toilet tube Easter chicks

We made these sweet little Easter chicks and nests today.

I was kind of “winging it” (pardon the pun) as we went along, so some of the materials that you see on the tray got swapped out for different things as we went along.  We didn’t end up using the fabric swatches for wings.  Instead, we crumpled yellow tissue paper up, and used that to give the chicks a “fluffy” appearance.  Originally, I set out purple foam triangles for beaks because I didn’t think I had orange ones.  I ended up finding some orange foam letters, so I cut the beaks out of those instead.

Ok, here’s what we did:

I cut some toilet rolls down a bit so the chicks wouldn’t be too tall, and then the Hooligans painted the tubes with a couple of different shades of yellow paint.

When the tubes were dry, they glued on googly eyes and a beak.

Then they crumpled up squares of yellow tissue paper to make wings/feathers. And they stuffed a long, strip of tissue paper into the top of the tube.

For the nests, we used a stash of shredded brown paper that a gift came cushioned in a while back.  I held on to the paper, knowing we’d put it to good use one day.  If you have a paper shredder you could put some brown construction paper, or the panel from a brown paper bag through it.

I cut a circle out of construction paper, and the Hooligans glued a handful of the shredded paper onto the circle.  Make a little “hole” in the center, and nestle your little chick in all nice and cozy.

Aren’t they cute?Looking for more super toilet tube crafts?  Check out our toilet tube owls, snowmen, reindeer and mummies!

toilet tube Santa

I’ve had the idea for making a toilet tube Santa knocking around in my head for a couple of weeks, but I don’t think I’m going to get around to doing a bunch of them with the Hooligans, so today, when I spied this empty toilet tube, I seized the moment, and  whipped up this little guy.

He didn’t take long to make at all.  Maybe 10 or 15 minutes start to finish, but the entire time I was making him, I was thinking “WHAT am I doing???”  I mean seriously.  I have enough things that NEED to be done, like baking, cooking, cleaning, shopping, aprons for the Hooligans, pj’s for my boys.  Why am I making a toilet tube craft?  On a Saturday?  All by myself?  The Hooligans aren’t even here today.   Is there something wrong with me?.

Anyway, here it is.  It’s short and sweet (I used a glue gun for most of the gluing):

Paint the face area of a toilet tube in a peachy colour.

Cut a couple of strips of red fleece (or fabric – or you could paint it for that matter), and glue one strip around the top of the tube (the hat), and one around the bottom (the suit), leaving space in between for the face.

Cut away any excess hat fabric from the back of the hat, and kind of tuck a bit of the hat down into the tube until you’re happy with the shape of it.  Glue a pom-pom onto the end of the hat.  Trim the hat with a white pipe cleaner.

Stretch a cotton ball out and fluff it up a bit, pulling it a part in the center to make a space for the face.  Glue it over the peachy area of the tube.

Glue a button on Santa’s suit.

Add some googly eyes, and some red gems for his nose and cheeks, and Bob’s your Uncle!!  Awwww, isn’t he sweet?  

toilet tube reindeer

It’s hard to believe that Christmas is a little over 3 weeks away!  It’s a balmy, sunny 5 degrees today, and it feels more like October than December!

Now, you know I looooves me some toilet tube crafts, so when I came upon these little sweeties over at Craft Snob, I was inspired to make some little reindeer of our own.

They were super-easy to make.  We used toilet tubes cut in half.  You could paint your tubes brown, but we covered ours with wall paper samples.  If you haven’t yet, you really have to visit your local paint/paper shop and ask for some outdated wallpaper sample books.  You can use the wall paper samples for so many crafts.

Once the tubes were covered, I poked holes for the Hooligans to slide a pipe cleaner through, for the antlers.

You could use a red pom-pom or a button for the nose, but I had some artificial berries that were wired, so I poked another hole, and the kids poked the wire through.  I just kind of crumpled the wire up, on the inside of the tube, to hold the “nose” in place.

Some glue for the eyes, and a ribbon for hanging…

and tada….

How simple was that?  And how darn cute are they?!!

snowmen ornaments

We woke up to a light (and I mean really light) dusting of snow this morning.  It had disappeared by mid-morning, but it put me in the mood for some winter crafting.

I hadn’t planned this at all, but it all pulled together easily enough.  The materials are things that you likely have around the house.

We started by painting some toilet paper tubes with white paint.  We used acrylic, but any paint will do.

They dried very quickly in the breeze and the sunshine.

Before we continued, I stapled some rafia to the top of the tube so it could be used as a tree ornament.

Next wrap a strip of scrap fabric around the top of the tube (my scraps came from a fleece blanket and a couple of tee shirts).  We went around the tube first with glue, but after wrapping the strip around, I stapled it, to make sure it stayed in place. 

Another strip of scrap fabric (again, glue around the tube first) makes a cute scarf.

We used black beans for the eyes, and some orange craft foam for the noses.

Glue a few buttons down the belly, and stand back and you’re done!

We placed ours by the fire to dry the glue quickly.   We always dry our projects by the fire, but nothing we’ve ever made looks as cute as these guys do standing in front of the flames!!  I couldn’t resist taking a picture. 

Aren’t they so sweet?

ghost mud

Ghost mud was the perfect thing to make today, on this last day of October, to celebrate Hallowe’en.  I first read about ghost mud over at Teacher Tom’s.

Grate a bar of Ivory soap and add it to about 1 cup of hot water.  Stir it around a few times until it’s melty and mushy.

Meanwhile, toss a roll of toilet paper to your little people, and challenge them to get all of the paper off of the roll.  Enjoy the giggling and squealing that follows.

Now, just pile all that t.p. into a large bin or basin, and have the kiddos rip it into a million pieces.  How fun is this activity?  And we haven’t even gotten to the “mud” part yet!

Once your t.p. has been shredded, pour the soapy water into the basin and start mushing and mashing everything all together with your hands.  It feels good, and smells great, and you wind up with this awesome slippery, silky, moldable “dough”.

I’m not sure if ours turned out exactly as it should have.  I’ve heard others say it should have the consistency of cool whip.  I don’t believe ours ever did.  It was pulpier than that, but maybe we didn’t rip our t.p. enough.  You know what though?  It totally didn’t matter.

This stuff was awesome!

tissue paper mummies

I’ve seen so many adorable mummy craft ideas floating around out there, so this morning we decided to whip up some of our own.  

First, to strengthen the toilet paper tube, I inserted one tube into another.  It just makes the tube a little less flimsy.

I cut a sheet of white tissue paper into long strips and the Hooligans wrapped those around toilet paper tubes.  We used a bit of tape to secure the tissue to the tube.

Then we wrapped some white wool around the tube. 

Glue on a couple of googly eyes, and you’re done!  ( I apologize for the blurriness of some of the pics – I still have a lot to learn when it comes to my new camera).

How easy was that?  Aren’t they sweet?

adorable owls!

Ok, so they’re not exactly in keeping with Hallowe’en, but I’ve seen quite a few of you making these adorable owls lately, and then yesterday, my friend Joanne, from Ordinary Normal, shared her pics (I don’t know if they’re on her blog yet, I saw them on her facebook), and that was it – I had to make them.  They’re SO cute!

Just sqeeze the end of a toilet paper tube to form the ears of the owl.  You can tape it in place, but I made ours up ahead of time, and used my glue-gun.

The baby got to paint with water while we worked.

Now you can paint your owl.  We used acrylic paints, and they dried quickly.  

Now it’s time to dec your owl out with wings, eyes, a beak and anything else you want to use – sequins, beads, buttons etc.

Aren’t they so SWEET?