Flappy Bugs

The theme for this month's Crafty Box is Flight, more specifically Flying Animals.  Still enthused from last months growing theme that had us looking at the natural world for crafty inspiration, this month we have found flying insects, birds and fish to create.

For some reason loo rolls seem to feature heavily in our materials this month.  While Mrs Fox's kid's craft boxes always have at least one craft where we provide you with all the materials, we also have ideas for crafts that use items you will find around your home, usually in the recycling pile.  In this month's box loo rolls are the big thing.  As you can see, they are the main ingredient to make the flappy bugs above.

You will need:
loo roll
additional cardboard for the wings and antennae
string or wool
scissors
glue
paint or felt pens
a large darning needle & beads (optional)

I should add something my dad always insisted we remember when approaching an activity using instructions... 'Read the instructions twice before starting, make sure you know where you are going...'

1.  I painted my loo roll a single colour first and let it dry.  Then cut out wings and antenna in cardboard and decorated these.  The Bee wings I just scribbled with a marker pen, but the butterfly wings Louis finger-painted one then took a mirror print from this on the second wing.  Make two small holes in the wings per the diagram below.

2.  Next, take your loo roll and draw an L-shape 7cm long with an approx 1cm long base, do another L-shape 3cm from the first, see below:

3. Cut along your L shaped line and carefully fold in the L-shaped cut so that you have 2 little shelves inside your loo roll.  At this point I would use pens or paints to decorate the body of your bug and draw on a face, the cuts you have made will be at the back of the bug.

4. This step is a little fiddly, the last picture above shows you what it should look like when you have finished.
Take one wing and line up the inner of the two holes on your wings to the little shelf of the body, making sure the wing is in the right position on the body of your bug that the wings can move up and down smoothly.  Using the wing hole as a guide, make a hole through the shelf with the point of your scissors or a large darning needle.  Tie a double knot at one end of your string string or wool & thread the string through these holes from the underside.  Pull tight and tie another double knot, then cut the thread, securing your wing to the loo roll.  Do the same with the other wing.  You then need to thread your string through the remaining two holes on the wings, securing them to each other.

Take your remaining piece of string or wool and tie it to the thread holding the wings together, leaving lengths of thread to hang below the bug.  You can thread beads onto the end of this or cut out some leaves or flowers from the same cardboard you've used on the wings and tie these to the string.  Attach the antenna with glue to the inside of the top of the loo roll.

We came up with so many craft ideas for the theme of flight that we have had to divide them into two boxes over June and July, so look out for next months

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