Something fishy going on at the veg patch

Inspired by Red Ted Art's latest carnival of crafts celebrating all things water related, I wanted to come up with a crafty idea to do with Ruby, but one that would serve a practical use.  We've currently got our house on the market, and much as it pains me, I've had to put away the vast majority of her 'creations'.

Remembering when we were allotmenteers and used old CDs to hang as bird scarers, I wanted to come up with a fishy alternative, and something that looked slightly more attractive than...well, old CDs hanging everywhere!

Lo and behold, I found some CD fish crafts on the web, and adapting one I found here this is what we came up with...

We decided to use 2 CDs glued together, so both sides showed the reflective shiny surface and rather than use paper or card for the fins I used fun foam.  I know they're not going to be totally weatherproof, but I'm hoping they will at least survice a few April showers and give our seedlings a fighting chance.

You will need:

Old recycled CDs
Funky Foam
Glue
Sequins (optional)
Googly eyes (optional)
Pegs

1. I'm not very confident (read 'good') at drawing, so first I laid a CD on some blank paper and drew some shapes until I was happy with the mouth, fin and tail - note how I decided against the 'Jaws fin look'.  Once you are happy with your shapes - which can be as fantastical as you like - carry the lines through at the point where it meets the circle of the CD so you have a 'stem'.  This is because you are going to sandwich the tail etc between the 2 CDs.

2. Transfer the shapes to your fun foam - here's a great advantage of using this material.  You can simply trace over your outline with a sharp pencil and leave an imprint on the foam for you to cut out.

3. Lay one CD with the printed label side facing upwards, and cover with glue.

4. Put the tail, fin and mouth in position and lay the 2nd CD on top - with the printed label side facing in.  You may need to put more glue on the 2nd CD to ensure a firm fix.

5. Ruby then decided she wanted to jazz her fishies up a bit, so we stuck some sequins on.  You will need to weigh the CDs down while they are drying.  Hmm what could I find that's heavy and round...

6. Ok, Ok before you go calling Social Services, I realised that a bottle of Pinot Noir probably wasn't entirely appropriate.  So instead, I came up with this:

7.  Leave to dry fully (we left ours overnight).  You could then add googly eyes, but I decided against it - I wanted the hole in the middle to act as the 'eye'. 

8. Hang in your garden and watch the pesky little veg seed eating birds quake in their tiny boots.

What do you think? They're quite cute huh?

Click here to go over to the Get Crafty carnival for loads more great watery, fishy etc ideas.

Also linking up over at Thinly Spread and Chris' lovely gardening with kids linky.