Don’t let your empty toilet roll go to waste - get creative and crafty with your little ones to turn them into everything from colourful flowers to bunnies, owls and spooky Halloween creations.
There’s hours of fun to be had with toilet paper roll when you use your imagination. All you need for our family-friendly crafts are:
–A few empty toilet rolls
–PVA glue
–Scissors
–Colourful paints
–Paper
–Various decorations
–Lots of inspiration
We’re here to help on that last one, with a variety of toilet paper roll craft ideas for children that’ll keep you and your family entertained all afternoon. Not only are there tons of crazy characters to make, re-using your toilet rolls is also a cheap and easy way to have fun with the family that’s environmentally friendly, too.
Don’t forget to tag us in all your wonderful creations on Instagram to show off your toilet paper roll crafts @andrexuk and for even more great parenting advice and tips from us, visit the Andrex Parenting hub.
Toilet paper roll crafts for kids with craft expert Kate Woods
Someone who knows just what to do with empty toilet rolls to make them a lot more exciting is
Kate Woods. As a children’s craft instructor, she’s an expert in making things from household goods and her easy toilet roll crafts for toddlers have been a huge hit on our
Andrex® Instagram page.
Take a look at some of her favourite creations below to get some inspiration for your indoor adventures.
Andrex® Puppy
These cute pooches are super simple to make - and the perfect way to brighten up a rainy day.
1. Paint your toilet roll and leave to dry
2. Using some light brown coloured card, draw and cut out 2 ears, 2 paws and a tail
3. Glue all of these to the toilet roll
4. With your black pen, draw your puppy's face
5. Finally with some blue coloured card draw and cut out the puppys collar and with your yellow card draw and cut out a mini dog tag, glue in place
Mini Andrex® Puppies
The mini puppies are great if you want to take your crafting skills a little further
1. Flatten your toilet roll (my daughters sat on theirs!)
2. Draw out your puppy template using a pencil like the image below
3. Using scissors carefully cut around your template and keep the left over cardboard
4. Push out your toilet roll so it looks like a little puppy (you may want to round off the puppy’s tail)
5. Using your paints, paint the outside and inside of your puppy and leave to dry.
6. With your leftover bits of loo roll, draw and cut out 2 puppy ears.
7. Paint your ears and glue to the face.
8. Carefully with your black pen draw the face, I added a black line all the way round the puppies body, but you could add spots if you wanted!
9. Finally with your coloured card draw and cut out some little flowers and glue in place or you could a tiny collar and lead!
Sea creatures
All you need is some paint and a few bits of string to make these friendly octopuses come to life. To make them, just:
1. Paint and let it dry
2. Make small holes in the bottom with scissors
3. Use string to make tentacles
4. Draw on a happy face
Exotic Parrots
Transforming a grey loo roll into a colourful, beautiful parrot is simple. All you’ll need is:
1. Coloured paper or any feathers you find in your garden
2. Glue
3. Your imagination!
4. Pipe cleaners for feet
15 Toilet paper roll arts and crafts ideas
Below we’ve rounded up 15 of our favourite quick and easy toilet paper roll crafts for kids to give you some more inspiration when you get started.
Ladybirds
Paint your toilet roll tube black then use red coloured card and PVA glue to stick on a pretty pair of ladybird wings. Once you’ve made the body, all you need to do is use a black pen or paint to draw on the spots.
Farm animals
Chickens are a simple toilet paper roll farm animal to make with some coloured card and an empty loo roll tube. Paint the tube yellow, then use red card to make the feathers and glue them on top. You can also make pigs, sheep and cows quite easily too by cutting their ears and tails out of card and decorating with paint.
Toilet paper roll people
Create a whole gang of toilet roll people with a few tubes and some colourful card. Cut out arms and legs from card and stick them on with PVA glue, or poke in some crazy coloured pipe cleaners. Finish off your people by drawing on a smiley face and adding some string for hair.
Bunnies
Bunnies are super quick and easy to make. Grab some glue to stick on the googly eyes, a little nose made from card and some string whiskers to make the face. Then use coloured card to cut out some big ears and glue them to the top of your tube.
Fish
Create pretty fish with tissue paper, colourful card and a toilet roll. Cover your toilet roll in scales made of colourful cards, then add strips of tissue paper to the bottom to create a fishtail effect. Finish off by sticking on googly eyes.
Rocket ships
If you’ve got wannabe astronauts on your hands, they’ll love our rocket ship toilet paper roll crafts. Simply paint the tubes red or blue, glue a stick to the bottom, make a small cone out of card for the tip and add paper straws into the tube
Owl
To make toilet roll paper owls, paint the tube in owl colours, draw or stick on a large pair of eyes, and then make some wings out of card to glue on to the sides. Feathers and some feet made out of card can also be added to finish off your creation. Why not hang them around the house or in house plants.
Monsters
Spooky monsters are super easy toilet roll paper craft to make. Paint your tubes in bright colours then use a marker pen to draw on a scary face. Use scissors to cut out shapes from the top of the tube and decorate with pipe cleaners and string to give your monsters each their own scary personality.
Unicorns
Magical unicorns are quick and easy to make. Paint a tube white or pink to start. Draw on some eyes and eyelashes using a marker pen. Make some pointy ears and a horn out of colourful card to glue on top. Finish off your unicorn by making them a colourful tail out of lots of bright pieces of string and glue it to the back. Cover it in glitter for a magical finishing touch.
Candles
Make a faux-candle decoration by painting your toilet roll holders white then making some card flames to glue on the top out of yellow card. Make a circular base and top for your tube out of card and glue together with PVA glue.
Mermaids
Paint your toilet roll in a skin colour before drawing on a face with a marker pen. Cut out hair, a shell bra, a skirt and a tail out of colourful card. Decorate these with glitter pens if you like to add some sparkle, before using PVA glue to put your mermaid together.
Hula girls
Follow the same steps to make a toilet roll paper hula girl as you did the mermaid creation - but add a stylish hula skirt instead of a mermaid’s tail. Use coloured paper strips and cut thin strips into them to about a centimetre from the edge. Use these to wrap around and make a grass skirt. Next, draw coconuts instead of shells for the bra. You can even accessorise your hula girl by adding flowers to her hair.
Flowers
A slightly more advanced toilet roll craft to try out is creating flowers. You’ll need a good pair of scissors and a steady hand - so adults should always supervise younger children with this activity. First, paint your toilet rolls, then flatten them using your hands. Cut them into small circle strips using the scissors. Glue four of the individual circle strips together to make a flower shape. Use the remaining roll to cut out a stem.
Butterflies
You can use the same technique as the flowers to make colourful butterflies. Once you’ve used the strips to create the wing shape, simply finish off with gluing on a small pipe cleaner down the middle for the butterfly body.
