6. Make it For Fun

Hall of Fame

Find small pictures of famous people — noted Americans like Washington and Lincoln, or noted musicians like Beethoven and Schubert. For church display, it would be a good idea to make noted folks like David Livingstone and Martin Luther. Choose any noted folks you like. You can probably find their pictures in dictionaries, en­cyclopedias, and history books.

Cut out the small silhouettes on dark paper. Make them all the same size. Leave enough paper at the bottom of the heads so that it can be bent over in order to make the heads stand upright. Now color a strip of cardboard. Paste the heads, all facing the same direction, onto the cardboard strip. As a final touch, print the names of your famous folks on the cardboard strip below each head.

Cardboard Glider

Cut out a strip of cardboard about 8 inches long and one inch wide. Round off the corners. This is the body of your glider. Now cut out two more pieces, one of them 6 by 2 inches to serve as a wing, and the other 3 by 1 inch for a tail. Fasten the wing near the front of the body with a rubber band. Fasten the tail at the other end. If you like, you can fasten them with glue.

A few minutes of experimenting will show you whether your glider needs a paper clip or a thumb tack at the front for a weight.

Spool Figures

Plan your figure and set aside the spools that seem best suited for it. For instance, suppose you are planning to create a weird "out of this world" animal. Use a large spool for the body, four small spools for the legs, a long spool for the head and neck, and so forth. Fortunately,
for this kind of creature, you can use almost any of your spools.       ,

With a little imagination you can make a wide variety of animals, birds, human figures, and even trees and build­ings. Join them by running string or wire through the holes and tying them securely. Paint in the features. Color with crayons.

Greeting Card Handcraft

Picture Stationery.Everyone writes letters. Why not clip the pictures and the colored sections from your old greeting cards and use them to make sparkling stationery? You can use the colored pieces to form your initials on the letters you write. Monogrammed stationery is always an eye-catcher. Just paste your initials somewhere near the top of the first page of your letter. Use the small pictures as decoration around the sides. Paste one or two of these pictures on each page.

Picture Jars.Make a patchwork design of gold, silver and other colored bits on an ordinary jar by pasting the bits on the outside. You can use the jars for indoor plants or simply for storing your knickknacks.

A Pennant

First of all, cut out your base piece. Pennants are often triangular in shape, so cut out your base piece in this design. Now cut other pieces of material to form the de­sign on the base piece. Your imagination can be used to good advantage here. Maybe you would like to create a picture of some sort on your pennant, such as a church on a hill, or a lighthouse on a cliff.

Or, you can make simple designs such as flowers or snowflakes or stripes. When you have these pieces cut out, sew them onto the base piece of the pennant. Attach your pennant to a rod or a slender stick.

Megaphone

Take a square piece of cardboard. Make a pencil mark 21/2inches down from the upper left corner. Make a compass by tying a piece of string around your pencil. Set the pencil point on this mark and set the tightened string at the upper left corner.

Swing the pencil point in an arc so that the arc is drawn on the cardboard. Cut out this arc. Now place this string at the center of this arc and let out enough string so that the pencil point touches the lower left corner. Swing the pencil point across and draw another arc. Cut this arc out and you are ready to fold your cardboard into the shape of a megaphone. You can fasten it with staples or pin it together. If you wish to color your megaphone, do so before forming the mega­phone into shape.

Sports Scrapbook

Take two pieces of cardboard about 9 by 12 inches. You can cut them from a grocery carton. These are our cov­ers. Poke two holes at the sides. Now place your blank pages between the covers and also poke holes through the paper. Bind the scrapbook by running string through the holes. Print the title of your sport across the top, such as All About Tennis, or All About Swimming. Paste colored pictures of your favorite sport all over the cover.

Now gather clippings about your sport and paste them on the pages. Use one page for pictures, another page for stories, another page for game scores, and so forth.

Bottle People

Take a few empty bottles. If necessary, remove the labels. Wash and dry them. Try to get bottles of different colors. Also try to gather short bottles and tall bottles, bottles of different shapes and sizes. Interesting kinds of bottles will make interesting kinds of people.

The faces of your bottle people are made from pieces of a cardboard tube. Draw faces on pieces of cardboard tub­ing and set them on the neck of the bottle. Fasten them in place with cellophane tape. You can make hair with cotton or with thin strips of newspaper which are pasted at the top of the head.

The arms of your folks are made from strips of paper or cardboard. Draw hands on them and paste them on the sides of the bottle.

Dress the bottle people with paper clothing. Of course the clothing depends on the kind of a person you wish to make. For a policeman you could make a blue uniform with bright buttons and a badge. For a nurse you could make awhite uniform.

Peanut Stell Fun

Peanut People:You can make all sorts of peanut people, such as Indians, clowns, dolls. Make small holes in the sides and ends and insert matchsticks for arms and legs. Glue them in place. Paint in the face. Make costumes to suit the kind of figure you are making. You could make a tiny paper feather for an Indian's head, a bit of cotton for the head of a clown, and so forth. You can make your peanut people stand upright simply by setting the feet into holes in a piece of cardboard and gluing them.

