A Chewbacca Paper Portrait for Pint-Sized Padawans

Thanks to Phineas and Ferb and Star Wars Rebels, my five-year-old daughter is finally embracing her own love of Star Wars. Together we came up with a paper portrait of Chewbacca that not only gives her fine motor skills and creativity a little workout, it’s also pretty dang cute.

You’ll need:

• White cardstock
• A sheet of white paper
• A sheet of black paper
• Two sheets of brown paper (different shades)
• Scissors
• Glue
• Black marker

To begin, rip up the brown paper into small squares. Next, draw a stick figure with long arms and legs on the cardstock—Wookiees are tall and lanky, after all! This will serve as a guide for Chewbacca’s basic shape.

Next, spread the glue liberally around the arms, legs, and head to stick the shredded paper pieces and turn them into Chewie’s fur.

You can stick each ripped piece on individually to craft your Chewbacca, or try my daughter’s favorite method of grabbing a handful and sprinkling it on like confetti. Pat, shake the paper, and then fill in the missing spots with individual shredded pieces.

Once all the spots are filled in and pressed onto the cardstock, cut a small rectangle out of the black paper for Chewie’s bandolier.

Glue it on top of the brown pieces. Next, use the sheet or a scrap of white paper to cut out small rectangles to complete the details of the bandolier. Draw lines on each rectangle to finish the bandolier look.

Next, use the black marker to draw eyes, nose, and a mouth for Chewie’s face. You may want to wait for the glue to dry, but my five-year-old was too excited and drew the facial features as soon as the fur was complete. (She opted not to add a mouth for her design.) She also drew toes on Chewbacca’s feet, as they occasionally stick out in various images of him.

And your Wookiee is complete!