Safari Ltd®'s Guide to DIY

SafariFans come in all shapes and sizes. There’s the child who uses our toys for educational play, the adult collector who loves to display our scientifically accurate figurines, and the tabletop gamer who uses our dragons and mythical creatures for their game pieces. But there’s another group of fans that sees potential in our figures beyond play and display. These are the do-it-yourself-ers. These crafters and builders take our figures and transform them into everything from fashion accessories to home décor.

Entering this world is easier than you think! All it really takes is a willingness to experiment, and you too can join the ranks of these unique collectors. We’ll even get you started with some creative uses for Safari Ltd® figurines.

Accessorize with Good Luck Minis® and TOOBS®

Our smaller offerings are perfect for creating fashionable and unique accessories to make your look stand out. Good Luck Minis® can be turned into earrings, keychains or charms for a necklace or bracelet. If you’re not afraid to get a bit flashier, you can use larger TOOB® figurines that will be even more eye-catching.

To make earrings out of Good Luck Minis®, just follow these steps:

• Carefully cut the figure in half using a hobby knife
• Use craft glue to attach the front end to a stud (you can purchase these at any craft store)
• Let dry and voila! You’ve got your own homemade animal earrings

Another way to turn a Good Luck Mini® or TOOB® figure into a fashionable accessory is to simply take a small screw eye pin and gently screw it into the back of the figure. Attach it to a keyring to make a key ring, or use it as a necklace charm! Attach some string or a clasp, and it can be a zipper pull or a small decorative hanging ornament.

Get Into the Holiday Spirit with Ornaments

Speaking of ornaments, you can go a bit bigger to make some awesome holiday decorations to hang on the tree, or anywhere you wish really. Simply:

• Carefully screw a large screw eye hook into the back of a figure of your choosing
• Attach it to a string, ribbon, chain or ornament hook, and you’re good to go
• For an even more festive and unique approach, you can spray paint your figures in gold or silver (or any color you want!)

Many of our Wild Safari® figures, including those from our Sea Life, Farm and Prehistoric World lines, are the perfect size for such ornaments. Even a few of our smaller Incredible Creatures® could work, though you’ll probably want to avoid our larger and heavier offerings, since they could weigh down a tree limb or be too heavy for whatever structure you’re hanging them from. For this reason, we would avoid trying this with our Dragons or Wildlife Wonders®, as they can be quite large.

Use Our Award-Winning Figures to Make Your Own Awards

In addition to creating unique ornaments, spray painting some figures can give them the perfect aesthetic appeal for use as trophies or awards. We recently held an inter-office competition, and our first and second place winners received their own gold and silver Safari Ltd® trophies! All you need is a Safari Ltd® figure of your choice, some metallic spray paint, craft glue and a wooden base. When you’ve got all that, you can:

• Spray the figure in a well-ventilated area, away from anything that can be damaged by overspray. Give your figure time to dry
• Ensure your base is large enough to accommodate your chosen figure. If your base is unfinished wood, you can stain it to give it a nice finish. If you don’t wish to use actual stain, you can use watered down acrylic paint in your desired hue to create a stain-like finish
• Affix your figure to the base using craft or super glue, and you’re all set!

Advanced Activities

So far, all of these projects have been pretty basic, involving minimal cutting and painting, but mostly just a bit of gluing or screwing in an eye hook. Now we’re about to dive a little deeper. For these, you’ll need to bust out the hobby knife and the rotary tool.

• You can turn a larger Wonderful Wildlife figure (such as our rhino, hippo or elephant) into a planter! Measure the diameter or your pot, and use a hobby knife to carefully cut a hole of that size in the back of your figure. Then simply glue the pot in the hole! If you’re using real plants, you’ll need to drill some holes in the bottom of the figure for water drainage. You can also paint the figures if you wish, just like we discussed in the previous sections.

• A wildlife or dinosaur themed hat or coat rack can be constructed by carefully cutting any Safari Ltd® figure you choose in half with a hobby knife and using super glue to affix the front half of the toys to a wooden plank of your desired size. Make sure you space the figures out evenly to give enough space to hang your hats or coats on them, and keep that in mind when selecting your plank size. You can choose whichever figures you wish, as long as they’re sturdy enough to support an article of clothing. This same process can be done with smaller figures to create a rack for hanging up your keys so they’ll never get lost again!

If you liked these ideas, remember that when it comes to DIY, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Get creative! There are countless ways to turn our figures into masterpieces of form and functions. Just remember to be careful, and clean up your mess!