Clackers

I’ve had these on my ‘to do list’ forever and my and one of my (equally insane?) sisters have had at least 5 conversations about them. I got the idea and the instructions for the layout from whoopidooings.

The blocks were old building blocks of Eli’s that I’d put away. They’re 4cm cubes which is a pretty good size. I joined them together with masking tape. I found it works better if once you’ve hinged all of the blocks you fold it through and hinge the back of the hinges – I know that makes no sense but if you have a go at making them you’ll see what I mean. 

Because you need to cover 6 sides of 8 cubes you need the equivalent of 6 photos that are the same size as your cubes arranged as 2 by 4 rectangles. If you want to do some squares you need 2 2 by 2 squares to replace 1 rectangle. I did 2 rectangles and 8 squares. 

I printed the pictures onto photo paper and cut each one to the size of one cube face and stuck them on with PVA and then put another layer of PVA on top – this might not work if you have an inkjet printer because the prints aren’t waterproof. After sticking on each rectangle (or two squares) I waited for 24 hours for it to dry properly. This was hard, I’m not good at waiting for things and had to redo bit more than once because I’d played with it.

I’m a bit disappointed with it to be honest. It works brilliantly but it looks like a child made it. It’s difficult to cut the squares straight so it’s not totally neat and even though I spent ages sticking it all down, the pictures are already starting to peel. I wonder if I might have been better using ordinary printer paper so the top layer of glue soaked through and helped with the sticking.

Eli on the other hand loves it. He figured out what to do quickly and sat and played with it and talked about the pictures for ages.