Museum Maker: How to make an owl badge

Natural World

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We’ve teamed up with upcycling experts Ostrero and artist Bryony Knox to create a design for a cool owl badge – made from a fizzy drinks can! Try it out today.

How to make an owl badge

Ages

Level

Beginner and intermediate

Recommended for

Families

Duration

30 mins

What you need?

A helpful adult
2 fizzy drinks cans
Scissors
Something squishy to rest on (cardboard or folded newspaper)
A biro pen
Felt tip pens
Objects to draw round (e.g spice jars)
A bowl for scraps
Bread bag ties or garden wire
Buttons or beads
Sticky tape

Safety check

Ask an adult to cut out and flatten the can. They can cut out all the tin shapes too
Cut off any jagged edges or nicks. Round off any pointy corners as these may be sharp.
Put all metal scraps into a bowl and make sure scraps don’t fall on the floor.

Prepare the can

Cut open and flatten out the cans
Cut off any nicks or jaggy bits and round off sharp corners

Make the body

Use a felt tip pen to draw the shapes onto the tin sheets
2 large circles: 1 for the tummy and 1 for the wings
2 smaller circles for the ‘eyes’
1 triangle shape for the beak
Get your adult to cut out the shapes

Make the feathers

Place the 2 wings and the body shape onto a piece of cardboard or folded newspaper.
Press ‘V’ shapes onto the wings and body with a biro pen
Turn the tin over to see how the pattern looks

Make the eyes

Place the two smaller ‘eye’ circles onto the squishy card or newspaper
Punch two holes in the centre of each circle with the biro
Snip small slits around the edges of each circle

Join it altogether

You are going to use two buttons to fasten all the pieces together.
Line all the pieces up in this order : buttons/ eyes/ beak/ wings body.
Mark each piece to show where you need to punch two holes
Punch holes as marked.
Thread wire through holes in the buttons, eyes/beak/wings and body
Twist ends of wire at the back of the body to fasten together
Sellotape a safety pin to the back of the body to make your owl into a badge

Inspiration from our collections

We have lots more upcycled and recycled objects in our collections like this Tomato Bangle, made by David Poston, which was inspired by food packaging designs.

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