A craft corner tutorial – It’s a Giraffe’s life.

14 Aug A craft corner tutorial – It’s a Giraffe’s life.

Last week’s paper mache creatures were just fantastic, I managed to capture the life cycle of our Mr Giraffe. Here’s how to make one of your own.

We started off with a cardboard structure held together with masking tape. You can add curves (like at the nose) by bunching up newspaper. Cut holes in the cardboard and add your pre cut ears. Hold with more masking tape and a bit of pva glue. Leave the neck of the Giraffe open at the base so that the child can put their hand inside and use it as a puppet.

Then tear up sheets of newspaper into strips and coat with your paper mache paste. I always use a simple paste of plain flour and cold water. About 100ml of flour to 120ml of water. Place your first layer of strips onto the structure, make sure you can’t see any of the cardboard. Place your second layer in the opposite direction. You can do a third layer if you wish. Brush the whole animal with a final layer of the paste. Leave to dry for at least 24 hours.

Your animal must be bone dry before you start painting. If you have time you can paint on a base coat of white paint to cover up all the newspaper. Then paint on your final coat of paint.

And there you have it, a fabulous creature all of your own.Now go on and make him some friends.

Use balls of twine to give the animals manes or heads of hair, get your children to make up a creature all of their own, they can draw it out and write up a story about it. Make more animal puppets and then you can put on a puppet show. Hours even days of entertainment in this one.

Enjoy.

xx Vanessa

I added this as a Craft Tutorial over on my design blog. Check it out here