Easter bunny and chick have a little picnic! - #stayhomeandcraft

This is a gathering of some past toilet paper roll crafts and it makes a really sweet little display - perfect for storing pens and pencils, or a few Easter eggs!

You will need:
3 Toilet paper rolls (or use kitchen paper rolls)
Egg carton
Cereal box card
Plain paper
Paint
Craft glue (and a glue stick is useful too)
Scissors
Feather (optional)
Black pen
Yellow/orange tissue paper (optional)


1. Cut a piece of cereal box, about 12cm by 14cm (5in. x 51/2in.) and cut one cup from the egg carton.

2. Paint one of the tubes green, plus about halfway down the inside, and paint the plain side of the cereal box card.

3. While that's drying, gently press one of the other cones flattish, so it's easier to draw on - try not to crease the sides too much, and draw bunny ears. It helps if you draw a light pencil line down the middle of the cone first, then draw the ears either side. This keeps things even. Roughly half the tube should be bunny body and the rest, right up to the top, should be ears.

Continue the pencil line around the back - we curved ours down a little, then up to meet the other side, but straight is fine too.

4. When cutting out the middle of the ears, cut from the top down to the bottom of the ears on both sides, then fold out the flap of card and remove.

5. Cut down the other side of the ear, then cut down to the line a little further around the back of the tube, fold out and cut the flap off. Cut along the pencil line to the bottom of the other ear.

6. For the chick, flatten the last cone carefully again, and draw a curved line across, about a third of the way up the cone. Continue the line around the back. We curved this down a little, like the bunny, but straight is fine too.

7. Paint the chick, egg carton cup and some spare card (for the basket handle) yellow, and paint your bunny grey (or any other colour you like!)

8. While they're drying, Cut zigzags into you green cone. Make them different widths and lengths. On one side make the grass shorter, so you can see longer strands behind. This adds to the 3D effect.

9. Make some little flowers and insects to add to your grass.  The daisies are thin strips of white paper crossed over each other and glued together with a yellow centre (either paint or draw this on, or use a hole puncher to make a little yellow circle. The butterfly and ladybird and made from cereal box card. There is a more detailed tutorial for this meadow scene HERE.

10. To finish the bunny, either paint the inside of the ears pink, or fold a small piece of paper in half and draw a petal shape that's smaller than your bunny's ears. Cut out so you end up with two identical pieces. If you don't have pink paper, colour in some plain paper.

Glue these in place ( a glue stick is the easiest and least messy way to do this)

For the bunny's tummy, fold a small piece of plain paper in half and draw half an oval shape on the fold. Cut out and open up. Glue near the bottom of your cone.

Use a black pen to draw on eyes, nose and whiskers. Keep the eyes close to the bottom of the ears. Add a cotton wool tail on the back if you like.

11. For the chick, draw eyes with a black pen near the top of the curve, and glue a small orange triangle between them. (You could paint or draw the beak on instead)

If you have any feathers, glue one behind the top of the head.

12. The little basket is based on the nests for happy hens in my book, 'Make Your Own Farm Animals'. There's a link to Amazon here if you'd like to see it.

If you don't have tissue paper, or want a more speedy option, just cut a strip from the yellow card thats a good size for a handle, and glue the ends inside the egg carton cup. Use some paper clips to hold this in place while the glue dries.

If you want to use tissue paper, loosely fold a few sheets of yellow and orange over several times, and cut across, keeping the strips really thin. When you feel you have enough, unfurl and pull the strands apart, then scrunch and rip them up a bit.

13. Brush some glue inside the egg cup and press a good amount of your ripped up tissue paper strands into the glue. Fun and messy! Keep pressing the tissue paper around the inside until it moulds to the shape of the cup, and most of the strands are glued down. Do the same on the outside, pressing and squeezing the cup until the tissue paper looks quite flat. Cut off any fly-away bits.

14. For the handle, glue and press another handful of strands onto the yellow painted card. Press as flat as you can.

Then cut a strip from the middle - shape and size it for the basket, and glue the ends inside. Use paper clips or something similar to hold the ends in place while the glue dries.

15. Assemble all your pieces on the card and glue in place.

To make the base more sturdy, you could glue to a thicker piece of cardboard.

 Now it's ready for pens or chocolate eggs! (know what I'd choose..)

Raining hearts - Valentine's craft for kids

There really is no end to what you can do with cardboard tubes! They're so amazingly versatile - just look at these little hearts. Made from slices of toilet paper rolls simply squeezed into shape. Very satisfying and quick to do, and perfect for Valentine's Day.

