The Most Creative Toilet Roll Crafts Around

Colourful flying fish and mini cities? These aren’t the first ideas that come to mind when you think of the humble toilet roll core. But these two toilet roll craft ideas for kids are two of the best things to make with toilet rolls. These toilet paper roll crafts will keep your little ones busy for hours on a rainy day or over the holidays. 

When it comes to making fun toilet paper rolls crafts, we recommend that a responsible adult takes care of the cutting, while little assistants look after painting and assembly. 

flying fish | mini city

What to make with toilet rolls: flying fish

If you’re looking for things to make with toilet rolls, start with these cute and colourful koi carp. Use a Cushelle toilet roll tube for his body and some shredded Cushelle facial tissues for his flowing tail. 

Takes 1.5 hours

1. Start by making the fish’s body. Flatten one end of the toilet roll tube and get an adult to cut off the corners.
2. For the fins, take a piece of spare card and draw two matching teardrop shapes. Get an adult to help cut them out.
3. Glue the fins to each side of the toilet roll tube and paint the fish in colourful paint. Wait for it to dry. 
4. Get your gold pen and let your child draw shiny scales on the fish’s body.
5. To make the fish’s billowy tail, tear a tissue into thin strips. Glue the ends in between the flattened end of the fish’s body. You may need to hold the tail together with a peg until the glue dries. 

   For a fish tail that is soft and billowy (but that’ll hold together even when wet with glue) use a tissue that is as strong as it is soft, like Cushelle.

6. For the fish’s eyes, scrunch up some tissue to form two small balls. Glue them onto the head of the fish for its eyes. Bring them alive by adding black dots with a pen.
7. If you want to string the fish up as a decoration, make two holes in the open ‘mouth’ end and thread some string through for hanging.

Mini city toilet roll craft

Kids will love to make these colourful cardboard tube crafts, which they can stack to make a town using empty Cushelle toilet roll tubes.

Takes about 2 hours

1. Get an adult to cut the toilet roll tubes into different lengths, so you can have some small cottages and some high-rise buildings.
2. Let your child paint the toilet roll tubes in whatever colours they like and leave them to dry. For added brightness, apply a second coat on each.
3. Draw windows on the painted tubes with black and white marker pens, and add doors on a few of them. If you like, you can cut some of the doors open with scissors.
4. Get an adult to cut open the empty tissue box and flatten. Draw and cut out some rectangular pieces of card measuring 10 x 6 cm, and fold each in half. These will be the roofs. Let your child unleash their creativity on the tissue box by painting and decorating it with pens in whatever style they wish. When dry stick to the tops of some of the buildings.
5. Roll up some of the leftover card into mini ‘chimneys’ and stuff with some scrunched soft tissue to create the illusion of smoke. Glue to some of the roof-less buildings. 
6. With the remaining buildings, get an adult to carefully make 2 cm cuts around the tops of the ‘roofless’ buildings, so that they can be slotted on top of others to create even taller buildings.

Next time you’re tempted to throw your toilet roll cores into the recycling bin, you may want to save them for these toilet roll craft ideas for kids.