7 Simple but Great Animal Crafts

Winter is a time for fun crafts with
the kids. Animal crafts allow your children to engage with nature,
learn about the outdoors but all the while keeping warm and getting
creative around the kitchen table. Here are a few ideas for animals
crafts for a variety of skill levels and age groups. Many of these
are made using household items and old packaging. For any extra
materials such as paints and glue, go to Artifolk
who stock a great range of art materials.

Owl Collage

Tearing up a bunch of tissue paper in
different shades of brown and sticking in two ovals one above the
other with two bright circles for eyes on the upper oval along with a
small upside down orange triangle for a beak makes a simple owl. Twit
Twoo!

Bubble Wrap Sheep

Bubble wrap lends itself beautifully to
looking like a sheep’s body when painted white. Carefully cut out
the shape of the head from black paper complete with ears and googly
eyes. This is also a nice exercise in recycling and may come in handy
after Christmas when you have all that excess packaging.

Paper Plate Toucan

There are few animals that look more
fun than the toucan.
A brightly painted folded over paper plate creates a great replica of
the birds bill. Whereas a black another one folded appropriately and
painted black can represent the wing.

Leaf animals

Autumn and early winter is the time to
look out for brightly coloured leaves of different shapes and sizes.
Collages made out of leaves can look fantastic and natural. Fish,
elephants, butterflies and birds can all be magnificently created out
of a good selection of fallen leaves. You could even factor in a fun
clearing up of a leaves in the garden as a hidden chore! Shhh!

Hand Hedgehog

This is a great activity for younger
kids. Get them to draw an outline around their hands half a dozen
times on paper in varying shades of brown. Cut out the shapes and
stick together a jaunty angle so you’ve got the hedgehog’s spiky
body. Add a head and a googly eye and you’ve got a cartoony
hedgehog. Stick onto your own decorated background with maybe some
leaves for good measure.

Paper Bowl Jellyfish

Another simple one that looks great on
completion with only a minimal amount of raw materials needed. Just
cut some paper (preferably brightly coloured tissue paper) in to
inch-wide strips no more than 5 inches long and attach to the inside
side of the paper bowl. Then paint the bottom of the bowl in the
pattern of a jellyfish. You can be a bold and colourful as you like!
Turn the bowl upside down to unveil your jellyfish.

Pasta Lion

Spiral pasta makes a great lion’s
mane. Simply cut out a circle of paper the colour of a lion’s fur.
Add some eyes, nose and mouth in the middle then secure spiral pasta
pieces around the perimeter. The king of the jungle!

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