Almost no other animal is as popular as the elephant. Admired for its majestic size and loved because of its gentle nature, the elephant is an everyday presence in our lives – as a stuffed toy, storybook figure or heraldic animal. Charles and Ray Eames also succumbed to the pachyderm's charm and developed a toy elephant made of plywood in 1945. However, this piece never went into production. Now manufactured in plastic, the Eames Elephant is available forthe first time to the target group for which it was originally intended: children.

Whether as a sturdy indoor-outdoor toy or simply as an attractive object in a child's room, this friendly looking animal with prominent, over sized ears will bring delight to children and parents alike.

Spend one cozy afternoon with your kid and DIY your Eames Elephant...

The design of the Eames Elephant is simple and striking at the same time. This item never gets out of style and is therefore a true interior staple. With this template below you can make your very own paper Eames Elephant and it’s really easy, even for kids. Just cut the template, lay it on any paper you like (somewhat firm is important), draw the lines, cut it out and fold the pieces in shape and piece them together. Done! The nice thing about this DIY is that you can choose any color you like, even prints (a wood print seems nice to us) can work really well.

You can also ask a print shop to resize the template to it’s actual size, buy a bigger size paper and make it as big as the ‘real’ Eames Elephant chair.

Download template here.

Source images: Vitra Design Museum