October 26, 2011

Halloween is less than a week away.  This weekend, we’ll be re-creating two of our favourite crafts:

Brown Bag Owl Puppets 

and

Creepy Window Silhouettes

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Brown Bag Owl Puppets  (inspired by the folks at Elmer’s and Free Kids Crafts)

Over the summer, we had a special  Egg Day, completing several fun science experiments with eggs. We also found a great use for our leftover egg cartons. We looked online and found a fabulous owl puppet design to try.  Of course, the kids put their own spin on it….Here’s how ours turned out:

Materials  (dollar store)

Brown Paper Lunch Bags 
Egg Cartons
Construction Paper
Markers
Scissors
Glue
Googly Eyes [Optional]

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 Step One: Prepare your Cartons

From an egg carton, we cut out two “pairs” of egg holders for the eyes/beaks, and four single cartons for the talons.  Our cartons had quite long dividers to keep the eggs in place. So, as we cut our pairs of cartons for the eyes/beaks, we made sure to include the entire central divider. After we cut them out, we bent the dividers downwards so as to form a bird beak.  We also cut and bent the edges of the talons so that three of the four sides of the square egg carton were triangle shaped. We then coloured the bird beaks and the talons with our yellow and black markers.

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 Step Two: Give the Owl Eyes

We took googly eyes (purchased at the dollar store) and glued them into the bottoms of the egg-carton eyes.  If you don’t have googly eyes, just have the kids use markers to draw eyes in the depths of cartons. Each eye could have a slightly different expression, lending a sense of “eeriness” to the occasion.

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 Step Three: Colour the Body

Then, with a brown paper lunch bag face up on the table, we traced a U shape on the bag to designate the owl’s breast and belly.

We coloured everything except the space inside of this U-shape a deep, dark brown.

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Step Four: Create the Wings and Ears

Next, each of the kids folded pages of creamy coloured construction paper in half and traced both a small triangular ear shape and a large wing shape along the fold. We cut out these wings and ears and divided them along the fold line so that the kids each had a pair of wings and a pair of ears for their owls.  The kids then added some flair by colouring the owl’s wings and ears.

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Step Five: Glue, Glue, Glue…

We used white glue to attach the owl’s eyes/beaks to the bag. Then, we attached the ears above the eyes. We also attached the wings onto the top undersides of the lunch bag.  Finally, we attached the talons on to the bottom fronts of each bag. 

We let the owls sit and dry for an hour before taking them around the house on a flight!

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Play or Display! Fly these owls around the house! Use them in your puppet shows!! Or, scare some trick-or-treaters at the door!!! When you’re done playing with them, these owls will look great resting on the top of your fireplace mantle.  You can also attach them to strings and hang them, windsock-style, from a hook on your front porch!!!!

 
NOW SAY WHOOOO!!

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