membuat anjing

To make the body, scrunch up several sheets of newspaper into a ball. A good trick is to take a piece of newspaper and roll it around the ball, like wrapping up some fish and chips. You can put some tape onto the end when you’ve done that to stop it falling open. You’ll then have a nice neat ball shape.

Next, make the mouth and jaw. Take four double page spreads of newspaper and close them shut.

Fold the edge with all the loose pages inwards towards the middle, not in half, but just in towards the middle.

When you’ve done that, roll the paper from one of the short sides, into a sort of flattened parcel shape, so it’s about the same size as an envelope.

Bend it a bit so that it’s curved.

Wrap it around the ball and tape it securely into position. Put loads of tape on here, so that it won’t fall off.

For the eyes, roll up some newspaper into very tight balls, and tape them on top of the head. For the nose, roll up another smaller ball of newspaper, and tape that into position.

For the ears, draw and cut out two ear shapes onto cardboard box card, and tape them to the back of the eyes.

For the feet, cut out four ovals from cardboard box card. Pad them out with more newspaper and put plenty of tape on to secure them.

Pop them underneath, two on each side.

Next, you need to give your guard dog hind legs. To do this, make balls of newspaper that are slightly bigger than the feet, flatten them slightly, and stick them either side above the feet.

Finally, make a tail for your dog. Cut one out from some card. You can have any tail you like. Stick it to the back of your dog.

Mix some PVA glue with a splash of water, and slosh it onto your dog. Don’t make the mixture too runny, otherwise all the cardboard bits will go floppy. Lay on strips of kitchen roll, loo roll or tissue paper, pressing them into all the nooks and crannies. Kitchen roll is good for this, because it has the right texture.

Make sure that you papier-mâché the rims of the dog’s lip around the front, but don’t close up the inside of the lip, or you’ll have nowhere to put your bones. Cover the whole thing with two or three layers of tissue and leave it to dry.

To paint your dog, use poster or acrylic paint, using any colours.

When you’ve finished painting and the whole thing is dry, add on some extra detail with felt marker pens.

Next, make the bones. Simply draw a bone shape onto some cardboard box card, cut it out, and paint it white. You also need to pop a hole through the top of the bone, like the one in the picture, and thread some cotton through it, tying a knot at the end.

And now your guard dog is ready to go on duty. First, decide what you want your guard dog to protect, like a secret drawer. Make sure the bone is in your guard dog’s mouth, and hide it away from the thing you are protecting. Pull the cotton tight and tie it to whatever you’re protecting. Then if someone comes in and disturbs the draw, they will knock the bone out of the dog’s mouth. Try it yourself!