Easy egg box roses

This is a little Valentine's or Mother's day gift that won't fade away - really simple to make too.

All you'll need for half a dozen roses is: an egg box, some pipe cleaners, red tissue paper, a yogurt pot, small piece of wrapping paper, PVA/craft glue, scissors and a ball of plasticine (modelling clay).

First, cut the six cups out of the egg box - they don't have to be straight and even, in fact a wavy edge is best as it's more petal-like.

Paint them...and possibly your hands, red.

Once they're dry, cut pipe cleaners into 10cm/4" pieces(green is great, but any colour will do) - then make a hole, push the pipe cleaner through and fold the top part over.
(Keep as flat as you can as this makes it easier to glue in the flower middle)

Cut a sheet of red tissue paper into three (about 20cm/8" by 12cm/5") and then start folding, so you end up with a strip roughly 2cm/0.75" wide.

Once you've done that, roll it up tight.

Let the tissue paper centre naturally unfurl so it fits neatly in an egg cup, and glue in place.

Optional: Fold some green tissue paper a few times, draw a leaf shape on top, cut out and glue to the stems.

Stick some paper or a ribbon onto your pot (or both!) to cover the writing.

If you're using paper, cut a strip to go round the pot plus a bit extra, then snip the strip into smaller pieces - this makes it much easier to glue evenly.

Best to leave the plasticine (modelling clay) somewhere warmish so it's not hard as rock when you try to push the stems in.

The added bonus is this gives the pot some weight, so you should end up with quite a sturdy little posy…

egg box roses

Mr Crocodile rolls up to the Zoo

Our homemade Zoo is getting pretty busy. This is the fourteenth arrival since the loo roll lion kicked the whole thing off in May. Never imagined back then I'd end up spending so much time thinking about how to make a hoard of animals out of the recycling rubbish...

The crocodile is an egg box/cardboard roll combo - you'll need one of the pointy cone middle bits from an egg box.

Cut it in half, then cut a section of the loo roll middle for the body. Use the egg box piece to measure this if you like, but it doesn't need to be accurate - bigger is better at this stage.

Glue a pointy piece onto one end - don't try and glue it completely flat, concentrate on getting the sides to stick, but leave the top proud of the body. This will be the top part of the croc's head. And don't worry about the extra bits of card sticking out below - these can be snipped away once it's dry.

I think the tail looks better if you cut a curve into the other egg box bit before gluing it under the body - this time you want it to fit snuggly to the cardboard roll , though again don't worry about edges not meeting up at the bottom.
Paper clips help to hold everything in place while it dries.

When it's ready, cut away the hanging down bits so it sits flat, then paint your croc - remember to paint some spare card too.

For the teeth, cut a thin strip of white paper that wraps around most of the head section - use a black pen to draw a zigzag pattern. Snip each end into a gradual point and glue in place.

For the eyes we coloured some paper with a yellow highlighter pen and used a good old hole punch.
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Put one of these on the spare green card and draw around it - so you have a small piece that's curved at the top and flat at the bottom.

Make two, glue on the circles, then you may need to cut more of the bottom edge off, so they don't stick out too much when you push them into slits (made with nail scissors) close to the top of the croc's head.

Cut out feet (do one and use as a template) - fold at an angle (see black lines below) and stick them on underneath so they point forward.

Then just draw on nostrils and some markings......and there you have it!

I've put the croc in the turtle's pool, but he could do with one made from a larger ice cream lid!

For a stealthy. swimming croc, forget the feet and cut more of the sides away...

...or just use a head....

Linking up with Kids Get Crafty

Many more projects like this in my craft books, 'Make Your Own Zoo' and 'Make Your Own Farm Animals'

Mini Halloween figures - Part 2

What to do with a bucketful of pumpkin pieces?
Not so keen on pumpkin pie; soup is fine (especially good with apple), but this year I was thinking something sweet like muffins, and then as if by spooky magic, Emma's recipe for spiced pumpkin muffins popped up on my blog list, so we'll be having a go at that later.

Back to the cardboard pumpkin, (ghost and bat are here) and you'll need to cut two egg cups from your box. Keep them shallow and as even as possible, so you can stick them together. But before getting the glue out, use your fingers and thumbs to press the egg cup bottoms, making them more dome shaped.

