Up Cycled Egg Carton Animal Portraits

 

I have been seeing these on the internet and decided to try making them with my Summer Camp.

They remind me of victorian style portraits with a fun twist.  

Once I got started I couldn't stop, they are really a lot of fun!

You will need:

White Gel Pens

Acrylic Paint

Paintbrushes

Egg Cartons

Scissors

Tacky and or Hot Glue

Wood dowels or skewers

Cardboard for the Backs

Pom Poms and Ribbon optional

Sharpies to draw mouth

Black paper and Hole Punch for Noses

I began by pre cutting the egg cartons apart to create both the rounded and square shapes and extra for ears etc...

Don't worry about the rounds or squares being uneven.  It doesn't matter.

I think it's too hard for young kids to cut these, the paper is thick and you need sharp scissors.

But they can trim them and cut out ears etc...

I also pre cut the cardboard shapes.  Cereal boxes work well for these.

These are all pretty easy to figure out the painting, especially the round ones because they already have the round shape molded on them.  

Here is how I did the T Rex

This is one of the middle square shapes from the carton cut in half and hot glued to open the mouth.

I painted the body color first, let dry, then added the muzzle and other colors next.

Eyes are done with different sizes of wooden dowels or skewers, dip and dot.  Let dry and add next layer.

I used this size hole punch to cut out black circles, which I cut in half and then cut the half circle diagonally to make the triangle noses.   Once I show the kids I think they can do this easily.

They can use tacky glue to add the ears, bows and pom poms or I can help them with hot glue.

Hot glue works well for attaching them to the backing.  If you look it's really just the top and bottom where they are glued to the backing.

I didn't glue my animal on until I did my details.  But you can do it either way.

I think it's easier to do the details without the animal glued down, but you do need to have it to put on the backing to see where your designs go.

I bought highly rated white gel pens from Amazon, I couldn't find them in a store.  They were about $1. each and worked great.

Here are some more photos of the animals for reference:

The sky is the limit with these, cats, dogs tigers, zebras, horses - whatever they want to make.