By first grade, my son knew every dinosaur's name, every detail about their lives, what they ate and where they lived. He couldn't tie his own shoes but he knew how fast a Gallimimus could run and the top speed of a charging Triceratops. He used to sing me the Dinosaur ABC song that he learned that year at the top of his lungs, complete with wild gestures with small hands forming toothy jaws and fingers splayed above his head to resemble the crest of a Dilophosaurus.
He became obsessed with dinosaurs, resting his head on a dinosaur pillowcase and carrying around pocket-sized versions that I'd find in the washing machine. In first grade that year, he was given the assignment to create his own dinosaur out of some kind of everyday material and he relished the idea that he would be the designer of his own dinosaur.
He decided that an Adamasaurus would be made up of scales that resembled his face and that the dinosaur's head would be a gigantic version of his own human head. If I had seen this thing in real life I probably would have fainted. My daughter, years later would do the same assignment only using Skittles to make a Candysaurus Rex. Instead of you tasting the rainbow, the rainbow would be tasting you.
Possibilities. It's what drove John Hammond to take a mosquito encased in amber for millions of years and extract its blood to recreate a living breathing dinosaur. The first time I read this premise in Michael Crichton's book Jurassic Park it made me wonder if it was really possible and at the same time made me hope that it wasn't.
The Jurrasic Park franchise has explored the "what if" in a myriad of movies with each owner of the next iteration of the park writing off the attractions that ate the guests as flukes that could be controlled. There's a reason why they pursue this question. It's possibilities.
Walmart will be supporting this idea of dinosaur possibilities with the release of the Jurassic World - Fallen Kingdom Limited-Edition Blu-ray Funko Giftset. The set includes a Blu-ray, DVD, and a digital copy of Fallen Kingdom with several bonus features. It also comes with a 2-pack set of Funko Pocket Pop! Keychains which features two of the main characters: Owen played by Chris Pratt and his beloved raptor, Blue.
Jurassic Park - Fallen Kingdom Needle Felted Dinosaurs
To celebrate the release, you can host a movie night complete with a craft using needle felting to recreate your favorite dinosaurs from the movie. My son and I wanted to re-create our own versions of Owen and Blue for the release of the movie. Needle felting is a fun craft to do with kids and it is the kind of craft that helps them think abstractly and three-dimensionally. It is also a skill that I find helps to improve their eye-hand coordination.
Materials: (These can all be found at your local craft store, not necessarily at a fabric store)
Work area prep:
A foam block is great to have for kids to work on. It will protect the table from getting poked by the needle. You may also cover the table with cardboard or a cutting board.
Have the kids wear the finger guards on their index, middle, and thumb to protect them from being poked by the needles as they work.
Steps for Making a Felted Dinosaur - Ages 10 and up
NOTE: If you want your dinosaur to be pose-able, you will use the wire as the center of the roving. If you just want to simplify, you don't need to use the wire. For a dinosaur, you will want a long wire that you form into a Z.
1. Take the plain white wool roving and shape it into a ball in your hand.
2. Push the felting needle into the ball and back out and repeat. Every time you push the needle into the roving, it will grab the fibers and attach them to others within the ball. The more you push in the needle, the tighter the ball will become. This video will show you how to create the rest of the steps.
3. As you work, you will need to rotate the ball so that you are forming something round. Have kids place their balls on top of the foam block which will prevent them from holding it and minimize being poked by the needle. This will be the torso of the dino or person. Kids may get initially frustrated because it may seem like nothing is happening but they need to keep poking it over and over and rotating it while working. IT WILL START TO HAPPEN.
4. Pull apart the wool roving and create three smaller ovals which will be the legs and tail. Roll it between your hands like you are making a snake out of Play-Doh. Push the needle into this form until it starts to tighten up into the shape you want.
5. Place the loosely formed shapes where they would attach to the body. For the legs, attach each oval shape to the side of the main ball by pushing the roving of one shape into the other shape. As you do this, the shape you are attaching will become embedded in the base form.
6. Every time you add to your form, you will want to loosely shape parts with your hands and attach it to the main form this way. Create a neck that will rest on the body and then create and attach a head to that neck. Once the basic form of the dinosaur takes shape, it's time to start adding color.
7. For this step, I like to look at a picture of what I am trying to create. Choose the color you want the main form to be, pull some colored roving off the main ball and drape it across the white roving. Then, all you need to do is push the colored roving into the white roving with the felting needle until it is attached.
8. Details can be added like stripes, eyes etc. just by rolling or pinching the roving to take the shape you want it to be and pushing the needle into the felting beneath it. Eventually, it will become so tight the colors will be on the same level.
9. Twisting the roving can make things stand out and three dimensional. Layers on top of layers will add depth and dimension. If you make a mistake, just place another color over the original and make it disappear by pushing the felting needle into the underneath color.
10. Details take time and kids may get frustrated. Adults, you can help the kids out by fixing areas or suggesting fixes. This project isn't a quick one but I spent two hours on a Saturday with my 10-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy making these and they loved them!
Celebrate the release of Jurassic World : Fallen Kingdom on September 18th by heading to Walmart and picking up your own Limited-Edition Blu-ray Funko Giftset. If you make a needle felted dinosaur, tag @dadncharge on social media along with #JurassicWorld #FallenKingdomArrives and #dinosaurs to show off your creations!
**This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Universal Pictures at Walmart. The opinions and text are all mine.**
