Super Simple DIY Fun Paper Wriggling Caterpillar.

In today's making Instructable we will be building a really fun project that is easy to make with kids. We would be using very common things. like a tissue paper, coloured papers, glue etc.

From writing to uses in many crafts, papers have proven to be highly versatile material which is especially also safe to handle, even for kids. highly

In this guide, I will teach you how to make your own paper caterpillar with your kids as a fun project.

1) Coloured paper.

2) Paper glue.

3) Tissue paper

4) Scissors.

5) Ruler.

6) Colour pens.

7) Sellotape (optional).

8) Pencil.

9) Wooden do

wel OR pen case.

Without wasting much time let's make a colourful little caterpillar from some tissue papers.

Get a long wooden dowel or you can use any other thing of similar shape to roll the sheet of tissue paper into a tight cylindrical form around it. Here, you can see that I have used the case of my colour pen. Roll about 14cm of tissue paper around it tightly and secure the last layer of the roll with glue so it doesn't unwind when released.

Get yourself some colour pens, you might want to experiment with the colours but as seen here, I have used the colour green and yellow.

To begin colouring, make a straight green stripe along the roll of the tissue paper, then proceed to make two yellow stripes by the sides of the green stripe as shown in the pictures above. make ve yellow stripes the piztures a

bove.

Pick up the wooden dowel / pen case (as in this case) from both ends and holding onto the two ends of the tissue paper roll, move your hands closer together thereby compressing the roll to take a circular band of wrinkles on it as demonstrated in the above pictures.

Proceed to gently slide the almost complete paper caterpillar out from the armature (the pen case / wooden dowel).

Take a piece of coloured paper (experiment with the colours, here, I'm using green paper) and cut out a rectangular piece of 16cm by 13cm. You may choose to fold the paper before cutting to get a cleaner cut or you may just as well measure and cut the paper piece directly with a pair if scissors.

Just as shown in the pictures above, fold the piece of the cut out colour paper into two so as to get a dimension of 8cm by 13cm. With a pencil, trace, alongside the fold edge, the half shape of a leaf. Don't be afraid of using your eraser if you couldn't get the shape right at the first try.

Now, cut out the shape you've outlined with a pair of scissors. If you were to open the fold, you would see it unfolds to take the resemblance of a leaf but we wouldn't unfold it

yet.

We are going to introduce some V-shaped creases along the length of the paper leaf.

Starting from the bottom portion/stalk of the leaf, fold a tiny portion to one side and fold again to the other side, alternate this continually till it runs through the entire length of the leaf.

Stretch out the overlapping folds and open the leaf to see what you've m

ade.

Cut a rectangular coloured piece of 2cm by 10cm dimensions and just like we did to the tissue paper roll, roll it around a pen case (writing pen) with a bigger diameter. Apply glue to the start of the paper stripe before rolling and also at the end so as to prevent it from unfolding inwards as we need the inner hollow portion to be smooth.

Take the small paper tube we've just made and glue it to the stalk of the paper leaf we earlier made.

Cut another rectangular piece of 12cm by 8cm from the coloured paper and in a similar way as the short tube, roll it lengthwise (i.e 12cm long) around a longer and narrower armature, which in my case is the colour pen case as it is narrower than the writing pen's.

Now slide the long narrower tube inside the short wider tube which has been glued to the stalk of the leaf.

Take the caterpillar we made from tissue paer and while ensuring that the green coloured stripe on it's back is facing right upward, glue one end of it on the short wider leaft stalk tube and glue the other end (head) of the caterpillar to the protruding tip of the long narrow sliding tube. Allow this to dry properly.

Using a black colour pen or marker, make two black dots at the head of the caterpillar to represent its eyes.

Use the black pen again to make smaller dots along the length of the caterpillar on both sides laterally to represent the tiny legs of the caterpillar.

Now we are done with the making, glueing and detailing, let's breathe life into our newly crafted paper caterpillar on a paper leaf.

Hold the leaf by the stalk with one hand and use the other to slide the longer paper tube in and out and you'll see the caterpillar wriggling "along" the lea

f.

Make other leaf shapes, try out new colours and patterns. Introduce little tears and holes in the leaves ti make seem like it's the caterpillar feeding on it.

You can also make the caterpillars only, then pour water on them and watch them wriggle. The more compressed the caterpillars, the more it extends and wriggles on contact with water.