Toliet Paper Roll Crafts

•2 Cardboard Toilet Paper Rolls
•Small Piece of Lightweight Cardboard (From a Cereal Box, Etc.)
•Paint
•School Glue
•Scissors








Dragon

•Toilet Paper Roll
•Paint
•Orange Tissue Paper
•Pom-poms
•Wiggle Eyes
•Craft Glue
•Tape
•Paint Brush
•Scissors
Instructions:
Paint the cardboard tube green to be the dragons head. You can leave it 'just green' or you can add details like scales, nostrils, teeth along the side, and anything else you might want.

While you are waiting for the paint to dry, you can cut several strips from orange tissue paper (you can use other colors, but I usually choose orange to represent the fire). You will want about 8 strips that are 1" wide by about 10" long, although the length can vary a little.

When the paint on the tube is dry, tape one end of each tissue strip to one end of the tube. The tissue should be taped just inside the tube opening to hide the end. You can tape on as few or as many tissue paper strips as you like. This will represent the dragon's mouth and the fire.

Now you can make the dragon's eyes by gluing two green pom-poms, side-by-side, onto the center of the roll. Glue the wiggle eyes onto the pom-poms facing the side of the tube with the fire.

Once your dragon is complete, you can make it 'breathe fire'. Gently tuck the tissue paper strips into the opening they are taped in and blow hard on the other end of the tube. Watch how the dragon seems to breath fire!


Pencil Holder

You need:

Empty Toilet Paper Holder
15 Craft Sticks
Cardboard
Paint/Markers
Tacky Glue
Rubber Bands
Circle and Star Woodies
Instructions:

Paint craft sticks. Let dry. Trace the end of the toilet paper holder on to cardboard. Cut this circle out. Glue it on to one end of the cardboard tube. Let dry. Cover tube with a light coat of tacky glue. Place painted sticks side-by-side to cover tube. Wrap with rubber bands until dry. Decorate with painted, pre-cut wood shapes if desired.


Bracelet
You will need:

4 cardboard tubes
Small box
Pink/purple card
Pink/purple paint
Black pen
Glue
Sequins/glitter/pens to decorate


Castle
Paint the castle in either pink or purple paint, then leave to dry. From the card cut out two side-plate sized circles. Cut the circles in half to make 4 semi circles. Roll the semicircles into cones and tape to secure. These should be placed (not glued) onto the towers as roofs, so that they become "lids" to the containers within the towers.

For the door way / front tower, draw a rectangle as tall as the box and about 2 inches wide, with an arch at the top (see photo above) and cut out. Glue the front tower to the middle of one of the wide sides.

With the black pen draw windows and doors on to the castle. Use sequins, glitter, pens and any other embellishments to decorate.

Now you can store your pens and pencils in the towers and your pencil sharpeners and erasers (rubbers) in the base of the castle.





Make a Toilet Paper Roll Octopus

Make octopi!

Start by cutting 8 tentacles of equal width. Start by pinching one end so that it’s almost flat. You can pinch the sides to make a crease as long as you only pinch one end. Then you just use scissors to cut the tube in half. Make the cut somewhere between half and two-thirds the length of the tube, depending on how long you want the tentacles to be.


Next, rotate the tube 90 degrees and cut again. If you pinched the sides before, be sure to align the tube so that the creases touch. At this point you should have four more-or-less equal “legs”.


From here you just cut each leg in half length-wise, giving you a total of eight legs. Fan each tentacle outward.


Optional: Trim each tentacle so that it’s narrower at the top than at the base.

Also Optional: Roll each leg around a pencil or crayon and release to curl the tentacles upward.

Also Optional: Color the octopus or glue a half-sheet of construction paper around the outside (I recommends trying this before you start cutting out the octopus). Alternately, you could color it with crayons, but I’ve always found coloring a round surface challenging at best.

Insanely Optional: If you have a hole-punch, you’ve also got lots of little paper circles left over. If you have the patience of a saint, you can glue them to the underside of the tentacles and it will look like suckers.

The final step is just to draw some eyes on your octopus. I used white-out and a marker to make mine’s eyes. You can use octopi as decorations for an aquatic themed birthday party, Octopus Day, or Talk Like a Pirate Day celebration!

Making this craft is a good opportunity to teach your kids about octopi. It could be just the thing to get them interested in science.

Octopus Facts = Learning Time

•Octopi have no bones. Animals with out bones are called invertebrates.
•Octopi usually eat crabs and other mollusks.
•Some octopi can change change color to blend in with their surroundings like a chameleon.
•When threatened by a predator, some Octopi will squirt ink to help escape.