These gorgeous, tactile snails are the perfect craft for young restless hands - and I think you will agree that the result is spectacular! Shelly used some of our templates for this quick, easy and very effective craft idea.
I love the idea of using templates with kids because it means they don’t need to worry about getting the shapes correct. They can just relax and enjoy the craft. And kids who enjoy crafting and art will often be the ones who do it later in life.
While I was searching for a template for a watercolour activity, I happened to spot this snail template and for some reason I came up with the idea of using wool (yarn, for our American readers) for a snail shell! So, of course, I had to print it out and give it a go.
As well as the snail template, I cut out an extra circle, roughly the size of the snail’s shell. If you are not sure rather make it slightly larger than smaller.
The snail template and card circle cut out for the shell
Then I painted the snail’s body with some watercolour paints. Of course any paints would work for this, but I happened to have our watercolour paints handy. I just painted the body and left the shell white, but if I redid this craft again I would paint the whole thing – snail body and shell - as I think it is easier and means you don’t have to worry about bits of white sticking out later.
Painting the snail bodies
I then cut the snails out.
Snail bodies painted and cut out
By this stage my son was interested and had come to see what I was up to! He helped me add some googly eyes.
Sticking googly eyes onto our snails!
Snails with googly eyes, ready for the next stage
Now for the shells. I like to keep things simple with crafts, so I just wrapped those separate circles which I had cut out with 3 or 4 different coloured pieces of wool. I didn't attempt any fancy patterns, just went round and round with the wool. After the first two I found that it helped to double up on the circle card. Sticking two pieces of card together made it a bit stronger and stopped it buckling when I wrapped the wool around it.
Wrapping the card circles with wool
After that it was a case of deciding which shells would go with which snails! That was the fun part. We stuck the shells onto the template with some store-bought crafting glue.
One finished snail
And another finished snail!
And another finished snail!
And there you have it! Some super cute snails with a colourful, textural woollen shell.
I really like the way these turned out and think they would be a fun craft to do with younger kids. Of course it is a great way to use up any bits of odd wool that you may have around the house. You could also try the same thing with colourful string or ribbon, if you have that available, for a different effect.
And another finished snail! We had fun!
Our woolly snails were made by Shelly, a home educating parent of two children aged 10 and 12. She blogs at ofamily learning together where she shares ideas on the different learning activities that they do including lots of hand-on maths, arts and crafts and anything else that is part of their home educating lifestyle.
Yet another finished snail...
And one more! We love these woolly snails!
