Cork Bunny Craft

This cork bunny craft is like the cork penguin craft except I am choosing a natural cork instead of a synthetic one.  Once we got started with the penguin, so many other animals came rolling into our ideas that I decided we would stop at the bunny. Since my goal with this blog is to inspire creativity using only a few inexpensive materials, I'll let your imagination take over to create your own animals, for now at least. :).

Choice of color to wrap around the cork for the body can make us think of a whole range of animals; black and white may become a panda or zebra; brown may become a bear, hedge hog or beaver; Grey may become an elephant.

The techniques we use with cork animals can easily be applied to toilet paper rolls only on a larger scale. For a penguin's eyes fit to the scale of a empty roll, instead of a hole punch to form the circle a small lid might be traced.

So here's this sweet little cork bunny craft.

What's fun about imagination is you can chose any color for your animal. We chose pink, but you don't have to. You can make big eyes and round the top of the ears if you'd like. Feel free to create.

Cork Bunny Craft Materials

• White printer paper
• Construction paper, your choice of color--whatever color you'd like your bunny to be--we chose pink
• not toxic washable glue like Elmer's White or Clear
• Clear tape like Scotch
• Hole punch
• Scissors, kid safe
• Black marker, non-toxic, washable
• Ruler
• Natural wine cork

Natural Wine Cork

In my last post describing the Cork Penguin Craft, I contrast the benefits of using natural cork or synthetic cork. For the penguin, I chose synthetic, and for this craft, we are using natural.

1 3/4 inches long

4 1/2 centimeters long

These measurements of the cork are approximate.

15/16 inches in diameter

2 4/10 centimeters in diameter

Bunny body 1 --width of strip

1. This is the beginning of measuring the strip of paper which will wrap around the bunny body and be the main color of the bunny.

You can see we've chosen to make a pink bunny.

We laid the cork down on the pink paper and marked the paper on a point a little longer then the cork because when it is wound around the cork, it will make a stable base and compensate for the natural cork's irregularities. We marked the strip here for a width of about 2 1/16 inches or 5 3/10 centimeters.

Bunny body 2 --length of strip

2. Measure the length of the strip for the main color of the bunny body to wrap all the way around the cork.

Here we made it about 4 1/2 inches or 10 7/10 centimeters long. It turned out to be a bit too long, but that's okay.

Bunny body 3

3. Roll this strip around the cork.

Since the cork's diameter may be slightly different at each end, sometimes it's helpful to line the edge of the paper up with a word or emblem across the cork.

Roll loosely, so you can adjust it around the cork, so the bunny will be able to stand up without falling over.

Bunny body 4

4. Tape at the back.

Ears and paws

5. Fold a small square of colored paper (used for the body) in half to cut out the ears and paws.

Starting at the edge opposite the fold, cut a long thin rectangle for the ears.

Ears and paws 2

6. Since the paper was folded, you should have two rectangles. Mine are about 2 1/2 inches or 6 1/4 centimeters long and 1/4 inch or 7/10 centimeters wide.

These ears turned out to be too long, but it is easier to trim them down while assembling the bunny than to lengthen them.

Ears and paws 3

7. At one end of the long rectangles, cut the corners off for the tops of the ears.

Ears and paws 4

8. Snip off the bottom of the ears, about 1/4 inch or 1/2 centimeter, for the paws.

This will give you two mini rectangles to use for the paws.

Ears and paws 5

9. Round off the bottom corners of the little rectangles for the paws.

You may not be able to clearly see from the picture, but there are two little paws in it, one on top of the other.

Ears and paws 6

10. Fold back the bottom 1/2 inch or 1 centimeter of the ears.

You'll use this little folded back tail to attach the ears to the top of the head later.

Inside of ears

11. Use the same steps for the inside of the ears as you did for the outside.

Except, eliminate steps for paws. use white paper and keep in mind they should be smaller to fit inside the ears.

Inside of ears 2

12. Glue the inside of the ears onto the ears.

Here's where a toothpick or popsicle stick might come in handy to apply the glue. I squeezed from the bottle and got way too much as you can see in the picture.


Put the ears aside to dry.

