I can't believe we made an oil rig

An oil rig - whatever next?! It was completely unexpected and I'm still laughing that we pulled it off. Cakey the Queen of Questions spotted a tub of vaseline on the table during breakfast that I was using to sooth my sore nose from a nasty cold. "What's that?" she asked. From the deep depths of my memory I told her how vaseline was first produced as a by-product on oil rigs. The oil rig workers used the unrefined version to sooth cuts and burns. I suggested we check my story on the computer as I wasn't sure if I had made the whole thing up. It turns out that I was right... first time for everything! During the internet search we came across photos of oil rigs and Cakey wanted to make one.

We made a list of all the things we needed to make an oil rig:

• platform
• legs for the platform
• three boats
• cottage for the workers
• helipad
• oil pump

First we made the pump out of pipe-cleaners, paddle pop sticks and pva glue. The sticks kept falling off the pipe-cleaners so I anchored them down with bulldog clips while the glue was drying.

Paddle pop sticks held in place with clips while drying

Next we found a box to make the platform and I scrounged up four cardboard rolls for the legs. I cut some tabs into the rolls and taped them to the platform – not exactly sturdy but they did the job.

We ran around the house looking for little boats (and a toilet roll holder for the third boat) and anchored them on the side of the platform with string and tape. Luckily we had a little 'house' box that we used as our workers' cottage. My favourite part was wrapping two little people in shiny foil paper for little raincoats. Cakey added the helipad by taping a piece of cardboard to one side. Last but not least we secured our oil pump to the platform by sliding the pipecleaners through a slit in the box. And then we played with it.

Our little worker in her raincoat

We love using recycled materials in our craft projects, for more recycled inspiration have a look at my Recycled Materials for Craft pinterest board.

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