You will need:
Toilet paper rolls (or kitchen paper rolls)
Paint
Scissors
String/yarn and a needle
White card (or painted cereal box card)
Sticking tape
Cotton wool (optional)

1. Choose colours for your hearts and start painting. Paint the inside as well as the outside of the tube. And if you're only making a few hearts in each colour, there's no need to paint the whole tube. (You could paint each end different colours if you only have a few tubes spare)

2. When the paint is dry, flatten the tubes with the palm of your hand and press along the two creases.

3. Cut across the flattened tubes, and make each slice roughly about a cm wide.

4. Cut a cloud shape from some white card or cereal box card (ours is about 28cm/11in. wide)

5. To make the heart shape, pinch one of the creases (see pic below) and push the other crease down, towards it, then give this crease a good pinch while you press the top part of the heart into shape with your fingers. Takes a bit of practice, but once you've got the hang of it you'll be making them in a flash.

*We have threaded our hearts together, which needs to be done by a grown up, but if you'd rather not do this, you could stick the hearts onto long strips of paper instead.*

6. We used some white yarn and a needle, and threaded it down through the middle of the heart at the top (leave a good tail to attach to the back of the cloud), and then through the point at the bottom. 

(Use modelling clay to push against, if you're finding it hard to make holes in the card)

We threaded three yellow, green, blue and orange hearts on separate strings and four red ones.

7. When you're finished, tie a knot below the bottom heart, and make sure your hearts are spaced out evenly along the yarn (remember to leave a good tail to stick behind the cloud) 

8. Use sticky tape to attach the threaded hearts to the back of the cloud. To help with spacing the strings evenly, stick down the ones at each end first (blue and green here), then stick the red hearts halfway between, before adding the other two either side.

9. Covering the cloud with cotton wool looks great too. Make sure you tease it out though, so it doesn't look too lumpy.

Shoebox kitchen - table and chairs

Sometimes a craft idea just makes me happy... and this is one of them.

They're often the simplest ideas, and though the chairs mightn't look that simple, honestly, they really are. Each one is made from a single toilet paper tube, and you won't even need any glue.

You will need:
Toilet paper tube (for each chair)
Toilet paper tube (for the table, narrow if possible)
Cereal box card (for table top)
Scissors
Ruler
Pencil
Paint
Craft glue

1. Flatten a tube with the palm of your hand and press firmly all the way down the two creases.

2. Squeeze the tube back into shape, carefully line up the two creases you've just made, and flatten again with the palm of your hand, pressing firmly along the new creases. You'll now have four evenly spaced creases.

3. While the tube is still flat, draw a line across the tube, 4cm from one end. (This will be the height of the seat part of your chair. Check this in relation to your kitchen - you may want it to be higher)

4. Cut down all the creases to the line (from the longer end) and bend out THREE of the flaps, pressing firmly along the fold.

5. Shorten the two flaps either side of the one you didn't bend (the back of the chair). The flaps should be about a cm or so.

6. Bend the front flap inwards, creasing it where it meets the back of the chair, and then snip off the extra, leaving a cm or so (to tuck into the back of the chair). Press firmly along this crease.

7. You can stop here for younger makers - just bend the side flaps inwards, and tuck in the front flap (trim the sides of this flap a little if you need to, for a neat fit). Move to step 13.

8. OR, flatten the chair again and use a ruler to draw a line about a cm below the one you drew in step 3.

9. Then, draw chair legs either side of the creases - try to keep them even, and cut up to the line, OR, have a go at cutting up to the line without the pencil guidelines, keeping the cuts as even as you can. It's easier (and quicker) than you think!

10. Bend each flap of card between the legs outwards, fold on the line and cut off.

11. Squeeze the chair back into shape, press along all the creases one more time, and then fold in the flaps. You may need to trim the sides of the seat flap to get it to fit in neatly. You shouldn't need glue, but if the seat part is popping out, put some glue on the flap and use a paper clip to hold it in place while the glue dries.

12. (OPTIONAL) If you would like to add some detail to the back of the chair, you could draw some rectangles (or a different shape) here, and use some small, sharper scissors, like nail scissors to pierce a hole through the card (put a piece of plasticine/modelling clay behind the card, so there's something to push against). Then carefully cut out the shape.

13. For the table, use a narrow tube if you can, place it beside your chair and decide what height you'd like your table to be. Mark this on the tube, but cut the tube about a cm ABOVE the mark.

14. Make lots of small cuts down the tube to the line and firmly bend and fold back all the flaps.

15. Cut the top of your table from a piece of cereal box card. Ours is 10cm long by 7cm wide, and then we made about a cm fold along the length of the table on both sides (to make it look thicker), but leave this part out if you want to.

16. Glue the base to the middle of the table top and leave it upside down with something on top of the tube, to weigh it down while the glue dries. Then, paint your table and chairs any colour you want.

We went for a wood effect..