May is Noodoll Friendship Month and we're dedicating the next 30 days to self-love, being grateful and celebrating friendship. This special DIY activity is perfect for little ones to explore emotions and worries. Children (and adults too - trust us!) will love getting crafty and making these tiny friends, and with so much worry and confusion in the world right now we hope these worry dolls will work their magic on any bad dreams or anxieties troubling your little monsters.

We've made a Ricecracker here but you can easily adapt the instructions to create your favourite Ricemonster! Try longer ears for Ricecarrot, or leave off the legs for Ricesplash - there's so many special Ricemonsters to use as inspiration. Our character page is a great place to start the search for your star model.

For this DIY activity you will need:

  • Scissors
  • Cotton (black and white)
  • 3 cocktail sticks
  • String / wool / embroidery thread (yellow and white)
  • Cardboard
  • Tape
  • Pen (optional - for the teeny tiny details)

1. Cut a strip of cardboard around 10cm x 4cm. This will become the body of your Ricemonster.

2. Fold your cardboard strip in half and, using one of the cocktail sticks, poke two holes along the fold.

3. Trim the spikey ends from two of cocktail sticks and thread them through the holes. Leave them poking out of the top slightly to create two little ears. You might need to trim the sticks further once they're inside the body, Ricecracker has quite stumpy legs!

4. Now trim the third cocktail stick, using your Ricemonster body as a guide.

5. Use tape to secure the legs to one side of the card and the arms to the other side. Then squeeze the card together like a sandwich and add a strip of tape around the bottom, just under the arms.

6. Wrap the white string around the bottom half, this will be Ricecrackers belly.

7. Now add the yellow string everywhere else. Wind round and round, making sure to keep it pulled quite tight. Once you're done, wrap and tuck the loose end of string back underneath the rest.

8. Now for the fiddly part. Use a needle and thread to add eyes, ears and nose. You can also use a pen or marker - it works just as well!

9. In black thread (or pen!) add the pupils and the nose.

10. Finally, use the needle to tuck in any stray bits of string

Tada! Your Ricecracker worry friend is complete! Now they're ready and waiting to listen to your troubles and take them away from you at night. Sweet dreams everyone!

 

You can also watch a how-to video over on our Instagram channel - click here.

 

Don't forget to take some photos of your Noodoll DIY projects and post them on social for us to see. We LOVE looking at the beautiful things you guys make! We're on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. If you're uploading to Instagram, don't forget to use #mynoodoll, to be entered into our monthly competition. Each month we give a free Ricemonster to our favourite Noodoll photo. You can read more by clicking here.