How to Make a Crawling Coconut Turtle Craft

While "coconut bra" may spring to mind when thinking of coconut crafts, the shells can also be used to make children's crafts such as bird feeders and planters. Coconut shells' domed shape make them optimal for creating fun turtle crafts with the kids. Paint turtle crafts or leave them as is and place them in your garden or your children's play room. These kinds of crafts can also be used as a classroom art project or sold at craft fairs.

Purchase a hollow, dried coconut shell at a craft store, or cut, hollow out and clean one yourself. Allow time for the shell to dry before you begin your work.

Place the hollowed shell on a piece of cardboard and trace it with pencil. Draw a head and tail shape on the cardboard keeping the shell in the same place. Tracing the shell first on the cardboard makes it easier to draw the head and tail shapes to size without worrying about them being too big or small. The cardboard shell shape will also serve as the base of the craft.

Cut out all outlined portions of the cardboard. Cut pieces of craft (cutting) foam with an electric knife using the head and tail tracings from the cardboard. A regular knife will do if you do not have an electric one; however, electric knifes are much more precise when cutting this kind of material.

Use adhesive to paste the shell cardboard tracing to the coconut shell, then paste on the craft foam head and tail. Cut out four feet-shaped (rectangular) pieces from the craft foam and paste them to the shell as well.

Paste the two black beads to the foam head with the adhesive. Draw on a mouth, or arrange and paste small, pinkish beads to form the mouth.