Milk bottle Elmer the Elephant tutorial

Disclaimer – I did not come up with this idea myself, but a quick Google didn’t show me any tutorials on how to do it so I thought I’d write one!

Materials:

• plastic milk bottle
• craft knife and strong scissors
• thin cardboard (such as a cereal box)
• glue gun
• tacky glue
• squares of coloured paper (thinner is better)
• googly eyes
• scraps of string or wool

You can use any size of plastic milk bottle for this craft, although I found I got a better shape from a 4 pint bottle than from the narrower 1 or 2 pint shape.

1. Cut off the shoulders of the bottle and cut arches on the four sides to make the elephant’s legs. Cut the handle to form the elephant’s trunk. Cut across the top just below the lid to level it off.

2. Cut a circle of thin cardboard slightly larger than the hole in the elephant’s back and attach it to the inside with a glue gun.

3. If you want to make a non-Elmer elephant you may now paint it grey! We added a little black ready-mix paint to some PVA glue to help it stick to the plastic. For a patchwork elephant now is the time to glue on your squares of coloured paper. I used tacky glue so they would stick more quickly, but my paper was a bit too thick – more flexible thin paper would probably stick more easily.

4. Now cut a pair of ears from thin cardboard and paint or patchwork them to match.

5. When the paint and/or glue has dried, stick on eyes, ears and a string tail. I used a glue gun for the ears so the glue would dry fast and they wouldn’t slip out of position.

Enjoy your elephants!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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