By piercing the chestnuts, many great figures are of course possible, because you can now tie the autumn fruits together or stick them together with toothpicks. But this crafting method is quite time-consuming and not suitable for the very little ones. Are there alternatives?
There is a popular craft material among children that is not only fun, but also improves motor skills and imagination when used. Exactly, we're talking about clay, but also any other modeling clay. The material can be shaped into all sorts of shapes and also gently glues the chestnuts together. What could you make with chestnuts without drilling?
What you need for the chestnut figures
You can make numerous figures from the two main materials alone. These are:
- Chestnuts
- Plasticine in different colors or any other modeling clay, such asself-drying craft clay
However, with a few other craft materials you can add additional details to make your chestnut figures even more interesting.
How about:
- toothpicks
- Googly eyes
- pipe cleaners
- Glitter stones
- other autumn fruits such as acorns or beechnuts
- the prickly shells of chestnuts
- Pearls
- Spices from the kitchen
- legumes
- leaves?
Whether you use normal modeling clay or craft clay is your decision. The advantage of the clay is that it retains its shape after drying and therefore the figure remains. You can reuse the dough a few times if you don't leave it out in the air for too long. Otherwise, it is more for one-time use when crafting.
Chestnut bowl with or without chestnut for hedgehogs
What could be better suited to imitate the hedgehog's spiked dress than the spiny chestnut shell? And there is more than enough of it to be found during the chestnut season in autumn.
- Shape the hedgehog's body. To do this, form a ball and then carefully press the material together with your fingers at one point to create a pointed hedgehog snout.
- Press the chestnut shell onto the hedgehog's back. You can use a whole bowl or half a bowl for this.
- With blackShape doughMake smaller balls for the eyes and nose. But you can also use peppercorns or pearls.
Tipp:Would you like your hedgehog to have legs too? Then you can, for example, use the hats fromUse acorns. You could also put berries on the spines.
Make a colorful caterpillar
Actually, you don't need to explain much here, because the procedure is quite obvious.
- You can either tear off individual pieces of the modeling clay directly or you can form rolls out of different colors and always cut off a slightly thicker slice.
- Then press it against one chestnut and then another one on the other side of the modeling clay.
- Repeat the steps until you reach the desired length.
- Form two small balls and press them onto the caterpillar head as eyes.
- You can also press wiggly eyes onto the eyes.
- Design with more if you likeAutumn materials such as leavesor berries. Or use toothpicks or pipe cleaners for a pair of antennae.
Make snails quickly and easily with chestnuts without drilling
A snail body can also be easily formed from plasticine. It's up to you whether you also shape the antennae out of the dough or whether you prefer to cut toothpicks into smaller pieces and stick them into the head. Finally, press a chestnut onto the snail's back and add wiggly eyes and a smiling mouth as desired.
Cute elephant with chestnut body
- For the elephant, first form a thin roll and press it flat on one side. How to get a face with a trunk.
- Make two balls of the same color and flatten them to make two of yours. Then press it to the side of your face.
- Attach a piece of play dough to the spot on a chestnut where you want the neck to be.
- Press this chestnut onto another to secure the head and body together.
- Now attach the face to the head, which you can then design with eyes.
- Form the legs from four small balls and you're done.
The turtle eyes can be made of play dough or googly eyes
Glue the head and body together with modeling clay and form a beak
Cover photo: Studio.G photography/ Shutterstock
