Cardboard Jumping Beans

Cardboard jumping beans are a fun and entertaining toy. They seem to twitch and move all on their own!

• Scissors
• Hot Glue
• Cardboard (the thin kind, like from a cereal box)
• A Marble

Using the brown side of a cardboard cereal/food box, trace a circle around your marble (or something circular and around the same size). Then, trace another circle so it lines up with the first. Connect the two circles with two lines, so you have a sort of egg/bean shape. Cut this out, you will need two of these.

• If you are ever concerned with the sizing, always go bigger!

Draw, then cut a long strip of thin cardboard a little wider than the width of your marble. Make sure that the sides are straight and even!

Note: Now would be a good time to decorate your pieces, I tried to decorate after assembling everything and it was a bit of a challenge.

Wrap your strip of cardboard around one of the bases. Mark where it intersects and trim it to overlap slightly, making sure to leave enough room for hot glue. Then, hot glue the two sides together to form a ring.

Place a base on a flat, solid surface and pinch the ring of cardboard around it. Pick it up, pinching it gently to keep the base in place, and hot glue around the seams, ensuring minimal gaps are left behind. Let the hot glue cool, then flip it over and place your marble inside. Hot glue the second base on by placing it on top of the ring, pinching one end so it stays on, and hot gluing the side you aren't holding to the ring. Let it cool, then finish hot gluing the second base on.

Congrats, you've finished! Now go have fun with your cardboard jumping bean!