strange bOUnce

Craft Your Own Carroll

February 13, 2012 — andy carroll, Andy Carroll Torres replacement, blue peter, Charlie Adam, False Nine, Green Peter, here's one I made earlier, liverpool fc, mario balotelli, Stuart Downing

by Jude Ellery

Hullo! Welcome back. How did you get on with the Mario doll, last time? Good, I hope.

This week I’ll be teaching you how to make another Premier League star: none other than Liverpool’s new Fernando Torres, Andy Carroll!

Now, before I start, I’ve been told by the producers to stress that, while the materials we’re using here are very expensive, you can create exactly the same effect with much cheaper ones. Maybe you can even pick them up for free, if you look in the right places.

So, here’s the checklist, it should be on your screen now. Is it up there? Can you see it? It’s… yes, there we go:

• Balloon
• Newspaper
• Gold and silver leaf (or spray paints)
• Marker pen
• 2 Black shoelaces
• Sticky back plastic
• PVA glue
• Red, blue and yellow felt tips
• A4 card
• Elastic
• 5 LARGE pipe cleaners

That’s one I made earlier. What a giant, eh?

So, how do you make yours? Simple.

First, the head. Now, we’re a tad tight for time, so if you saw last week’s episode, make the head in the identical way, blowing up the balloon and covering it with papier mache, then using a marker pen for the details. If you didn’t you can look up the instructions on our Ceefax page: Build Your Own Balotelli.

I’m going for the vacant look for my facial details: nice, thick eyebrows, droopy eyelids and a wide grin. You could also go for stressed, irritated or frustrated. Just don’t forget those nice heavy bags under his eyes!

Now to apply the gold leaf to the head — or spray paint, if you’re using the cheaper, quicker, more sensible option. Carefully peel and attach, or spray, till the head is completely golden. Doesn’t he look like a beautiful fallen star?

For the hair, take your shoelaces — worn out tatty ones that aren’t any good now, preferably — and chop them into strips, each roughly 5cm long. Now, glue them onto the head and either let them dangle if you’re going for Glamour Carroll, like me, or tie them back in a droopy pony tail for Sophisticated Caroll.

The target is a lovely finishing touch to the head. It looks impressive but is actually easy peasy. Just take your A4 card and use a compass — or draw round a bowl — to make a perfect circle, and cut it out… There, done. Then, colour it with red, blue and yellow rings. Now, cut two holes in the edge, like this, look… and tie the elastic on, making sure it fits snugly on Carroll’s head. Adam and Downing will be able be able to find him from miles away, now!

Again, the body is exactly the same as the Balotelli body, and instructions are on the Ceefax page. Use bigger pipe cleaners this time though, we need a nice large body. Your t-shirt slogan can be anything you like, something to sum up your Carroll. I’m going for… umm… “The False Nine.”

Attach your head the same way as last time, too, using sticky back plastic. This one should just about stand up, though be careful you don’t bump him or he’ll go head over heels and might end up getting damaged.

For the boots, we want some nice Dr Marten style thumpers, so we’ll use the offcuts of the card. For the steel toecaps, use your silver leaf or cheap spray paint, and… there you have it, some heavy duty clompers! He’ll be able to give it an almighty whack with them.

Did I mention, the man himself will be joining us next week, to run through some Association Football training drills? We’re so very lucky to have him, I’ve heard rumours he’s going to teach me his famous ‘trick trap’ skill, where the defender thinks he’s going to control it, but the ball actually bounces off his shins and back to the player who passed it to him. It’s quite something when you see it in action, no-one does it quite like him.

Until then, goodbye, and good crafting!

Craft Your Own Carroll by Jude Ellery is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

‘Green Peter’ theme courtesy of strange bOunce music mangler James Lee