Tube Buddy: Baby Penguin

A baby penguin, 3⅛ in tall, made from a single paper tube: a blue head with a white heart-shaped face, a red hat with a pom-pom and a white sweater with a snowflake. The corners of the hat form by themselves — you push the top of the tube inward at the back and at the front. The flippers and pom-pom are separate pieces.

• Easy
• 1 tube
• 3 small pieces
• 2 Letter sheets

Make it with your phone cameraLesson code: 9043

On VanGami the template appears over your sheet through your phone camera — no printer needed. Trace it, cut, fold and glue. Below are all the steps in text.

What you’ll need

• 2 Letter sheets — office paper, 80 gsm (20 lb)
• Markers
• Pencil — and eraser
• Scissors — small
• Glue stick — or PVA glue
• Glass — phone stand

Steps

Trace

1. Sturdy sheet from two. Apply glue stick over the whole surface of a sheet of printer paper, press a second sheet onto it, and smooth with your palm from the middle to the edges. You'll get a thick sheet — work on that one. Put it back in the same spot, edge to edge; don't move the phone.
2. Strip: outline. Trace the strip with the tab above the middle in a solid line — you’ll cut along this line.
3. Strip: hat arcs. The dashed arcs at the top are the hat folds. Draw them pressing hard: the top will fold neatly along the pressed line later. Don’t cut along them.
4. Strip: drawing. Copy with thin lines: the heart-shaped face with eyes and beak, the hat cuff, the collar and hem of the sweater, the snowflake, and the feet. Don’t draw on the white area on the left: it will go under the seam.
5. Small parts: outlines. Trace the two flippers in sleeves and the pom-pom on a stem with a solid line.
6. Small parts: drawing. On the flippers, draw two cuff lines across each sleeve; on the pom-pom stem, one line across. The ball is just an outline.

Color

7. Color: strip. Hat — red, all the way up to the top edge, and the tab too: above the arcs is the crown of the hat, and it shows from above. Sweater collar and hem — also red. Head around the face — blue; snowflake — blue line; beak and feet — orange; eyes — black; blush — pink. The sweater and the hat cuff stay white. Leave a narrow white stripe along the dashed arcs, and go over the outlines in black.
8. Color: small parts. Flippers below the cuff — blue; cuffs and the pom-pom stem above the line — red. The sleeves, the ball, and the bottom of the stem below the line stay white; outlines — black.

Cut

9. Cut out: strip. Cut out the strip together with the tab above the face. Cut up to the tab corners from both sides.
10. Cut out: small pieces — 3 pcs. Cut out two flippers and a pom-pom.

Roll

11. Roll the tube. Apply glue to the white area on the left. Roll the strip with the drawing facing out and lay the right edge over that area, up to the line. Press the seam for 10 seconds.

Fold

12. Hat: back. Turn the tube with the seam facing you. Press your finger on the top edge above the seam: it will dent inward along the scored arc, and the corners of the hat will stand up at the sides.
13. Hat: front. Turn the penguin to face you. Apply glue to the underside of the tab above the face, from inside the tube, and press in the front of the top the same way: the tab will lie on top of the back half.

Assemble

14. Flippers. Apply glue to the back of the sleeve from the shoulder to the cuff; don’t glue the flipper itself. Glue the flippers on the sides, under the collar: the blue flippers stick out slightly to the sides.
15. Pom-pom. Apply glue to the whole stem of the pom-pom, but not the ball. Glue it onto the front of the hat, in the middle: the bottom of the stem goes on the bottom edge of the white cuff, and the line on the stem goes on its top edge. The ball will sit above the dip of the hat. Press for 30 seconds.

Check

16. Stand it on the table. Set the penguin on the table — it stands by itself. Turn it all the way around: the hat corners are sharp, the pom-pom sticks up, and the seam is at the back.

Done. The penguin is done. Let the glue dry for 10 minutes, then it can go on the shelf.

Make it with your phone camera

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