Splosh on some orange paint and when dry, use a felt tip for the face. Make a hole in the top, roll a small piece of green paper as tightly as you can for the stalk and push it in.

A little more work for the witch, but hopefully worth it.

You'll need a small cone from the middle of the box. Paint it black, leaving a space for the face.
Having a green egg box was a bonus, but if yours is another colour, just paint the face when the black's dry.

Cut a small triangle from spare egg box card for the witch's nose. Fold this little bit of card in half, make a hole with nail scissors (keep them closed, press down and twist from side to side) in the middle of the face and wedge the pointy nose in.

We stuck on some brown wool for hair, but coloured tissue paper would work well too.
Draw a witchy mouth and eyes with a felt-tip.

The hat is made from two small circles. We had no black paper so just coloured some in.

The smaller circle sits on her head, cut the the larger one in half. Twist and glue it into a cone shape. Use plenty of glue to stick the cone to the bottom of the hat.

Make her broomstick by wrapping and gluing a rectangle of tissue paper (or ordinary paper) around the end of cocktail stick. Snip the paper to make it more broom-like.

Make holes in the witch's body (with the nail scissors) - higher at the front than the back, so her broomstick sits at an angle.

Cut a strip for arms from your black paper, making it wider at both ends for the flared sleeves. then glue in place.

The plan was to come up with a game using these mini figures, but that's going to have to wait..

Happy Halloween!

Linking up with Kids Get Crafty

Hey, Hey, it's the (egg box) Monkeys!

They've been a long time coming these monkeys, so really hope they're worth the wait...

The body's made from the same egg box bit as the penguins (the cone that stops the eggs bashing together),

you'll also need paint, glue and brown pipe-cleaners.

Once you've cut out the bodies (top 3cm), get painting, and don't forget to paint a piece of egg lid card brown too, plus a lighter colour for the face.

About a cm from the top, make holes for arms with nail scissors - keep closed, press down and twist from side to side) and do the same at the bottom for the legs.

Make a hole in the top (if there isn't one there already) and cut a slot about a cm long at the back for the tail.
Cut 3 pieces of pipe cleaner - two 9cm long, and one 12cm. Push the longer piece up through the hole until there's enough to bend into a loop (where you'll stick the head) - then pull the rest of the pipe cleaner up through the tail slot.

Push the other 2 pieces through for the arms, and the legs - when you're happy, fold the sharp tips over.

For the head, find a suitably sized circle (we used a thread reel) and draw round it twice on some cereal box card.

Now, using one as an outline, draw two small chimp ears near the top, touching the circle, and continue down to the bottom. See picture.

In the other circle, draw two 3's facing each other (see picture again). Use the bottom of the circle to form your 3's, and make the lower half fatter and shorter than the top bit.

Cut these pieces out, and you're looking for them to sit together like this...

...with a little of the lower part visible on either side. A bit fiddly, but once it's done and you're happy, use these pieces as templates for all your other monkeys.

Add any expression you like, and glue the head onto the pipe-cleaner hoop. Best to use a stronger all-purpose glue as PVA craft glue doesn't work so well with pipe cleaners.

We made a small playground for our monkeys too - you just need the top of an egg box + one egg cup, a suitable twig, paint, glue and some coloured paper. and a ball of plasticine (modelling clay)

First, paint the egg box lid green, (or you might already have a green one) and the egg cup piece grey.

Once they're dry, cut a strip of green paper (or paper you've painted) so it wraps around the cup, leaving a space at the front. Fold the bottom cm along the strip.
Fringe the paper up to the fold - my daughter loves doing this - then chop bits out and make it different lengths so it looks more grass like.

Snip a few times into the cm fold - this helps when it come to sticking it neatly under the egg cup.
Brush glue around the side of the stone - with the fold sitting along the bottom edge, press the grass on and stick the rest underneath.

Glue to the egg box lid. We added a few paper leaves to our tree. Make a hole for the tree and push the end into some plasticine to help keep it steady.
If you have any coloured tissue paper, scrupple little bits up to make flowers.

And once you've enough chimps, you could always try something else....We had a go at a baboon..

with cheeky extras..

Next time pandas.

Many more projects like this in my craft books, 'Make Your Own Zoo' and 'Make Your Own Farm Animals'