Loo Roll Crafts!

Making things from toilet roll crafts is a childhood staple isn't it?  Well, with the Health and Safety brigade on the case, these and egg box crafts are in danger of dying out in our schools and nurseries, so it's all the more important that we make these things at home with our kids.

Red Ted Art hosted a brilliant Google Hangout again last night, and this time we were sharing our cardboard roll crafts.  Do check out the video, it's amazing how versatile a loo roll is!

We keep lots of recycled bits and bobs in our junk modelling sack, and loo roll middles and kitchen roll tubes always seem to feature in there, or even better, rolls from wrapping paper - I think I'll try Anthea's idea out on a long tube...

I showed our loo roll birds.  Not exactly an original idea, I suspect people have been making them for as long as there have been toilet rolls, but it's an old favourite none the less.

Ruby made up some brown paint for the owls (a good refresher about colour mixing), and painted two bird bodies in brown, and one in royal blue for a peacock.

A wine bottle is handy for drying - if ever you needed an excuse to drink more wine...

For the owl we pressed down both sides of the top to create the head and ear shape, and for the peacock we squeezed the top into a point.

Once they were dry, we got busy decorating.  Anything goes really, but it's nice to use real feathers (either from a craft shop or ones you've found).  Buttons, circles of card or googly eyes, and a triangle or yellow or orange felt, foam or card for the beak and you're done.

Ruby went to town on her peacock, and we added a concertina folded fan shape for his tail, adorned with real peacock feathers.  She drew on some eyes with extra long eyelashes! She added some sparkly bits of pipe cleaner and a bead popped into the top for his head feathers.  Doesn't he look a fine fella?

Do check out all the other posts featured in the video:

Maggy's loo roll people
Rebecca's Gruffalo and The Cat In The Hat characters
Ali's bird feeder
Anthea's torus shapes
Christine's caterpillar

Finally, I'd LOVE you to vote for me.  I'm gobsmacked to find myself in the final five in the craft category of the Mum and Dad Blog Awards.  A vote for Me and My Shadow would mean the world to me.  Thank you.