Sunday, March 13, 2011

Giant Leprechaun Hat Trap


Inspired by seeing a picture of a "Leprechaun Trap" in Family Fun Magazine a few weeks ago, my 5 1/2 year old son Griffin designed and made this Giant Hat Trap before I ever looked up the instructions online. Every month when we receive our new issue of Family Fun Magazine Griffin and I sit down together to look at all the crafts and ideas for things we can make and cook together. But it is even more fun when we just see a picture for inspiration and come up with our own ideas for how to recreate what we have seen.

With structural help from his engineer Dad and artistic help from me, we built the trap to his specification. Dad used a Large Cardboard Box (though Griffin felt it should be much larger) bent into a circle, with the ends on 1 end cut into slits for the Leprechaun to fall in to. We then stuck green, black, and yellow Tissue Paper Squares all over the box with glue sticks.

For the Brim of the Hat we found a large flat piece of recycled Cardboard. To make a nice round circle I poked an Awl into the center then tied a piece of Yarn to the Awl and a Green Pen and traced a circle all the way around. Dad cut out the circle with a large Exacto Knife. Then Griffin used a Sponge and Acrylic Paint to paint the whole thing green. They taped the top of the hat onto the brim and cut 4 pieces of green copy paper to fit the top. Finally we made a Ladder with Twigs from Griffin's "stick collection" tied together with Green Hemp String so the Leprechaun can climb up to the top to get to the gold.

The top is sturdy enough to hold a few gold coins to lure a Leprechaun, then give way if he climbs on top. Our only concern now is that Griffin will be very disappointed if he thinks the Leprechaun got out of his trap. I guess the Leprechaun needs to leave him something really cool if he doesn't fall for the trap. Griffin still thinks we should have found a bigger box.

No comments:

Post a Comment