Fun With Paper Towel Rolls
Paper towel roll crafts are the modern family’s answer to how to further lower the impact of using paper on the environment. The use of paper towels and roll towel dispensers has always been criticized for its expensive wholesale costs as well as its impact on the environment as opposed to, for example, using electric hand dryers. However, one cannot discount how useful these items are, especially when it comes to their convenience and ease of use, particularly when it comes to cleaning up mess from spilled drinks and food.
If your family simply cannot do away with paper towels, here are some fun paper towel roll crafts that you can do with your kids in your free time. They’re particularly great if your child has to produce a recycling project for Show and Tell. Indeed, I hope to convince you that by converting re-usable materials into fun crafts, you can help your kids have a lot of fun and teach them some important lessons about environmental conservation in the process. These paper towel roll crafts are simple enough for even small children to build, and will produce fun creations your children will love and treasure.
Colorful Chicken (Towel) Rolls
Many paper towel roll crafts produce things that are both fun for kids to play with and useful when they tire of them. This is one such project.
First, take a piece of yellow craft paper and wrap it around the paper towel roll. Attach the paper with glue and set both aside to dry. Using some different-colored paper, draw the chicken wings, feet and beak, using whatever colors you please. You can use green for the wings, red for the feet and orange for the beak. But hey, there’s really no reason not to let your imagination go wild and make a rainbow chicken. Use a pair of scissors to cut the parts out. Make sure an adult is present for this part of the process, especially if younger children are handling cutting tools.
Now, using the glue, stick the wings, feet and beak to the toilet paper roll. Stick the a pair of googly eyes (you’ll find them in toy and accessory stores) where the eyes are supposed to be. Take some cardboard paper and cut it into a solid circle. Stick this to the base of the roll to give it some stability. Sprinkle with glitter and add on colored feathers to jaz up what, you’ll see, can now act as a pencil or stationary stand. You can also add on seashells or some stickers to make your craft more unique.
Paper Towel Roll Transformers
Are your kids bored with their factory-made toys? This next entry is one of my favorite paper towel roll crafts, and it’s one that your kids will enjoy making and playing with.
Take a piece of aluminum foil and wrap up the toilet paper tube in its entirety. It’s best to secure the aluminum foil with glue and tuck the excess foil into the ends into the tube. Set this aside while you draw a rectangle on some craft paper and make a robot face (you can make one up, or choose your favorite transformer to model it on). You can also stick on some googly eyes to give the robot a bit more personality. Glue the robot face onto the aluminum-covered tube. Now take another piece of colored craft paper and make a control panel with switches and lights. Draw dots for the switches and buttons and a rectangle (divided into 3 or 4 sections) as lights. Now stick some fuzzy wires on top of the head as robot antennas. You can also draw arms on the craft paper, cut them out, and stick one to each side. While you’re at it, there’s no reason not to fashion a sword from aluminum paper and stick it to the robot’s hand. You can even cover other paper towel rolls with aluminum and design them as robot cars, rocket ships and robot buildings.
These are just two of a near infinite list of wonderful projects you can make using simple items that you’d normally class as household waste. Show your children these projects, and it won’t be long before you’ll need to hide your paper towel rolls to keep your kids from destroying them for more paper towel roll crafts.
