Kids can safely blast off with this animal seltzer rocket craft. We made a tiger, but you can adapt it to any animal by using different colors of craft foam and a little creativity. These make a great alternative to fireworks for Canada Day, Independence Day or Kwanzaa. You can decorate them as your favorite animal too.

What you'll need:

How to make it:

1. Lay the film canister on its side on the paper. Mark the top and bottom of the canister. Cut a strip of paper. Wrap the paper around the canister and cut to fit. This will become your pattern.
2. Lay the pattern on the wrong side of the craft foam. Mark the pattern on the foam.
3. Cut the shape out.
4. Adhere the craft foam to the film canister using the hot glue, making sure the end with the lid sticks out about 1/8", making sure the ears are on the opposite side of the opening of the canister.
5. Cut a circle out of tiger-striped craft foam, cutting a pie-shaped wedge out of the circle.
6. Form the foam into a cone shape and hot glue to the end of the canister opposite the opening.
7. Cut out 2 small triangles and glue to the cone (see photo).
8. Look at photograph and cut out the nose from black craft foam and the mouth area out of white foam. Use a black marker to draw on features. Glue on to canister according to photo.
9. Glue on wiggle eyes (see photo).
10. Take the rocket, water, Alka-Seltzer tablets and eye protection outside.
11. Put on your eye protection.
12. Turn the rocket upside down, remove the lid from the canister, and fill 1/4 full with water. Drop in tablet and immediately replace lid and set on ground. Back up!

Tips:

Experiment with using one or two tablets in the canister to see if it will shoot up higher. Be sure to look for the tablets after the rocket fires, we were able to reuse some of them a couple of times. Be sure to rinse off your driveway or sidewalk after finishing with your rockets.

We have tested this product with a variety of glues and found that hot glue held up to continuous exposure to water and seltzer tablets.