis Ball Guy

Caterpillar

Materials:

Fuzz balls

Needle and thread

Popsicle stick

Hot glue gun or glue

Googly eyes

Instructions:

1. Have your child create a pattern using the fuzz balls.

2. Adults, thread a needle and knot the end of one end of the string. Connect the balls by easing a needle and thread through the middle of each.

3. Guide the needle up through the head and leave a longer section of thread to be tied to the Popsicle stick. Attach another string around the midsection. Tie both strings to a Popsicle stick.

Thanks to SnacksthePegasus. blogspot.com, the fealties.blogspot.com, frugalfun4boys.com and onelittleproject. com for our inspiration! — MDT

Mary Rasch is a Duluth artist and mother of two. Her book, “Fleece Hat Friends and Playful Hoodies,” is available on Amazon.

Dinosaur

Materials:

2 green pipe cleaners

The only thing you need to do with this guy is be creative in your bending. Start with the head and wrap the pipe cleaner around a few times in order to create a little ball, let the neck go along with a little bend and started the body. You will run out of pipe cleaner on the front part of the body. By twisting in the second pipe cleaner, you can create the legs, tail and fill in the body.

Bees

Materials:

1 black pipe cleaner

1 yellow pipe cleaner

Scissors

Scrap of lace

1. Hold both your yellow and black pipe cleaners next to each other and begin wrapping them three times around your scissors.

2. Twist the scissors to round out the bee’s body. Remove the scissors and cut any excess pipe cleaner. Tuck the loose ends into the body.

3. Take a short scrap of lace and pull it down into the midsection to hold the “wings” in place.

4. Repeat to make as many bees in your hive as your heart desires.