All Animals Are Magical At Figment Creative Labs -Unicorn / Plastic Animal Craft

I know, I know!  Another unicorn post?  Your last How To was a unicorn craft, Amber.  But, that post led me to this idea.  We know that unicorns are magical, mystical creatures; but aren’t all animals?  Shouldn’t all animals be put on a paint poured pedestal?  Shouldn’t all animals have a magical golden horn that possesses mystical powers?  Well, we think so at Figment Creative Labs.  So, we created some amazing art pieces of fantasy animals adorn with alicorns (to the layman, unicorn tusks).  And guess what the secret ingredient is!

You can find these “horn shells” in assortment packs at Dollar Tree, Michael’s, or Hobby Lobby or in bulk on Amazon.  All you need to do is spray paint them with gold spray paint.

For the first group of campers, we tried this with, we created magical pour painting bases.  (This is a two day process, to allow for dry time.)

Here is how we did it:

What you will need:

• small wooden plaques  (Check the size to make sure they work well with your plastic animals.)
• Optional- White Flat Spray Primer
• Slightly Watered Down Acrylic Paint
• Optional- High Flow Acrylic Paint  (This stuff works great and doesn’t need to be watered down, but it is pricey.)

What we did:

1. I spray primed the wooden plaques before hand.  I thought this would prevent the paint from getting too soaked up in the wood.
2. Prep the paint/water mixture before hand.  Mix well
3. Protect the ground with something strong that you can trash.  I put a layer of parchment paper under plaques, but that step wan’t really necessary.
4. Let the kids pour the paint, switching out colors, and watching one color move into the next.  This is a good lesson on gravity, liquids, movement…
5. Once the they used the slightly watered down paint, I gave them the High Flow paint to add to their pour paintings.
6. Leave to dry for a bit, then transfer to another drying surface.  I used a spatula to move.
7. Dry overnight

This pour paint method resulted in the most beautiful bases for our mystical animals!

How did we go about creating our animals?

1. I had each child choose a plastic animal that I purchased from Dollar Tree.
2. We went outside and they choose what color and where they wanted me to spray their animal.  The spray paint only takes 5 minutes to dry.  If you are looking for a kid friendly spray paint, I recommend Sugar Spray Paint.  It is less toxic than others.
3. Then the kids decorated their animals with jeweled stickers, feathers, glitter…
4. They choose what golden horn they felt fit their animal best and we helped hot glue them on.  We also hot glued the animals to their bases.

And for the second group:

Well, we did the same thing essentially, without the pour paint bases.  This group go girls were older and went to town with the spray paint and glitter!

More photos, because why not?

What magical animals will you create?