Easy bunny project from 'Make your own farm animals'

Looking for something crafty to do with the kids over the hols? What about making a farm? All the projects in this book are simple to follow, and they use easy to get hold of cardboard bits and bobs, like egg cartons, cereal packets and tubes - so you should have just about everything you need to get started..

None of the book projects have made an appearance on the blog yet, so, as it's a kind of bunny time of year, thought I'd share this one :)

You'll need:
Egg carton
Pencil
Ruler
Red, yellow, blue and white paint
Fine paintbrush
Kids' craft scissors
Craft glue
Black felt-tip or gel pen
Cotton wool ball

1 Roughly cut out a whole middle cone from the egg carton so it's easier to work with.

2. Use a pencil and ruler to measure and mark 2cm (3/4in.) from the top on one side of the cone, and draw a line across here. On the opposite side, measure and mark 3cm (11/4in.) from the top and draw another line.
Join them with sloping lines either side.

3. Cut out your bunny's body. A handy way to do this is to snip up two adjacent cone corners to the pencil line, then fold back the flap and cut it off - now it's easier to cut along the rest of the line.

4. For the ears, draw a petal shape on card from the egg carton lid. As a guide - make it no more than about 4cm (11/2in.) long and not too wide. Cut this out. If you want to make more bunnies, you could keep it to use as a template to draw around.

5. To form the ears, draw a long, slightly curvy 'V' in the middle of your petal shape - don't take it down as far as the pointy end. Snip out the card piece between the ears.

6. Brush glue on the bottom part of the ears and stick them just behind the top of the cone (on the longer cone side).

7. When the glue's dry, pinch hold of the cone where the ears are attached and bend the ears back. Paint the bunny whatever colour you like, remembering to paint both sides of the ears. This brown colour is made by mixing yellow with a little red and a dab of blue - lighten with some white.

8. When it's touch dry, use a fine paint brush to add a white fluffy chest, then mix a touch of red with the white to make pink and paint a stripe inside each ear.

9. For the tail, pull off a small amount of cotton wool, roll it between into a little ball between your finger and thumb and glue to the back of your bunny near the base.Use a black felt-tip or gel pen to draw a face. Do the twitchy nose first, right on the edge of the cone top and add the eyes just above.

TIP: If your egg carton has cones with holes in the top, brush some glue inside them and push a little scrunched up ball of newspaper up, to fill the hole.

There are some good deals on Amazon, and noticed 'Make your own farm animals is only £3.99 on the UK Book People site at the moment. Free postage too if you spend over £25.

Make Your Own Farm Animals - kids' craft book

A bit of a ta-dah! moment as this is the cover of my latest craft book! Hope you like it.  I was sent an advance copy the other day, and although I've been through the instructions and the pictures more times than I care to remember, my heart was beating like the clappers when I opened it. Felt a sort of mix of excitement and a touch of terror that maybe I'd missed something important. Hopefully not! Suddenly it all feels very real. Some days that's good, some days I just worry what people will think.

When I'm not whipping myself up into an anxious frenzy I do feel so pleased with how the book's turned out - it's colourful, fun and packed full of farm projects all made from stuff that's easy to get hold of - just like Make Your Own Zoo. All you need to do really, is hang onto some recycling, and build up a small collection of egg boxes, cardboard tubes and cereal packets. Nearly everything in the book can be made from these three very ordinary bits of packaging.

Obviously the book's themed again like the last one, and everything works together, so you can keep adding to your farm, and it can all be played with after.

I am proud of it, especially as there was a pretty quick turn around. I came up with most of the projects over the summer, which wasn't always so easy as the kids were expecting to be entertained too. But actually they helped develop some of the ideas - I was a bit stuck on what to use for the bull's nose ring and my daughter cracked that one!

You'll find all the animals you'd expect on a farm, like cows, sheep, hens, pigs etc, and I made more buildings this time, as well as a tractor that took FOREVER, because I was absolutely determined to get it right.

My books are aimed at primary school aged children, to help keep that interest in craft and creating alive, especially now there are so many other distractions. And the projects really are great for grown ups and kids to make together. That precious time is hard to hold onto these days.

Make Your Own Farm Animals is available on Amazon 

There are a number of the projects from Make Your Own Farm Animals (and from the Zoo book too) on the blog - you'll find them on the Kids Craft Page.

My new Animal Fun! board books get chewed over....

My little nephew, road-testing one of my new Animal Fun! board books which have just come out. I'm chuffed to bit with them - a totally unexpected but very lovely spin-off from the craft books.

There are four in the set - the usual suspects - numbers, sounds, touch and feel and what's hiding under the flaps? They're packed full of animals from Make Your Own Zoo, but there's also a bunch of new ones from my next craft book that'll be published in the spring.

I spent many happy hours tootling around, making little settings for the animals - with trees, birds, rocks, lizards, snakes, butterflies, squirrels....totally in my element! Especially for the 'Where do I live' book, which has big flaps to reveal what's hiding behind things.

And had to make a right old party of penguins and piglets for the number book.

Sadly mine are passed this age and stage now, but think the books brought back fond memories for my daughter who took a shine to the 'touch and feel' one.

My nephew seems to be pretty keen on the noisy one - my sister, not so much!

And the most important test of all?

Yes, they taste pretty good too.