Bend a pipe cleaner puppy

Steps for twisting
pipe cleaners illustrated.

Brief Description: Small children can learn much about sculpture by playing with pipe cleaners (chenille stems), especially if given some simple steps to follow.

Supply List:

• one variety pack of pipe cleaners
• scissors
• one tiny charm for his dog tags
• two tiny seed beads for his eyes

Directions: The following steps are pictured on the right.

1. First bend the upper body shape of your dog. This will be his tail, belly, neck and head.
2. Then cut one long chenille stem in half and twist one of these just below the beginning point of the dog's tail and the other stem at the beginning point of the dog's head.
3. Proceed to fill in the dog's body with as many stems as you need, more for a large fat dog, less for a tall skinny dog. Play around with your wire form to give it character.
   
4. Bend in ears, glue on eyes and twist on a collar after stringing the charm for a dog collar.

Additional Suggestions: Projects such as these give children a concrete idea to work towards. After they have mastered this process of including those features that should be anticipated, encourage them to create silly monsters that may look like anything. Take small steps toward creative big steps. Encourage with predictability and then challenge your young students to take unpredictable measures afterwards.

From "Remarkable Lifelike Little Dogs
Made from Pipe Clearners"
(April, 1933 issue) by Popular Science

This pipe cleaner pup has an
additional detailed collar.

Remember to think about "how"
your wire dog looks from
a variety of angles.

From this angle this pup
looks pretty relaxed.

photographs and written craft pages copyrighted by Grimm 2017

Skymagenta crafts pipe cleaners or chenille stems into peacocks.