Torn Newspaper Lion

The third project in my painted and torn newspaper animal series is a lion. Click to see the tiger and the monkey. 

Painted Newspaper Lion

Materials: 

• newspaper
• acrylic paint (yellow, brown, black)
• glue

Steps: 

Find three pages of newspaper that are predominantly small text, like sports scores, stock information, or classifieds. Using a single coat of paint, color one sheet of newspaper yellow and one sheet brown. Paint half of a sheet black and leave the other half unpainted. 

When the paint is dry, tear out a large brown circle for the lion's mane. Tear slowly and carefully because newspaper tends to want to rip in just one direction. 

Tear the lion's face, two outer ears, and the snout from yellow newspaper. Tear two inner ears and two eyes from the unpainted newspaper. Tear two pupils, a nose, the mouth, and a strip connecting the nose and mouth from the black.  

Glue everything together. 

Matzo Lion Snack

On Thursday, our family had the honor of attending a virtual Passover Seder hosted by my friend and co-author, Adam. Over the years, I've been to a handful of Jewish weddings (including Adam's), a Jewish baby naming ceremony at a local synagogue, and a pre-Sukkot party in the sukkah in a coworker's backyard, but otherwise my knowledge of Judaism is limited to my years of Sunday School as a kid, a Judaism class I took in college, and reading the books that Adam has written. (Affiliate link because you should totally read his books.) Experiencing Passover with a real family (around 25-30 people) practicing their faith was awesome. 

Steve, Trevor, and I did our best to join in with the readings, rituals, and songs. We dipped our pinkies in our drinks, broke and hid the middle piece of matzo, and flogged each other with chives (it's supposed to be green onions, but close enough). I even made matzo ball soup for the first time. In every way, we had a wonderful time. 

Despite eating a good amount of matzo during the Seder, we had plenty left over. So naturally, Trevor and I made a Matzo Lion Snack. (And if you didn't think, "Of course that's what Cindy did with leftover matzo" then you aren't reading my blog often enough.)

Matzo Lion Snack

Materials:

• matzo
• vanilla frosting, tinted yellow
• Raisin Bran
• banana
• pretzels
• Popcorners (affiliate link, because you HAVE to try these if you haven't already. YUM!)

Steps:

Gently frost a piece of matzo. Sprinkle Raisin Bran flakes around the outer edge and use raisins for eyes. Cut a triangular banana piece for the nose. Use stick pretzels for whiskers and broken mini pretzels for the mouth. Add Popcorners for the ears. Eat and enjoy!

Cardboard Tube Lion

We receive a lot of submissions at Fun Family Crafts and it's part of my job as Editor to process them. This means I look at each one to determine if it is indeed a craft, child-friendly, and written as a tutorial. If so, then I write up the description, add tags, and schedule it to be featured. (If you have a blog and would like your craft tutorial to be featured at Fun Family Crafts, submit it here!) I love going through the submissions because it is such a source of inspiration. 

For example, when I saw this:

... I immediately thought of this:

You can find the instructions to make Petro's flowers here. Continue on to learn how I made my lion. Affiliate links below. 

---------

Cardboard Tube Lion

Materials:

• cardboard tube
• pen
• scissors
• foam brush
• brown paint
• yellow paper
• glue

Steps:

Use the pen to draw 2 parallel lines around the center of the tube. They should be about 1/8" apart. Make a cut from one end of the tube and stop when you reach the closest line. Continue to do this every 1/8" or so. Then rotate the tube and cut from the other end toward the closest line. If you offset these cuts from the cuts on the other side of the tube, you'll get a fuller mane. 

Bend all the cut sections in toward the pen lines you drew. Use the foam brush to paint the tube brown. (Or, you can paint the tube first on the inside and the outside, let it dry, and then make the cuts.)

While the paint dries, cut out a head and two ears from yellow paper. You can use a solid yellow construction paper or cardstock; I used a scrap of yellow patterned paper I had on hand. When you cut the ears, make the ends extra long so you have a place to put glue. Draw a face on the circle, then glue the ears in place behind the face. 

Press down gently on the cardboard tube to flatten the mane. Then use the scissors to trim the mane so it is even and looks fuller. I cut about 1/4" off both the front and back portions. 

Place the lion face on the mane. If you like how it looks, glue the face in place. To make it a bit more realistic and less whimsical, you'll do some trimming before you glue.  

First, trim the face by slimming down the bottom portion. Then trim the mane so that it is shorter on the sides and tapers down toward the bottom.

When you are happy with the lion, glue the face to the mane. Fun!