Making an egg box animal is a fun, simple, indoor craft. Let your imagination run wild with what you create – we have some examples for you but don’t let that limit the creatures that you come up with!

What you will need:

• A clean, empty egg box
• Paints – acrylic works well
• Paintbrushes
• Water
• Scissors
• Pipe cleaners
• White card
• A black pen
• A pencil
• Tape (double sided is useful)

How to make your animals:

You can download the eggbox crab activity guide (with images) below.

Crab:

1. Cut out a section of the egg box.
2. Paint the egg box section in red paint and leave to dry.
3. Cut out eight short pieces of orange pipe cleaner and three long pieces.
4. Using the pencil, carefully make two holes in the top of the egg box section.
5. Carefully thread one of the longer pipe cleaner pieces through these holes – these are the eye stalks.
6. Stick the googly eyes onto the eye stalks. If you don’t have googly eyes, simply cut out some small paper circles, and add a black dot for the pupils. Stick these on to the pipe cleaners.
7. Twist the remaining two long pipe cleaner pieces together.
8. Using the pencil, carefully make two holes – one on each side of the egg box section.
9. Thread the twisted pipe cleaners through these two holes – these are the claws.
10. Stick the shorter pipe cleaner pieces to tape – sticky sided is helpful but not essential. Then stick them to the underside of the egg box section, so that they poke out of the sides – these are the legs.
11. Add a smile using the black pen – your crab is ready to scuttle about!

Ladybird:

1. Cut out a section of the egg box.
2. Paint the egg box section in red paint and leave to dry.
3. Using a pencil, carefully make two holes in the top of the egg box section.
4. Thread a black pipe cleaner through these holes – this makes the ladybird’s antennae.
5. Paint another piece of the egg box in black paint and leave to dry.
6. Add black spots to each side of the egg box section.
7. Once dry, stick the black piece onto the front of the egg box section – this is the ladybird’s head.
8. Add googly eyes, or paper circles using black pen as the pupils if you do not have these.
9. Your ladybird is finished!

Snail:

1. Cut out a flat section of the egg box- this will be your snail’s body
2. Cut out a round section of the egg box- this will be your snail’s shell
3. Use your pencil to outline your snail shell design (e.g. a spiral)
4. Now, using your pens, colour in the body and shell
5. Cut out two short pieces of pipe cleaner- these will be your snail’s antenna
6. Using tape, attach the antenna to the top of your snail’s body
7. If using googly eyes, you can use tape to attach them to the top of the pipe cleaners
8. Now use tape to attach your shell to the other end of your snail’s body, and your snail is now ready to go!
9. Remember to recycle the rest of your egg box!

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