Valentine Gonk

This free valentines day craft project shows you how to make a quick valentines day gift - a Valentine's Day Gonk! Don't know what a Gonk is? A gonk is a furry novelty toy with googly eyes and small arms and legs. It was really popular in the 60s.

What you need

Pom Pom
Card
Eyes

Instructions

Make a pom-pom out of some leftover wool (preferably suitably colored for Valentines day (red or pink). Or purchase a ready made large pom pom.

The pom-pom shouldn’t be too big, about six cm’s in height is perfect. Use as much wool as you can to make the pom-pom as dense as possible.

Use paper, felt or whatever you have to make “eyes” for the pom-pom and attach them with glue or a couple of stitches.

Take a strip of felt or any kind of fabric and embroider a valentines message in a contrasting colour. Alternatively you could use a marker pen or fabric paint.

The letters will need to be quite large and easy to read.

Cut the fabric into a long, thin strip at least three or four cm’s wide and at least ten cm’s long (this may need to be larger depending on the length of the message). Remember to leave some extra fabric at one end of the message to attach it to the pom-pom. If you don’t want to use fabric, write your message on a cardboard strip.

Glue or stitch the blank end of the fabric message to the base of the pom-pom with the message facing upwards towards the pom-pom, and forwards, so that it can be read from the side with the eyes on.

Cut a pair of feet from a piece of stiff card and glue or stitch to the base of the pom-pom, covering the end of the fabric which you earlier attached to the pom-pom.

Stand the little fella on his new feet and you’re looking at your very own Valentine Gonk.

I prefer to leave him with just his eyes, but a mouth, nose, etc could also be added.

Submitted by user Karen young