M&M Candy Giraffe

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When Trevor turned five, he had a zoo-themed party. While I was making my cut-and-color giraffe craft, I thought of a treat that would have been great fun for the party and the perfect compliment to his giraffe cake. I'm eight years too late for him, but hopefully it will help one of you out there who will be throwing a zoo party in your future. There are affiliate links in this post. 

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M&M Candy Giraffe

Materials:

• construction paper (yellow, light blue, and green)
• pencil
• scissors
• black Sharpie
• googly eyes
• craft glue
• pretzel bags with twist ties
• M&Ms (yellow, brown, and green)
• glue dots

Steps: 

Lightly sketch a giraffe head on yellow construction paper. Start with a peanut shape, about 2", which will be the head. Add ossicones directly on top of the head and pointy ears out to the side. Don't worry too much about accuracy; we're going for a whimsical giraffe. When you are happy with the head, carefully cut it out. 

Draw a giraffe body on construction paper. Start with a oval body, about the same size as the head. Add four long legs and a tail. Cut out the body. 

Use the Sharpie to color in two nostrils, the inner ears, the tips of the ossicones, the hooves, and the tip of the tail. Glue googly eyes in place. 

Fill a pretzel bag with yellow and brown M&Ms. You want about 80% yellow to 20% brown. The easiest way to do this is to put in a small handful of yellows, then drop in a brown. Repeat until the bag is mostly full. Use the twist tie to close the pretzel bag.

Use glue dots to attach the head and body to the pretzel bag neck (head attaches to the top front and  body to the bottom back). Cut a piece of green construction paper to make grass, then glue it to a blue background. Sprinkle some green M&M's along the edge of the grass.  

I'm just noticing now that my giraffe has no spots on his body. If you want, you can add some additional brown M&M's to his body to give him spots. Or leave it as is. We're going for whimsical, after all!