We’ve gone absolutely WILD for spring hat season this year! Our friends over at Start Creative Studio invited us to take part in an exquisite exhibit of DIY fascinators from recycled materials. Along with some of our favorite creative confidants, we crafted a whole rainbow! You can take the colorful tour by visiting Start Creative Studio’s red head-turner, Cinta & Co.’s orange amazement, Creating Creatives’ enchanting yellow charmer, ART CAMP’s vision in blue, and Make it Your Own’s purple blooming desert splendor!
Our very own chameleon fascinator was inspired by our color (green of course!) and starts with a craft you can do as a stand-alone art activity. The star of this headpiece was printed with rainbow scales using bubble wrap, and looks so adorable that I’ll be putting him on a stick and saving him for puppet shows when I’m finished wearing this spring beauty. Or MAYBE even making him his own upcycled reptile aquarium!
To make your own upcycled bubble wrap chameleon you’ll need:
BASIC SUPPLIES:
- A cereal box or cardboard (or 1-2 sheets of heavy cardstock)
- Scissors
- Acrylic paints in bright colors (as many or few as you like!)
- Bubble wrap
- A bottlecap
- A drinking straw or pipe cleaner
- Craft glue or a hot glue gun
OPTIONAL SUPPLIES:
FOR OUR FASCINATOR:
- A headband
- A green plastic bottle
- A brown paper grocery bag
- A mesh produce bag
DIY Upcycled Bubble Wrap Chameleon
- Draw a chameleon and jungle leaves or print our template
Print out the desired template pages on a sheet of white or color cardstock (or trimmed cereal box as we did!) and cut your chameleons and leaves out. You can also print onto a page of scrap paper, cut out and trace onto thicker materials like cardboard that may not run through your printer.
- Use bubble wrap to print a colorful pattern on to your chameleon
Time to paint! I had hand-drawn the shapes onto a cereal box, so I started by painting a layer of flat color onto all of my pieces. If you want to speed up the project or avoid a lot of paint and longer drying times, you can print directly onto colored cardstock instead.
After letting the first layer dry, I added scales to the chameleon by printing with small squares of bubble wrap. Smush a dab of paint out so it’s flat, thin and evenly spread, gently dab your bubble wrap in, then start using it as a stamp on your chameleon! Be sure to give it a good, even press when you stamp to get a nice textured scale look! I used quite a few bright colors, but you can use any combination you want.
You can also paint or draw embellishments on, add glitter, or use other printmaking techniques to create a whole bunch of colorful chameleons! - Add details with recycled scrap items
Add a lizard-like bulging eye by gluing a bottlecap on. You can add a dot of paint to create a tiny eyeball as we did, or glue on a googly eye.
A brightly-colored drinking straw makes the perfect tongue! Roll one side up and give it a pinch, then glue to the back of your chameleon. You can also use a pipe cleaner or thin strip of rolled-up paper.
Want to really get crazy with this bubble wrap chameleon craft and make some wearable art as we did? You can hot glue your chameleon and a few of our leaves to a headband and turn it into a crazy cool fascinator! We added some mesh netting from a lime bag destined for the trash, along with some plastic bottle cuttings for extra foliage. To give it a “branch” to sit on, we twisted up a strip cut from a paper grocery bag.
A fascinator fit for a queen! And just wild enough for a royal wedding…might want to check your mail for an invitation if you decide to make one of these! 😉
Not feeling headwear? Hot glue your chameleon to a pinback back to create a large and amazingly awesome jungle-lovers DIY badge, make it into a necklace, or glue a popsicle stick to the back and put on your own Amazon-inspired puppet show!
If you’re looking for more reptile crafts, you will definitely want to stop by our baby turtle play dough invitations (with a free printable playdough mat!). Or make more recycled animals with our simple DIY tutorials for (floating!) egg carton ducklings and egg carton whales.
This was a fun collaboration! I just love yours!
Bonnie it was SO fun!!! Your blossoming cacti stunner is next level!
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