3D paper Octopus

3D paper Octopus sculptures

Are you looking for another approachable way to introduce sculpture to your kids? Well here is a good one for ages 7 and up. It only requires 1x A3 or 2x A4 coloured card, scissors, gluestick, and a pencil.

I will show you how to make an octopus sculpture, the technique works well as it gives you 8 legs, though this same technique would look great for a squid, spider, jellyfish, or alien!

Fold your A3 card into 8 pieces, and cut along the folds. Fold just one of the small rectangles in half lengthways,this will be for your template/drawing. Draw half of your creature so the centreline/spine is on the fold, draw only one of the octopus legs on each side – have the legs touching the bottom of the card. When it is cut out your creature should open up symmetrical – this is important, so make sure your drawing is on that fold. You can save time by doing a few at a time, I recommend doing it in sets of 2 or 3. Do this by tracing your shape with pencil onto a rectangle, then staple 2 or three sheets together at the corner, and cut out your shape. You want to end up with 8 identical octopus cut outs. 

Draw some details on them if you like, then fold each in half down the spine, detail on the inside. Start gluing them together, lining up the left side of one octopus to the right side of the other. The edges should hopefully match pretty well. Keep going, gluing as accurately as possible until they are all used up, and then glue the last two together to form a full loop. 

Give your sculpture some time to dry, and stand up. These make great table decorations, or hanging sculptures on a Christmas tree or mobile. I tried a second blue ringed octopus version where I decorated the cardboard with a crayon before doing any cutting. 

Another cute, fun simple project, requiring limited resources.

Let us know what you think in the comments below. Perhaps you have an idea, or a resource you would like us to explore?? Let us know!

Until next time.

Tracy x

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