I have to get a glue gun, apparently. My son got to use one I'd had on loan from a friend for this project, and he has fallen in love with it.
Actually, what happened was that my friend, who's a much better artist than I will ever be, came to visit. Using balsa wood, which you can buy at most craft and toy shops, a craft knife and a hot glue gun, we made little lolly stick versions of ourselves. You can see the one my son made above.
He enjoyed this so much my son wanted to make an entire lolly stick family. It occurred to me that I could achieve the same result, using materials we have around the house already.
Materials you will need:
- instead of balsa wood: very stiff card. I used a carton that had held dry cat food
- instead of a glue gun: PVA glue, masking tape, sticky tape, blu tak!
- any old material
- the sticks from ice creams and lollies, or straws, or bits of wood
First, draw the outline of your figure on the cardboard. Then cut it out. You can either do the whole body, and attach to a stick. Or you can cut a head and neck out of the card, and use sticks to make a body, arms and legs. Both are shown here.
Then cut out the material for clothes, and draw on the face. Or use googly eyes. Here you can use anything you might have lying around. Silver foil to send your family into space, for example.
For a young child, you can prepare all the bits and let them stick it all together. The advantage of the glue gun was the quicker drying time. With the PVA glue we made the body one day, and put all the clothes on it the next day.
My son then turned one of the dining room chairs into a puppet theatre, and put on a puppet show. It was a lot of fun. And great for kids, as they can use it to act out scenarios from family life, as it appears from their perspective.
Comments