Our Summer REading Program this year has the theme of "pets". Do you have any ideas on easy but fun and useful pet crafts to do? I work at the library, so this would be with children.

So far I have handmade dog bones and a program where we'd read ancient cat stories and then make little cat shrines. Any others?

what about little catnip pouches?

-sock dogs
-paper masks in the shape of cats and dogs then decorate with glitter and feathers
-glue jewels and puff paint to fish bowls

favorgrl

there are a ton of reciepes out there to make pet treats of all kinds.

for birds: pine cones covered in peanut butter and then rolled in bird seed. these are usually used outside, but i dont see why it couldnt be used in a bird cage.

at most paint-your-own-ceramics places they have pet food bowls. if you have to do it at the library, you can probably ask them to send a rep to the library and they can take them back to their kiln and fire them for you.

create charms for cat and dog collars.

tie pet treats to grapevine wreaths with yarn.

How about making blankets to donate to the local animal shelter?

peace
monstergirl

*Please, please, don't give exotic birds peanut butter on pine cones... they can be deadly. They are alright for "outside" birds, that need the extra fat and can eat pine, but most hook-bills (aka parrots) cannot digest that at all... Don't kill the birdies, for me who used to raise them.*

make dog bandanas out of triangles of fabric and let them puffy paint the name of their pet on them.

make a 'cat fishing pole' by providing a stick and some ribbons they can tie to it.

if you want non useful items there are always brown paper bag puppets and styrofoam cup snoopies (which aren't so great environmentally i guess, but you use two styrofoam cups, a little brad thingy that you fold back the two tabs with and felt, you put one cup face down, and one cup on top of it facing out, putting the brad between the cups to hold them together, then glue on ears and faces with the felt (or magic markers)...it looks like snoopy

or you could sponsor an animal at the local shelter by 'adopting it'. go to the shelter and take a photo of the animal (with the shelter's permission of course) and have the kids write nice things about the animal or make a collage that they can hang outside the cages so people take 2nd look. It works better i'm sure if the kids get to meet the animal but that might take too many resources.

jt

cat nip toys - knit some squares and sew together

bunny toys - thread some cardboard inners from toilet rolls together to hang in a hutch

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You can also make catnip toys using baby socks! :) They turn out very very cute!

Here is a site that has a page listing dog and cat quilts and pillows to make - free patterns from the web. Some of them are so cute!
>http://www.freequilt.com/animal.html

At library time here they make puppets using a paper bag (where you leave the bag sort of flat, slide your hand in, and make it "talk"). There's a coloring sheet with a head, tongue and then either the body, or the bottom jaw. Color and cut out the pieces. Then glue the head onto the "bottom" part of the bag, and then glue the body or the jaw just underneath where the bottom folds flat. viola. I hope that's easy to understand!!