Today’s DIY is a continuation of this series:
It is also inspired by THESE West Elm products. I call these Rocking Poultry.
The childhood toys used in making these rocking cuties are plastic farm animals. There are perhaps a gazillion DIYs involving plastic animals; here I am, adding another.
Other materials that you will need to make these DIY rocking plastic animals are embroidery hoop (6-inch diameter for small plastic animals), paper clips, spray paint (I used gold), cutter or craft knife, sand paper, hot glue, and industrial glue (E6000).
1. Cut a rocking base from your embroidery hoop. Mine was roughly 2 inches long.
2. Round the corners and smooth out with sand paper.
3. Remove the legs of your poultry. Or birds if you’re using them.
4. Take a paper clip and cut a section for your legs. From the photo above, you will cut the section where my gnarly pliers lie. So basically, you will cut a paper clip triangle, minus the base.
5. Make a groove on your plastic animal’s tummy area using a cutter or a craft knife. Make this deep enough to fit the curved section of your paper clip legs.
6. Hot glue the paper clip legs to your plastic animal. Let dry.
7. Using the tips of your paper clip legs as reference, make marks on your rocking base.
8. Make tiny holes on your rocking base, following the marks you made. Make these 1/8 of an inch deep, if possible. These holes are for keeping the paper legs in place. Your rocking bird/chicken/goose/duck will not stand up properly otherwise.
9. Dab the leg ends in industrial glue and insert said legs to the holes. Let dry.
10. Take your rocking animals outside and spray paint. Let dry.
And you’re done!
These make for wonderful shelf fillers and dust-gatherers. Also, come Christmas, you can screw an eye bolt to the back of the animal and use them as ornaments.
To see more of my crafting with childhood toys series, go HERE.
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Jan 29, 2013 @ 17:52:54
Now this is fab. How have I never come across these before? I love this idea! Thanks very much, I’m itching to have a go myself, though I’m tempted to make a little rocking horse. :-)
Feb 01, 2013 @ 10:06:53
Great idea! My pack of farm animal toys didn’t have a horse. Haha!
Jan 29, 2013 @ 22:13:01
I saw these on IG! Amazing! :) Will try one this weekend, rocking dinosaurs wouldn’t sound weird no? :P
Feb 01, 2013 @ 10:07:41
Absolutely not! I think they’d look super-duper awesome :)
Jan 31, 2013 @ 00:32:16
This is just so cute! Imagine all the animals you could use!! I like the suggestion above for dinos too!
Perfect for a quirky Christmas tree… which is exactly my kind of tree. ;)
Feb 01, 2013 @ 10:11:07
Heh. Same here. I might actually put up a tree again this year because of this idea. :)
Feb 02, 2013 @ 21:57:40
Wow this is really cool! you should post this in craftgawker!
I might try this. :) Btw (here’s another one :p lol) where do you buy your doilies and miniature animals?
Feb 04, 2013 @ 00:08:04
Thank you!
And I get my doilies at the supermarket in Ayala. The plastic animals are sold in toy stores :)
Feb 05, 2013 @ 07:53:43
I love this! Thank you for sharing!
That E6000 glue is awesome (not liking the metal tube since it can split but you gotta take the good with the bad).
tutorial: DIY patterned plastic animal toy jewelry
Feb 14, 2013 @ 21:01:54
[...] animal toys are sold by the pack. So after I turned the poultry into rocking thingamabobs, I still had several [...]