Make Cotton-reel Animals

This is a fun little activity especially if you have a child who loves imaginative play as these little characters can be played with as soon as they are fully dry. Amelie has played with our two cotton-reel animals many times, putting them in little imagined scenarios. The cat is 'hers' as she painted and decorated that one and he lives on her bedside table. I have custody of the mouse.

Cotton reel cat & mouse

Time taken for us to make it: 30 minutes.

Cost to me: Nothing - we found all materials in the house.

Original instructions

What we used: 

• 2 x wooden cotton-reels 
• Craft knife
• Paints
• Strong glue
• Pencil
• Stiff white card
• 2 x pipe cleaners
• Glitter pens

What we did: 
We took the stiff white card and drew round the end of a cotton reel twice, leaving enough room between the two to sketch the front and back body shapes. We chose to make a cat first.

Wooden cotton-reels are best for painting

Draw round the cotton-reel then the
front a back of the animal

Using the craft knife we then cut out the cat body shapes and painted them front and back. We also painted the cotton-reel the same colour. Once the paint was dry we added the feature details with glitter pens and attached pipe cleaner tails. 

Paint the body parts front and back along with the cotton reel

Add features

    

Once the features were dry we glued the front and back to the cotton-reel making sure the front and back feet were level so he stood straight. We then repeated the process to make a little blue mouse. When the glue is dry the playing can begin.