At the end of the summer, I decided that I would get a little crafty with some left over toilet paper rolls. The result were these adorable upcycled bees and butterflies. Then around the beginning of November, I decided to use the same concept to dress up our Thanksgiving table using a paper towel roll…and I think my Turkey & Pilgrim Hat Place Card Holders came out pretty well. Unfortunately, my kids now think that we can and must craft things out of cardboard tubes. In fact, they freak out if I try to throw one away. We now have a stock pile of cardboard tubes in our house.
So with winter weather upon us (and in an attempt to try and find something to do with my kids inside while this 40-50 degree South Florida winter weather is upon us – brrrrr) I figured we should make a cooler craft – Penguins! And to make sure our new cool weather friends don’t get too cold, we would decked them out in some earmuffs. My kids were thrilled to to be doing yet another toilet paper roll craft…honestly, I’m not sure that this is our last one!
You will need:
Toilet paper roll
Black paint
Yellow & white foam (you could also use construction paper)
Googily eyes
Pipe cleaners
Pom poms
Paint brushes
Glue (hot glue & tacky glue)
Scissors
Wax Paper
Step 1 – Paint the outside of the cardboard roll black. Once finished with the outside, paint about one inch down on one side of the tube; this will be the top of your penguin. Place on wax paper and allow to dry completely. This is my kids favorite part, even if I did freak out about them using black paint.
Step 2 – Draw an oval on your white foam, about 4 inches in diameter. Cut the oval out of the foam, then cut a small portion off the bottom of one side of the oval so you have a straight edge (on one side only) – this will go at the bottom of your penguin. I’d give you a template, but I drew mine freehand.
Step 3 – Glue the oval on to the painted toilet paper roll, with the straight edge of the foam oval at the bottom and the painted inside of the toilet paper roll at the top. Make sure to leave a little room below the straight edge at the bottom of the toilet paper roll to place the penguins feet.
Step 4 – Cut a beak and feet out of your yellow foam, then hot glue them to the toilet paper roll, with the feet being just below the white foam and the beak being in the middle of where you’d like the face to be. Glue the googily eyes on above the beak.
Step 5 – To keep your new friends warm – and make them a little cuter – make them some earmuffs by cutting a pipe cleaner to 4 inches and hot gluing a pom pom to each end of the pipe cleaner. Bend the pipe cleaner around the penguins head.
If you’re looking to stretch out the winter fun (and kill more time while you’re stuck inside), you can incorporate this craft when reading Mr. Popper’s Penguins, The Littlest Penguins, and, my personal favorite, My Personal Penguin!
