Craft for Kids: Toilet Paper Tube Owls

It is amazing what you can do with an empty roll of toilet paper. The cardboard tubes can turn into all kinds of animals. One animal you can make from an empty roll of toilet paper is a little owl. This article will teach you how to make such an owl and will show you images of how darling a family of owls can look.

To make this craft, you will need empty toilet paper tubes or paper towel tubes. You will also need craft paint, scraps of decorative paper or fabric, wiggle eyes, and glue. Of course, you can embellish the owls any way you want with whatever craft supplies you have on hand. You are only limited to your imagination.

To start your owl, cut your tube to whatever length you want. It's nice to make owls in various heights, but you can start with a four or five in piece of tube. After you cut your tube, press the top of both side of the tube toward the center. See this image for what this step looks like. You don't have to tape the ends down. Just press them in and leave it.

Now paint your tube any color you want. You can use any craft paint such as poster paint or acrylic paints. You can also use water colors, just don't make the paint too watery. Water colors will give the owl a washed look.

When the painted tube is dry, it's time to add the wings, the eyes and the beak. For eyes, simply glue on two wiggle eyes. You can buy a bag of wiggle eyes in the craft section of just about any store that sells craft supplies. For the beak, just cut a triangle out of yellow paper and glue it on just below the eyes. For wings, cut two oval leaf shapes out of decorative paper or wrapping paper. You can also cut the wings out of scraps of fabric. If you don't have decorative paper or fabric, just draw some designs on colored paper, or cut wings out of magazine pages. Glue the wings wrapped around each side of the tube. You can see how to place the eyes, beak and wings on the owl by clicking on this image. Aren't those little owls cute!

If you are one who worries about crafts coming out perfectly, viewing this image will show you that you don't have to be perfect when it comes to crafting. Different size eyes, upside down beaks, broken wings and bad paint jobs still turn out a darling family of owls. In fact, the sloppy owls have more character and charm than those that are put together carefully. So, have fun making your toilet paper tube owls!