Thursday, August 11, 2011

Peru crafts: Llama toy

Considering that it was llamas that inspired our trip this month to Peru, a llama craft was definitely in order. We have three llama books on our shelf right now How Llama Saved the Day (a Peruvian folk story), a non-fiction llama picture book, and Llama Llama Misses Mama. So The Whirl Girl was very excited about this project. She grabbed the non-fiction book so that we could look at the pictures as a model for our own llama.


Supplies:
  • 3 wooden chopsticks broken in half (popsicle or craft sticks would work too, depending on where you live in the world)
  • clear packing tape
  • tacky glue
  • cotton balls
  • paste-on eyes
  • ribbon

Step One: Tape together the chopsticks to make the legs. You need two sets.

Step Two: Tape together the body and neck to the legs.
Step Three: Glue on cotton balls. I liked the effect of pulling the cotton apart and then gluing it, to look more like fur. I put glue on one part of the camel and The Whirl Girl attached the cotton balls.

Step Four: Add the facial features. We used glue-on eyes. For the horns and nose, we wrapped tape around a piece of cotton ball and attached it with glue.

Step Five: In How Llama Saved the Day, the farmers put bells and ribbons around the llamas neck to thank him for helping them. Our llama got the same treatment. I had some fancy beaded ribbon that we tied around his neck.

The Finished Product.
This was a perfect project for The Whirl Girl. She could do much of it herself. She could visualize it from start to finish. It took just the right amount of time to keep her attention without getting bored. And she could play with it once we were done.

What should we name him/her?

4 comments:

  1. Awesome craft! We vote for Luna as the cute little Llama's name.

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  2. Hi, friend! You've got so much creativity in your blog and I'm admiring all your creative posts. Can you please share them with us at the Creative Bloggers' Party & Hop? Hope to see you there at the party :)

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  3. Thanks for finding us! Will definitely check out our bloggers' party.

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