| This is a really simple, yet visually effective craft which uses the minimum of materials and can be done straight from the printer. It could be done with younger children though they could need help with cutting – though there is more room for error than you may imagine! |  |
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Print the PDF onto paper or thin card. You need one page per child as well as scissors and sticky tape. The printout includes condensed instructions. For printing in full colour PDF – 1 page (recommended) For printing in outline only PDF – 1 page |
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Separate the bottom section by cutting through the double line. Then cut along all the grey lines to create 3 shapes each with a small slit, and one larger piece with what looks like a half cut out bit. |
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If you’ve been technical and cut with a craft knife skip this step, but for those of us who have needed to cut through the bottom of the display piece with our scissors, now is the time to close the gap back up with a piece of tape. |
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Find the smaller piece with the hero character on it – labelled ‘A’ on the printout. This is going to slide behind the hand piece that is attached to the card. |
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This is what it should look like once it’s in place. You’ll see that both the central slit and the curve around the edge line up, with the tab sticking out the side. |
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Take the two remaining pieces – labelled ‘B’ and ‘C’ – and line up the central slits. They should look like this. |
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Time to combine. Keep the pieces with their partners and slide the 2 sets of slits together. Really this looks a lot more complicated than it is. |
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Slide the pieces round until the tabs align, the little tab attached to the hands should point down, the bigger tabs need to be on-top of each other. |
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Time to secure our creation. This is done by folding that little flap that’s pointing downwards over the edge of the base card and sticking it down. |
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You also need to secure the 2 big turning flaps together, they should be the same size so glue or tape these. It shouldn’t be able to come apart now, and you can have fun spinning it round and round revealing the hands and then the healed Mother-in-law. If you finish early add some colour to the letters! |
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Other posts for Mother-in-law.
Hi, can you please post a video of how to put pieces together so it twirls ? Can’t get all of it to twirl only half of it twirls
Hi Lea. I don’t offer video’s of me making crafts, sadly I’m not set up for that. I have used this mechanism a few times and it’s very popular. The pictures may be it a bit clearer if you use this post. I can recommend viewing the instructions on the website too, the pictures on mobile get very small and the zoom feature doesn’t always work. Really hope that helps.
Hi, I really like this craft and would like to make this for my sunday school children. Do you have the non-colour printable? Thank you very much!
I’ve added the non-colour option to the post for you now. I’d still recommend using a colour printout on this one but I totally understand that’s not an option for all. Will e-mail you the file too!
I love this!
and you made my day by taking the time to comment. thanks 🙂
nola@dublinpresbyterian.org
I’ve tried three and can’t make them twirll.
Oh I’m so sorry it’s proving troublesome, it’s such a lovely craft. I have used this mechanism twice, the other time is featured here and those pictures may make it a bit clearer + plus the pictures have the zoom feature on desktops so you can really see the details. Really hope that helps.
Great craft!
thanks for the comment, so glad you like it 🙂
The children thought this was magic. Had to make sure they cut it out carefully to make it slot together properly.
Thanks for the reminder Davina, I do love this mechanism but it doesn’t leave a lot of wriggle room sadly, paper mechanisms are often that way.
This is a great website. I got a lot of help.
In him
thanks Helen, always glad to be of help. Also always about if you have any problems or specific requests, just let me know 🙂
Just to let you know, there is another version of this craft with this months newsletter. If you don’t have the newsletter sign up and get access to all previous newsletter and the bonus material!