Make, Do & Mend - Sid The Lid

I’ve finally found a use for all those plastic lids that I’ve been saving. After taking some time out to browse the internet craft sites, I came across Lidmen.com where there are some great characters for sale made from bottle & jar lids.

Aha! I thought. I can make one of those.

Like Marc, I’ve started growing fruit & veg and I thought these little guys would make good scarecrows or just good garden decorations as they’ll be waterproof.

One of my sons gave this little guy his name. See what name you can come up with for yours. You can visit Lidmen.com for inspiration – it worked for me.

Please do take care  when drilling the holes in the lids.

Sid the Lid

You will need:

A selection of plastic bottle & jar lids – washed thoroughly

Nylon string or similar

Scissors

Drill & small drill bit – 2.5 or 3 – depending on string size

Instructions:

Lay out your selection of lids to your preferred design.

Drill holes in the centre of all the lids. The lids that the legs & arms attach to will need two extra holes on the sides.

Cut a length of string about twice as long as the length of the lids will be when strung up. Knot one end of the string & thread the lids on to your own pattern. Thread up two legs & two arms then thread up the body & head parts. Use a long piece of string for the body & head as you will be using this to hang your character from your chosen site. Using the holes drilled in the sides of the appropriate lids, attach the arms & legs & knot in place...

...and here is Sid the Lid

These are very basic instructions. Visit the Lidmen.com website for a more detailed list of instructions.

Link of the week: http://shop.lidmen.com/

Moan of the week:

Why do some people complain about the behaviour of young people but offer no solution – apart from put them in the stocks, fine their parents or bring back National Service. Most of the time, young people just need a direction and a little push to get there.

Interesting fact of the week:

Something done in a jiffy is done extremely quickly. ‘Jiffy’ might seem like a slang word but in fact it is a scientific term meaning ‘unit of time’. Originally a jiffy was one sixtieth of a second, although it is now more commonly known as one hundredth of a second and occasionally even a millisecond. Some scientists use the word to describe the time light takes to travel one foot in a vacuum (a nanosecond). Whatever the duration, whenever we are told something will be done in a jiffy, it very rarely is!

Taken from Red Herrings & White Elephants by Albert Jack