DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Paper Plate Pig Craft

Contributed by Leanne Guenther

Whether you decide to make just the face or expand the project to make the whole thing, this cute paper plate pig makes a great craft project for kids.  You can make it for a Three Little Pigs, farm animal, color pink, letter P theme or just for fun.

Materials:

• 8 paper plates (either dinner size or dessert size),
• egg carton cup or empty cream container (nose).
• 2 toilet paper rolls for dessert size plates or 4 toilet paper rolls for dinner size (legs),
• scissors,
• tape or glue,
• piece of pink paper (or white paper coloring pink),
• Pink paint and black paint or marker.
• Optional:  googly eyes and a pipecleaner.

Instructions:

If you don't have pink paint, you could cut up 1 inch (ish) squares of pink construction paper or tissue paper and glue those to the paper plates (like mod podging) instead of painting.

We used styrofoam plates as it's what we had in the house.  BUT, the paint didn't stick very well and flaked off easily so we couldn't play with the pig *wail*.  If I had it all to do again, I'd recommend using paper plates that aren't too glossy on the bottoms.

• OK, before we go further, we're going to get to know our paper plates (so you'll understand the terms I'm using).  The paper plates have a BOTTOM (the part you set on the table) and a TOP (the part you put the food on).

• Paint the bottom of the paper plates, egg carton cups and toilet paper rolls pink and let dry.
• Kaitlyn (Age "almost 3" at the time *sob*) had loads of fun painting plates and toilet paper rolls pink and gluing them together.
• I ended up doing the nose, mouth, tail and legs.
• If you're doing this with an older child (4+ ish), try making up a tongue twister to say while you're doing the project (something like "painting pink pig plates" or "please paint the pig plates pink").
• Split your plates into sets of two.
• Glue each set of two together rim to rim (TOP to TOP).
• Glue the bottoms of the 4 sets together so you have a stack of paper plates (see photo).  The top plate in the stack will be the face.
• If you're using 2 toilet paper rolls, cut them in half.   If you're using 4 toilet paper rolls, look at the dimensions and trim them down a bit if you want to (so the legs are proportionate with the pig).
• Fold your pink paper in half and cut out a triangle (you'll end up with two identical ears).  Glue or tape these to the back of the top set of plates.  (If you want to get really fancy, you can sandwich the ears between the plates when you're gluing them together rim to rim).
• Draw/paint black nostrils onto the egg cup and glue it to the face.
• Draw/paint black eyes onto the pig, attach googly eyes, or draw eyes on white paper and glue them on.
• Draw/paint a black mouth onto the pig or draw a mouth on white paper and glue it on.
• Once everything is completely dry, squish the top of the tp rolls and slide them between the plates to make 4 legs.  Tape or glue.
• Twist a pipecleaner into a piggy tail and poke it through the back plate (use a sharp pencil to make a small starter hole) or take a circle of pink paper and cut it in a spiral and glue it to the back plate.