Egg carton Mice

WHO ate all the CHEESE??!

These little egg carton mice are having a lovely time, and when the kids have finished playing with them, they can be packed away inside the big cheese for next time.

You will need:
2 Egg cartons
Pencil

Scissors
Plain paper
Paint
Glue/glue stick
Black marker or gel pen
Yarn (for tail)

1. First, roughly cut out the middle cones from the carton, so they're easier to work with.

2. Use a pencil to lightly draw a line around the bottom of the cone, just above the bumpy cardboard join (for guidance, so doesn't matter if the line is a bit wobbly!) 

Cut up to the line at an angle, and then along it, so the edge is even and the cone sits flat.  Trim if you need to. Make some smaller mice bodies too.

3. Next, you want to make them sit forward a little. So, draw a pencil cline straight across one side, about 1cm up from the bottom.

4. Then draw a diagonal line from each end of the pencil line, down the sides to the corner. 

Cut along the pencil line. You will end up with a more mouselike body.

5. For the ears, simply use a paper heart! Fold a piece of plain paper over, and draw half a heart on the fold (keep in mind the size of your mouse, so you don't make the ears too big).

6. Cut the heart out, snipping the middle a little lower than you would normally, open up and glue on the back of the head near the top (the longest side of the cone)

7. You could paint the body and ears separately before sticking together, but we went for an all over body paint - just need to make sure not to overload the brush with paint, or the ears will get too soggy.

8. Once dry, paint on some pink..

... then use a black pen to draw eyes, a nose and whiskers. Try to draw the eyes up close to the base of the ears, on the flattish top part of the cone, and the nose and whiskers right underneath the eyes.

9. For the tail, snip a slot at the back of your mouse, cut a few cms of yarn and slot into place.

10. For the big cheese, remove the middle cones from inside the second carton by squeezing and cutting straight across each one. Snip them off as near to the base as you can - so there'll be more room inside for your mice!

Make holes in the carton lid with small sharp scissors, like nail scissors (keep closed, press down and twist from side to side) This needs to be done by an adult. Cut different sized holes, then let little ones loose with the yellow paint!

11. We folded a piece of kitchen paper inside our cheese, so they didn't fall through the holes.
And they've got something nice and soft to sleep on too... of course..

Fishy business - egg carton fish

Fish made from egg cartons. Two of my favourite things! I have fish plates, tiles, pictures, crafts all over the house - a fish mobile I made from copper wire, beads and shells years ago is still doing the rounds on Pinterest, so there's obviously a lot of other people who like fish too. And I think if you've popped by here before, you'll know I'm pretty keen on egg cartons! 

This craft is very similar to the stacking croc and lizard, except easier, because you don't need to hunt for quite so many egg cartons..

You will need:

At least 2 egg cartons

Scissors

Craft glue

Paint

Tin-foil (optional)

Black pen

1. For the smaller fish you will need four egg carton cones. Cut them out roughly first, then more neatly, above the bumpy cardboard join, so you end up with a nice even edge around the bottom.

2. Then shorten three of the cones by about 1 cm/1/2in. - do it by eye, as it really doesn't have to be exact - the important thing is that the three shorter ones are roughly the same height. 

3. Paint the cones whatever colour you'd like your fish to be. A good tip for painting cones is to slot one on top of a spare, roughly cut out cone, so you have something to hold onto while you paint, and hands hopefully get less messy! 

4. Brush glue inside the larger cone (fish head) and slot one of the smaller cones into it, facing the opposite way.

5. Brush some glue inside another cone and slot it over the top. You could push this right up to the front head cone, or leave a little of the one underneath showing.

6. For the tail, take the remaining cone and cut out triangles on each side, going from corner to corner. (You could paint the inside of this cone too, for a neater finish)

...so it has a kind of bluebell-shaped look...

7. Flatten the top part of the tail with your finger, and the end of the fish where the tail is going to go, and glue together. We found the best way to get the glue to set was to place our fish upright, on its tail, propped up against something, so it didn't fall over. Or you could use stronger glue like UHU, or a glue gun.

8. Use the triangles you've cut out for the fins. Shorten and trim if you need to, and glue just behind the head cone. Dot on eyes with a black pen.

9. For a larger fish, the process is the same but you'll need 6 egg carton cones. This time shorten four, and keep two the original size (for the head).

10. Stack and glue the larger cones together, so you can see a part of the underneath cone, then glue and slot one of the smaller cones inside, facing the other way.

11. Start stacking on the smaller cones - you can push the next one right up towards the head, or leave a little gap. Space the next cone, so you can see the one underneath. Try to keep the spacing even, but it really doesn't need to be perfect.

