rainbow sheep

Materials:

bits of wool, roving, or natural cotton balls

clothes pins

cardstock paper or recycled cereal/cracker boxes

glue

crayons, markers, food coloring, and/or bits of construction paper or felt

Sylvia and I started this project with plant-dyed wool, but you could easily use wool dipped in diluted food coloring and dried, or cotton balls colored with markers, or pre-dyed roving, or leave it white.

We began by drawing and cutting ovals out of cardstock, larger ovals for the sheep's body and smaller for the head.  Then glued the two pieces together.

Next, we clipped on the clothes pins for legs, angling them out slightly so that the sheep can stand on their own.  Then Sylvia used crayons and markers to decorate some of the legs and to draw on the faces.

She poured glue into a small bowl and then dipped each bit of wool in to attach it onto the sheep's body.  You want to be careful not to over-saturate the wool with glue.

 At this point you can add ears cut from felt or construction paper, or add googly eyes, or whatever you like, of course.

We made them a wee undersized shepherdess.

We also created a popsicle stick fence (I know they're craft sticks, but I can't get used to calling them that).  Each section of the fence was glued together separately using 5 sticks like this:

When dry, the sections were connected by gluing a ribbon all the way across the length of the fence on the top and bottom of the sections.  This makes a fence that can be any length and positioned any way you like by folding the different sections in and out.

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