Peanut Animals:Whole peanut shells are already shaped somewhat like an animal. You can see how they resemble the body of a camel or buffalo. Simply make small holes in a peanut and insert short pieces of match-sticks for legs. Use half of a shell for the head and join it to the body with a short piece of matchstick or a piece of wire. Use another matchstick piece for a tail. Paint in the face.

Hanging Roll

This is a hilarious game that calls for speedy action. It can be played by two, three, or four players at a time.

Cut out a cardboard circle, 2 feet in diameter. Make a hole in the center, large enough so that a marble can drop through it. Make three small holes around the edges at points of equal distance. Tie three lengths of string to these holes and bring the other three ends together over the circle. Tie the three ends so that the circle can be suspended. The circle should be suspended in the air at the height of the shoulders of the players. Your game is ready to use.

The object of the game is to see which player can first roll a marble from the edge of the circle into the hole in the center. At the go-ahead signal, players start from any edge they like and roll their marbles. If they miss, they pick their marbles up and try again. The first player to drop his marble into the hole is the winner. Players may not touch the circle at any time.

In large groups, three or four players can play at once. The winners are then matched against each other.

United States Puzzle

You can make a fascinating puzzle of the states of our nation with a large piece of cardboard. First of all, find a fairly large map of the United States. Trace the entire country—state by state—onto your piece of cardboard, Trim away the borders. Now color the states differently. You can use the same colors two or three times but do not do so with states that are close together.

Print the name of each state across its face. If you like, you can also write in the capital of each state. Make a dot at its loca­tion. Now cut out each state. Since some of the Eastern states are quite small, you can group two or three of them together. You can leave Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island together. New Jersey, Delaware, and Mary­land may also be left together.

Mix your pieces and try to put the states back into their proper places.

Remove the lids from two jars. Fasten them together with wire. You can do this by making several holes through both lids at the same time and then looping your wire in and out the holes. Plug up these holes with glue or paper so that no sand can run through them. Now make a very small hole in the very center of both lids. Place some sand in one of the jars. Fasten the jars to the lids and place the jar with the sand on top of the empty jar.

You are now ready to test your hourglass. Set a certain time limit, say five minutes. Place a good amount of sand in the top jar. Time it with a watch so that it runs through for five minutes. At the end of this period, quickly turn the jars on their sides so that the sand stops running. Now empty the rest of the sand out of the top jar. The sand you have left will mark off a five minute period.

Coat-Hanger Figures

Cut your coat hanger wire into various lengths. Bend these lengths to form frames of the figure you wish to create.

Suppose you would like to make a long-necked giraffe. Simply make a giraffe frame by using one long piece that starts with the head and then becomes the neck, the backbone and a short tail. Use other shorter pieces to loop over the backbone as legs. Straighten out the ends for feet. Fasten the pieces together with wire.

Once you have your frames you can cover them by wrapping with cloth. Fasten the ends with thread. Make the head by wrapping cloth or newspaper into a ball— the shape of a giraffe's head—and covering it with cloth. Fill in the eyes, mouth, nose and ears with color, or make them by sewing on buttons.

Profile Zoo

First of all, select your animals. The following are good because they are quite a bit different from each other. Elephant, giraffe, bison, elk, wolf, gorilla, camel, rhinoc­eros. You can think of others.

Find pictures of your animals and trace their profiles on cardboard or construction paper. Cut them out. If possible, use the same color for all the pictures. Mount them with paste on a cardboard background of a con­trasting color. If your profiles are white, mount them on a black background. As a frame, either paste or draw trees and vines around the sides of the background.

An Original Flag

First of all, decide on the size of your flag. It can be any size you like, but one about 9 inches high and 12 inches long would be good. Cut out a piece of material of solid color in this size.

This is your base piece. Now decide what colors you would like on your flag. Select two or three colors that look good together. Perhaps you can get some ideas by looking at flags of different countries. The next thing is to decide upon your design. You can design it in many different ways. Here are some ideas. Circles, squares, triangles, stripes, arrows, lightning flashes, snowflakes, stars, moon, sun.

Cut your designs from your materials and sew them onto the base piece. Sew the flag onto a rod or stick and set it where it will wave in the breeze.

Carry-All Basket

A round cardboard box, such as a hatbox, can be used. However, you can also use any box of average size. Per­haps you can get a discarded box from a store. Decorate the box. You can do this in several ways. If it does not have printing on it, you can simply draw crayon designs on it or cover it with interesting pictures clipped from old magazines and newspapers.

If it has printing on it, cover the box with colored paper. Now you can either color it or paste pictures all over it. Be sure to leave a space in which to print your name. You can make your name out of large letters clipped from old newspapers.

Make holes in the top of your carry-all basket, opposite each other. Braid a handle from extra pieces of material and tie the ends at the holes. Or, you can just use a piece of cord or heavy string for a handle.