Bendable Monkeys

In searching for paper plate animals, I came across these Bendable Monkeys at Busy Bee Kids Crafts. They supply a pattern for the monkey, but I don't like to work with patterns for something like this. I think half of the fun of crafts like these is seeing how each person's turns out. Obviously, Trevor and I have different levels of crafting experience that has some effect on our end product. But when I would teach a craft to a classroom of 5th graders, they would produce 32 different projects that reflected their unique personalities. Walk into a classroom where the kids used a pattern on a project and you'll know it immediately.

So instead of using a pattern, Trevor and I cut out our monkey pieces freehand. We started by folding a piece of brown paper in half, then cutting an oval from it (keeping a bit of the fold intact). We cut out a circle and two small D-shapes from the dark brown. We used light brown to cut a small oval, a pear shape, and two teeny D-shapes. We gathered brown pipe cleaners and cut one of them into thirds. Here are my supplies:

To make the monkey, open the large oval and lay the full-sized pipe cleaners on one side so that they cross like an X. Glue them in place. Add glue to the other side of the oval and close it up, hiding the X.

Staple the pipe cleaners in place, reaching as close to the center of the X as possible. 

Glue the light brown oval in place to cover the staples.

Assemble the head, using all the remaining cut pieces of paper.

Attach the head to the body, then glue the tail in place. Add facial features. Bend arms and legs and find a fun place to hang your monkey. Here's mine:

Trevor immediately hung his on a pillow. Not the best place for a party decoration, unless he's planning to stand there the whole time holding the pillow.

We moved it to the chandelier. It looks awesome there. I'm pretty sure I'll keep the monkeys up long after the Zoo Party is over.

Doesn't that monkey just make you smile?!