Lion Craft

I’m so excited to be guest posting today at Laugh With Us Blog! Let me introduce myself, I’m OneMommy from There’s Just One Mommy. In another life I taught middle school, now I’m a SAHM to my 4 year-old daughter and 2.5 year-old son. To keep my sanity, and my vocabulary from dropping to Max and Ruby level, I blog about the funny things they say/do, the occasional craft, and whatever else inspires me.

Today it’s a craft.

“In like a lion, out like a lamb…” That’s what they say about March, which is why we made these cute little lions this week:

For each lion you will need a toilet paper tube, one brown (orange would also be cute) paper circle 3.5 inches in diameter, one yellow paper circle 2.5 inches in diameter, 2 paper arms, 2 paper legs, 4 whiskers, and a
piece of yarn (about 3 inches) for a tail. (Don’t like the idea of using toilet paper tubes? Just cut a paper towel roll to the correct length.)

As you can see in the picture, I drew a 2.5 inch circle on the inside of the 3.5 inch one. This gave my preschooler a guide for how far she should snip to make the fringe for the lion’s mane. I cut my toddler’s fringe ahead of time so he could start by gluing the yellow circular face to the lion’s mane.

(Hint: We have done numerous toilet paper tube crafts and have found that glue sticks just don’t work. To keep little ones from going glue crazy, I squirt a little glue in a cup and have them use paint brushes to “paint” the glue onto the appropriate surfaces.)

Once they had the head put together, the kids used a pen to draw on eyes, nose, and a mouth. You could also use google eyes if you have them. For whiskers we glued on thin white strips of paper. I experimented with yarn
whiskers ahead of time, but the yarn kept sticking to me and not the cardboard tube, definitely too frustrating for little ones.

To put your lion together, glue the head to the top of the tube, overhanging the top a bit. The front and back legs get glued to the bottom of the tube with the feet overhanging so you can bend them to rest
on the table surface.

For the lion’s tail I used the point of a pen to poke a small hole at the back of the tube. I tied a knot into one end of the yarn and then pushed the yarn through the hole. To keep the tail from falling out, I tied another knot at the other end of the yarn.

I hope you and your cubs enjoy this easy March craft. Looking for more craft ideas? Check out my craft page.

Thanks, again, to Laugh With Us Blog for this awesome opportunity to guest post and share a craft with you today.