Cardboard Tube Lion

We receive a lot of submissions at Fun Family Crafts and it's part of my job as Editor to process them. This means I look at each one to determine if it is indeed a craft, child-friendly, and written as a tutorial. If so, then I write up the description, add tags, and schedule it to be featured. (If you have a blog and would like your craft tutorial to be featured at Fun Family Crafts, submit it here!) I love going through the submissions because it is such a source of inspiration. 

For example, when I saw this:

... I immediately thought of this:

You can find the instructions to make Petro's flowers here. Continue on to learn how I made my lion. 

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Cardboard Tube Lion

Materials:

• cardboard tube
• pen
• scissors
• foam brush
• brown paint
• yellow paper
• glue

Steps:

Use the pen to draw 2 parallel lines around the center of the tube. They should be about 1/8" apart. Make a cut from one end of the tube and stop when you reach the closest line. Continue to do this every 1/8" or so. Then rotate the tube and cut from the other end toward the closest line. If you offset these cuts from the cuts on the other side of the tube, you'll get a fuller mane. 

Bend all the cut sections in toward the pen lines you drew. Use the foam brush to paint the tube brown. (Or, you can paint the tube first on the inside and the outside, let it dry, and then make the cuts.)

While the paint dries, cut out a head and two ears from yellow paper. You can use a solid yellow construction paper or cardstock; I used a scrap of yellow patterned paper I had on hand. When you cut the ears, make the ends extra long so you have a place to put glue. Draw a face on the circle, then glue the ears in place behind the face. 

Press down gently on the cardboard tube to flatten the mane. Then use the scissors to trim the mane so it is even and looks fuller. I cut about 1/4" off both the front and back portions. 

Place the lion face on the mane. If you like how it looks, glue the face in place. To make it a bit more realistic and less whimsical, you'll do some trimming before you glue.  

First, trim the face by slimming down the bottom portion. Then trim the mane so that it is shorter on the sides and tapers down toward the bottom.

When you are happy with the lion, glue the face to the mane. Fun!