Thursday - Klondike Krafts

Continuing to designate our blogging days, Thursdays will be given over to Klondike Krafts.  Klondike is Bonnie's nickname for Grady (even she doesn't know why).  Grady will demonstrate his mad craft skills with projects especially suited to our younger CQers.  Today we're going to start with an easy one.

Grady is a big fan of adventure and fantasy movies.  Swords, shields and armor are some of his favorite things.  So today, Grady is going to show you how to make a shield out of the lid of a pizza box.  Projects like this are a great way to recycle cardboard.  We actually cut off the top of the pizza box whenever we order pizza now (when it's clean) so that we'll have it when we think of a new project.

Materials:
Clean pizza box lid or other largish piece of cardboard
2 strips of cardboard (we cut the folding sides of the lid)
Markers or other means of decorating your shield
Scissors
Heavy duty tape of your choice (We used packing tape because we had it, but duck tape works great)
A grown-up to help with the cutting

Instructions

1.  If you're using a pizza box, cut the side flaps off and set them aside.  These are the parts that fold down and tuck into the lower portion of the box.
2. Draw the shape you want your shield to be on the side printed with the pizza logo.  This way, there won't be any lines on the side you decorate after you cut it out.
3. With an adult's help, CAREFULLY cut out your shield.
4. Tape the 2 cardboard strips to the back (logo side) of your shield, being careful to leave room for your hand and forearm to fit through.  We found that putting a piece of tape across the end of the strip and then a piece of tape across each end of tape helped it to stay in place.

5. Now for the best part: Decorate your shield!  We used markers for this one, but we're going to use paint on the next one.  We also talked about finding a picture of a lion (Grady's favorite device for a shield), printing it out on card stock and making a stencil.  We'll let you know how it turns out!

Next week we'll show how Grady used a strap from an old backpack to be able to wear the shield on his back while he's out on those long quests.  Stay tuned!

~Ellie, Maitresse de Crochet
~Grady, Master of Craft Artistry