Bunny eyes

13. Punch the eyes out of white paper with a hole punch.

Bunny belly

14.  From the white paper, cut a rectangle about 1 inch or 2 2/10 centimeters by 1/2 inch or 1 2/10 centimeters.

Bunny face and belly

15. Glue on the eyes, the belly, and then the paws in that order.

Set aside to let dry.

Top of bunny head

16. Carefully trace around the top of the head without touching the face you just glued on.

Perhaps, it would be easier to trace the top of the head before gluing on the face :) If you trace the top first, take note of which end you traced because the two ends may be different sizes.

Top of bunny head 2

17. Cut out the circle you traced. Notice the pencil marks at the edge of  the circle. Later when putting the bunny together, make sure they are underneath so they can't be seen.

Top of bunny head 3

18. Glue on top of the head.

After it the glue has dried, attach the ears.

Let the glue dry.

Bunny face

19. When all the glue is dry, draw the face on with a marker.

Wine Cork Penguin Craft

Wine Cork Penguin

Materials for wine cork penguin

• Wine cork
• Black construction paper
• White printer paper
• Orange construction paper
• Pencil
• Glue
• Clear tape
• Ruler
• Scissors

Two wine corks: natural and synthetic

You can use either wine cork to create this little penguin, but if you would like one that stands up, a synthetic cork usually has a flatter bottom. So the penguin can stand wherever you place him, and create your own arctic scene.

You could also add an ornament hanger to the top and use the penguin to decorate your Christmas tree. In this case, using a natural cork is fine.

First I'll give instructions for cutting out all the pieces then put them all together.

Creating the shapes needed for the penguin 

Penguin body

1. Cut a strip of black construction paper to wrap the cork with for the body--for this 7/8" diameter cork, I used a 4" x  2" rectangle. 

Top of penguin head

2. On the black construction paper, trace around the cork for the top of the head.

Circle for top of head

3. Cut out the traced circle.

Penguin tummy

4. Using white paper, cut out a 1" x 1/2" rectangle for  the tummy.

Penguin tummy-2

5. Cut off the top two corners of  the white rectangle to round the top of the tummy.

Penguin wings

6. Trace the tummy shape onto black construction paper for the wings.

Note: Keep the white tummy piece with the same side up for both wings in case the edges get pencil marks on them. Then when

gluing on the tummy, make sure any pencil marks are on the

back. As you can see from my penguin, this is hindsight

wisdom.

Penguin wings-2

7. After cutting out the two black wings, place the flat ends up. The flat ends are the tops of the wings. Whereas, the flat end of the tummy is the bottom.

Penguin wings-3

8. Trim up both sides of each wing to make the tops of the wings narrower than the bottoms.

Penguin nose

9. Cut a very small triangle from orange construction paper for the nose.

Penguin eyes

10. Use a hole punch for the white circles of the eyes.

Penguin eyes-2

11. Use a black marker for the eye balls.

Putting the penguin together

Attaching the penguin body

12. Roll the black strip around the cork and tape together in back.

Gluing on the tummy

13. Glue tummy on front.

Gluing on face

14. Glue on eyes and nose by putting three little dots of glue above the tummy. The two for the eyes, across from each other, and the third for the nose at the top of the tummy.

Then carefully place one tiny eye then the other, and last the nose on the dot of glue reserved for each.

Gluing on the wings

15. Glue on the wings; one one each side.

Gluing on the top of the head

16. Glue on the top of the head.

If you'd like the penguin to be a Christmas ornament, poke a hole in the middle of the circle before gluing it on. 

Through the small hole, thread a loop of yarn leaving the tails underneath to be included in gluing the top of the penguin head on.

This is your penguin to remind you of refreshing winter breezes in the heat of summer.

Here's the trailer from March of the Penguins. The Wine Cork Penguin Craft was modeled after the Emperor Penguin, but you can see from the trailer, I didn't include some details. Perhaps you'd like to create a more accurate penguin.

We've been watching Wild South America on HuluPlus. The Penguin Shores episode about the Humboldt penguin is amazing, and if you watch it, you'll notice differences in the penguins. Perhaps you would prefer to model your penguin after Humboldt penguins instead of Emperor penguins.