Create your very own porcupine pet using a yarn pom pom in this fun activity! Your furry friend will be a great companion and will be right by your side for you to pet and play with when you are feeling stressed, nervous, or like you want to calm down. This activity is a great way for school-age children to work on cutting and gluing skills, express creativity, and make a porcupine friend who will be with you when you need help relaxing or just a buddy to have around!
Supplies:
Construction paper (any color)
Black marker
Toilet paper roll
Yarn (any color)
Tape
Scissors
Activity Steps:
Before you get started, make sure to ask a guardian for permission or help when using scissors. And have a clear craft space that is ready with all of the materials we will need (yarn, toilet paper roll, construction paper, tape or glue, scissors, and a marker)!
Step 1: First, we are going to begin by cutting out the construction paper body parts of our porcupine pets! You can choose any color construction paper you want for this part. The paper will make up the head, belly, and legs of our porcupine. Your porcupine can even be multiple colors if you want! For mine, I chose blue because it is my favorite color and the color of yarn I will be using later. With your construction paper laying on your flat crafting surface, place the toilet paper roll standing up on top of it, like a tower. Then, using your marker, trace around the toilet paper roll to make a circle on the page. Next, cut out the circle you just drew and set it aside.
(Note: Be sure to ask for permission or help from a guardian when using scissors!)
Step 2: Now, we are going to cut out the head of our porcupine! Place the hand that you don’t use to write with on the piece of paper now, with your fingers spread out wide. Using your black marker, trace the in between your pointer and middle finger to draw a V shape on the page. You can move your hand now. Give yourself a high-five for using that great homemade stencil you just discovered! We are going to connect the corners of the V to look like a triangle, but instead of making a straight line across, make it a curve like a circle a little. Then, you can cut that shape out.
On the same piece of construction paper, draw a small rectangle, about the same length as the circle you cut out in the previous step, using your black marker and cut that out. That will be the porcupine’s neck.
Step 3: Next, we are going to cut out the porcupine’s legs. Do you know how many legs a porcupine has? Four! So we will need to draw four thin rectangles, about half the length of the toilet paper roll, on our construction paper using our black marker. After you draw them, you can cut them out.
Step 4: Now that we have our porcupine head, neck, belly, and legs, we can put together our bodies! First, grab the triangle porcupine head piece. You will curve this piece like a cone to make a pointy nose in the front. To do this, you need to pick up the piece you cut out and gently bring the two straight sides of the triangle together, so that they are touching each other. Be careful not to fold the piece of paper, though, so that it turns into a 3D cone when we are done! With the two straight sides of the triangle pieces lined up touching each other, take a piece of tape and lay it on top of where they meet, so that you connect them and secure them together. Using the black maker, you can color the tip of the point black for a nose and add two dots on top for eyes.
Step 5: Next, pick up the small rectangle that we will use for the neck. On the opposite side of where you drew the eyes, attach the next to the inside of the porcupine head using a small piece of tape. With the neck attached, you can now connect the neck to the circle belly we made with another piece of tape.
Finally, all we have to do is add the legs! These will be taped onto the belly so that they stick out of the sides of the porcupine, with two legs on either side of the head you attached. Make sure to space them out so your porcupine has 2 front legs and 2 back legs!
Set aside the construction paper body that you made in a safe spot so that you don’t lose it for later!
Step 6: For our fifth step, we need our toilet paper roll again. Using your black marker, draw two lines close together on the roll from one hole of the roll to the other.
After you do that, next we need to cut on those lines so that there is now a rectangular opening in our toilet paper roll.
Step 7: Next, decide what color yarn you want to use to make the fuzzy part of our porcupine pet, that will look like its spiky body. Once you decide, we will wrap the yarn around the toilet paper roll sideways. To start, take the end of your yarn and tape it near the top of the toilet paper roll. This will help make sure it does not fall off while you are wrapping the rest of your yarn. The more you wrap the yarn around, the fluffier your porcupine will be! I wrapped my yarn around about 80 times! When you feel like you’ve wrapped enough yarn, tape the new end near the bottom of the roll.
Next, you will need to cut off a piece of yarn that is about the same length as your hand.
Using that piece of yarn, slip it inside the toilet paper roll where the open rectangle is, and tie it around the yarn that you have on the roll. Make sure to make a good knot to hold this tight! You might want to ask a guardian for help for that step.
Finally, once it is tied together, you can remove the tape from the yarn ends at the top and bottom of the roll, and slide the yarn off of the toilet paper roll.
Step 8: Next, using your scissors, cut the circle of yarn on the opposite side of where your knot is.
Time to fluff it out! Without being too rough, take your pom pom and shake it, run your fingers through the yarn, you can even gently toss it in the air a few times! And, now you have a furry porcupine pom pom body!
Step 9: Lastly, all you have to do is add the pom pom body to the construction paper body! To do this, you will make a tape roll. This is a pretty cool trick that you can do with tape! Take off a piece and curve it around so that one edge of the stick side connects with the other edge with the sticky side on the outside! Now place that down in the middle of the construction paper belly you made and press the pom pom body on top. Press down for 20-30 seconds so that it will hold firm. While you do that, you can start thinking of names for your new porcupine pom pom pet! Will you give it a silly name or a human name? I think I’m going to name mine Mr. Frizzle!
Step 10: You are all finished! Enjoy your new porcupine pom pom pet! Whenever you are feeling stressed, nervous, or like you need to calm down, you can use your new friend to pet and hold to help you relax!
~Made by Molly G.