This cute and easy craft is not only wallet friendly, but earth friendly too! I LOVE creating things with toilet paper and paper towel rolls because they work so well for so many things! And at the rate we come across them, we mind as well find a fun way to use them! Halloween is a great time to get creative with these little babies, and one way to do it is to create some spooky friends! These “Monster Buddies” are great for those preschool and elementary school crafters to not only play with, but create! To start you’ll need:
- A large empty coffee can
- multi-colored construction paper
- 4 toilet paper rolls
- googly eyes
- acrylic paint in the colors orange, mint green, and off white
- glue, preferably a glue gun or Tacky glue
- scissors
- paintbrushes
- black marker
- Halloween stickers for decor
To begin, you will need to make sure your coffee can is washed out and your toilet paper rolls have been stripped of all toilet paper. Once that is done, you can begin painting your toilet paper rolls. For the mummy roll, we are going to leave that as is, so put one toilet paper roll aside. Paint the remaining three rolls with at least two coats of the paint colors listed above. If you don’t have access to acrylic paint, regular art paint will work. Acrylic paint is more vibrant and sticks better to the rolls without chipping, so acrylic is my preferred choice. Toe achieve the vibrant look, add two to three coats and leave to dry overnight. Once dried, you can begin to decorate.
To decorate the pumpkin, cut out three small triangles. Arrange two triangles to form eyes and turn the other triangle upside down to form the nose. Cut out a funny looking mouth and attach on with glue. Cut a thumb shaped brown stem and attach to the inside of the toilet paper roll. Cut out a long football shape on green construction paper and use a pen or pencil to curl it by wrapping it around. Glue the curled leaf next to the brown stem on the inside of the roll. You are officially the pumpkin King or Queen!
To create Dracula the vampire, take your off white colored roll and glue two googly eyes in the middle. Take your black construction paper and cut out the hair design by adding two arches in between a triangle. Once that is cut out, you glue it onto the top of the roll. Take your black marker and draw a half circle smile. Add two small white triangles for teeth on the arches of the smile. Take your red construction paper and cut an obtuse triangle out for the cape. Take the triangle and glue it onto the back center of the roll. After that, you’re all done! Time for some blood sucking good times!
To make the Frankenstein monster, take your mint green painted roll and glue a small black rectangle cut from construction paper, near the bottom for a mouth. Angle the rectangle ever so slightly, for a creepy smile look. Take a second black rectangle and glue it an inch or so above, for his bushy uni brow. Take two googly eyes and glue right towards the bottom of the eyebrow rectangle. Cut out a strip of small black triangles on black construction paper and glue to the top for hair. After that, it’s alive! He’s ALIVE!!
To create the mummy, it basically requires no effort. Take your bare roll and glue two googly eyes in the middle of the roll. Cut out 1/4 inch wide strips of toilet paper and glue back onto the roll, making it look like your wrapping a mummy. Once you have achieved the mummified look you want, you’re all done! Ready for its tomb sweet tomb!
To keep these monster buddies from getting lost or damaged, take a large coffee can and decorate it with Halloween themed stickers and construction paper! I covered mine with orange, with the intention to make it a jack-o-lantern, but decided last minute to make it cute and festive with some felt stickers i grabbed from the Dollar Tree. All of these materials, i snagged from either the Dollar Tree or Target, or was laying around my house ready for the trashcan. It’s good to be Eco-friendly while being creative!
When it comes to playing with them, you can use them to encourage imaginative play by simply letting your child make up their own use for them. You can use them as puppets in a play, ask your preschool child to describe them using color references. You can talk about the various shapes that are found, since there are most present in this craft. You can count the monster buddies, hide them for hide and seek, etc. There are so many fun ways to play, and I hope you enjoy creating them just as much as I did!
Balancing Blocks 