Easy Parrot Craft for Kids

This cute little parrot craft, makes the perfect finishing touch for a home-made pirate costume.

Made from a pair of red socks, some craft foam and a washing-up sponge, he is cheap, effective and adorable too!

You will need:

Parrot craft Instructions

Mini pirates hat

1. Print out your parrot's mini pirate hat onto white card. Cut it out and set it to one side for later.

Tail and wings

2. Print out the templates for the wings and tail onto plain card and then cut them out.

3. Place the two templates for the tail onto your red craft foam and draw around them. Cut them out and set them to one side.

4. Then place each of the 3 wing templates onto the required colours of craft foam and draw around them also, these will become your parrots left wing. Next, flip each template over so that you can draw round them again to produce a mirror image for the right wing.



Carefully cut out the pieces and lay them out as I have here, so that you can clearly see which bits need to go together.

5.Using PVA glue, carefully glue the 2 tail pieces together and then the 3 pieces that form each wing. Use the picture here as a guide.



note: leave the wings and tail to dry completely before you try to stick them to your sock body. In one of my 'parrot craft' trial runs I tried to rush and ended up with craft foam and glue sliding all over the place!

Parrots body

6. Take a lump of stuffing and roll/pinch/squeeze it into a rounded shape. Push the stuffing inside one of your red socks, right up to the toe end. This will be the parrot's head, so give it another squeeze once it is inside the sock until you are happy it looks head shaped.

7. Take another, bigger, lump of stuffing and shape into a longer oval/suasage shape. This will be your parrot's body so stuff it into your sock, and give it another squeeze until you feel you have a good bird shape to work with.

note: use planty of stuffing inside your parrot craft. This will give him a firm body and a more cute rounded shape once he is completed.

8. Tie a neat knot in your sock, right up underneath the stuffing. Then give him a little squeeze around the neck to define the head from the body.

Adding the eyes, beak, wings etc!

9. To make my parrots eyes I embroidered small 'cross' shapes using black wool. You could draw the eyes on with a permanent marker pen (just be carefull the ink doesn't bleed across the sock fabric) or you could stick googly eyes onto his face.

10. For the beak, cut off a corner from a yellow kitchen sponge and then shape it a little with scissors to make a softened triangle shape. Glue this just below the parrots eyes with PVA glue.

note: again, make sure the glue has dried thoroughly before you move onto the next step.

11. To attatch the wings, spread glue all over the back of each one. Then place them onto your parrots body where you want them to be. Use elastic bands to hold the wings in place whilst they dry.



12. Once the wings are completely dry do the same with the tail.

Balancing your parrot on a pirates shoulder...

13. My children enjoyed carrying their parrot craft around the house with them like a pet, but if you want to use yours as part of a pirate costume you will need some way to secure it to your shoulder.

For older kids you cold use safety pins, but for younger children I found that tying him on was a bit safer. Tie one end of the spare sock from your pair around the knot at the bottom of your parrots body, balance the parrot on your shoulder and then tie the other ends of the two socks together under your armpit.