12. Cut triangles out of the sides of the remaining tail cone, flatten the top and the end of the fish and glue together. For fins, glue two spare triangles just under the front cones. Trim the triangles if you like.

13. For shiny scales, we covered a few of our egg cones with tin foil. Just wrap a piece tightly around the cone, tucking any bits hanging over the end inside.

 

Mr Croc - egg carton crocodile

This craft is very similar to the lizard we made last time, so it's all about cutting and stacking, the tricky part is finding enough egg cartons!!

You will need:

3 x Large (dozen) egg cartons or

6 Regular (half a dozen) egg cartons

Pencil

Scissors

Craft glue

Glue stick (optional)

Green paint

Sheet of plain paper

Black marker or gel pen

1. Mr Croc is made from twelve of the middle cones you find in egg cartons.

If you can get hold a few of the larger cartons, you'll get 5 cones per box, rather than the usual two. 

Of course you could always make a smaller crocodile with less, and spread the cones out more, or add in extra cones (if you have them) for a really long tail!

1. We painted our cones first, while they were still in the egg cartons, but you could assemble your croc and paint him at the end if you prefer. 

If you're painting at the start, remember to paint some of the egg box lid green too, for the feet.

2. Cut the cones out roughly, in a strip, then separate them by snipping a part. We cut out 12 altogether. 

LEAVE ONE OF THESE ROUGHLY CUT OUT CONES TO THE SIDE FOR LATER (FOR THE HEAD).

3. Then cut around the bottom of the 11 remaining cones, just above the cardboard joins - so the edges are nice and even. (I've used a pen to mark above the card join on this cone, to show where to cut).

4. Aim to make them look the same size (but don't worry if they're not exactly alike! And you can always tidy them up if you feel you need to, at the stacking stage)

Put one of these trimmed cones aside too (for the end of the tail) so you're now left with 10. 

Then chop about 1cm off the top of the 10 remaining cones, by squeezing the cone sides together and snipping across the top. The cut will look a bit wonky when you squeeze the cone back into shape, but that's fine as you won't see them when you stack your Croc together.

5. Now the fun part, the stacking! We stacked 5 cones together for the body.

Brush glue around the inside edges of the first cone, then push the next one in, but don't push it in too far, you want to have spaces between the ridges (and this stretches out the body too). Brush glue around the inside edge of the second cone and add the third, and so on. Keep the spacing looking even (keep trying different cones to get a good fit or trim a bit more if you need to).

6. The next cone is going to go in facing the opposite way (so you can attach the tail), but it's too big as it is, so you need to shorten it by cutting about 1cm off the bottom edge, (see photo above), then glue inside the body.

7. Cut about 1cm off the bottom of the remaining 4 cones too.

(You should still have 2 cones left aside, for the head and bottom of the tail)

8. Glue and stack these four pieces on top of the cone you've just attached to the body section, but make the gaps wider apart than those on the body - this will allow you to extend the tail and to curve it slightly, if you want to. Brush glue inside the pieces you're adding to the tail, concentrating on where the cones are most in contact with each other.

9. For the end of the tail, take the trimmed cone (from step 4) that you've been saving, and cut it in half lengthways, and glue one in place.

10. For the head, take the last remaining cone you cut out roughly at the very beginning, and hold it so you're looking at one of the flat sides. This will be the top of your croc's head. 

On the top of the head, close to the edge of the cone, use a pencil to draw two curved, sticky out eyes, starting from each corner. Join with a line in the middle. (See the photo) Roughly draw around the rest of the cone, from the bottom of one eye, around the back, to the bottom of the other. 

When cutting out, it might help to cut down each corner first, to the pencil line, fold all but the front flap out, and cut these three side and back flaps off.

On the front, cut between Mr Croc's eyes first, to the line, before snipping this little piece away (or tucking it inside the head). Then round off the eyes.

11. Paint them yellow.

12. While they're drying, draw a thin strip on some plain paper (for the teeth) - about 12cm long and roughly 0.5cm wide.

With a fine black pen, draw a zigzag line from the top to the bottom line, before cutting this strip out.

Use the pen to finish off the eyes and to add nostrils. We drew long, thin triangles for the pupils.

13. Snip one end into a tapered 'V', rub with glue stick, or brush on a thin layer of glue, and stick the start of the teeth in place. Wrap around his face, until it looks even on the other side and snip another 'V'.

Glue the head to the body.

14. For the feet, cut a 2-3cm strip and round it at one end. Use this as a template to draw around, and cut out four. Draw on claws and glue them on, angled forward, under the body.