Furry Pet Pen Pots

How to Make

1. Cut four legs out of the bottom of your cardboard tube. Glue a craft stick inside the tube, aligning with one of the legs. Do this for each of the four legs. Cut the excess craft stick off the bottom.
2. Print and cut out the template. Fold along the dotted lines. Place some double-sided tape onto each of the four strips. Put the round part of the template underneath the end of the tube, where the legs are. This will be the base of the pen pot. Peel the plastic off the double-sided tape and stick the strips upwards on the sides of the tube.
3. Wrap the whole tube in double sided tape. Start wrapping light brown pipe cleaners around the tube, so that they stick to the double-sided tape. Continue to do this until you reach the bottom. Continue to halfway down each leg. Wrap the remaining part of each leg with dark brown pipe cleaners. Secure any loose ends that might be coming undone with glue.
4. Wind the ends of two light brown pipe cleaners together, to make one long pipe cleaner. Start winding one end inwards until you end up with a circular face. Cut four pieces of dark brown pipe cleaners to 10cm long. Loop two of them in half and place one inside the other. Wind the ends together to secure them in place. This will be your dog’s ear. Repeat this so that you have another ear, and glue them onto the face.
5. Wind up a small piece of dark brown pipe cleaner to create the eye patch. Glue this onto the face where one eye will go. Stick the wiggle eyes on, one on top of the patch. Cut a tiny piece of black pipe cleaner for the nose, and glue it on the face. Glue the face onto the body.
6. Take a light brown pipe cleaner and wrap half of it tight around something thin, like a pencil, to make it curly. Cut a dark brown pipe cleaner to 7cm long and wrap this around a pencil too. Wrap one end to the curly end of the light brown pipe cleaner so that they are joined together. Poke a small hole through the back of the cardboard tube and push the straight end of the pipe cleaner through it, to secure the tail. Bend the straight part inside the tube and over the top, so that it stays secured. (For the bunny version, skip this step and glue a pink pom pom on the back).
7. Fill your pot with pens and pencils!

Top Tip

Wrap your pipe cleaners around something round before wrapping them around the tube, so that they are already in a curled shape and will stay in place better.

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