Showing posts with label tubescapes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tubescapes. Show all posts

9.11.17

Pop-up card that makes a scene... crafts for kids


Looks familiar?.... yep, it's a tubescape with a new identity.. I just thought a pop-up card (or decoration?) sounded a bit more user friendly.  In all honesty, I'm not completely sure what to call them, so, grateful for any ideas! Ones that don't include 'toilet paper roll', which doesn't always sound so good, when followed by the words 'card' or 'gift'...

Though, to be fair, that is exactly what they are, and they do make sweet (non-wobbly) decorations. This one was inspired by Blue Planet 2! It's a thank you card for a friend, with room on the back for a short message.

'We had a whale of a time!'

Corny or what?

You'll need:
Toilet paper tube
Pencil
Scissors
Paint
Craft glue or glue stick
Sticky tape
Sheet of plain paper
Black pen
Glitter (optional)

1. Flatten the tube with your hand and draw a wavy line (for the sea) across it, about a third of the way up.

2. Cut down the creases, either side, and along the wavy line. Keep the piece of card you've cut away.


3. Mix some blue and white paint for the sky and brush it on the exposed, inside part of the tube (make sure you go right down), and then do splodges of blue and white paint for the sea on the front part. Paint the spare piece of card dark grey for the whale. (We just added some black to our blue and white paint)




4. While that's drying, draw round a small circle (we used the lid of a vanilla essence bottle) on some yellow paper (or plain, and colour in with a yellow felt-tip pen) Add an orange felt-tip swirl if you want.

5. When the paint is dry, glue the sun onto the sky. Draw a whale on the spare painted card. To make the cutting out easier, we drew the body and the tail separately, and extended them at the bottom so there's extra to attach behind the sea.


6. Draw a spout of water on some plain paper, with a bit extra at the bottom so it's easier to attach, and cut out. Or, for a simpler option, cut thin strips of plain paper or tissue paper to glue behind the whale's hump. We added a bit of glitter to ours. Any excuse!



7. Glue the whale's body and tail behind the waves. Once they're in place, use a bit of sticky tape to keep them there... Then glue the water spout behind the hump and draw on an eye with a black pen.


8. Cut a rectangular shaped piece of plain paper, big enough to fit on the back of the tube. Write your message and use a glue stick to glue in place. Unfortunately we sent ours before I remembered I hadn't taken a picture of the message on the back! But sure, there'll be more - we have a few Christmas ideas...






11.5.17

Tubescapes - TP roll craft for kids

toilet paper roll craft

This craft is all about making a scene with a cardboard tube! 
Easy to do and there are a few different tubescape ideas here for you to try. 

You will need:
Toilet paper or kitchen paper tube
Scissors
Ruler
Pencil
Paint
craft glue or glue stick
Coloured or plain paper
Fine black felt-tip or gel pen
Hole punch (optional)
metallic silver pen (optional)

1. For a daytime cityscape, flatten your cardboard tube with your hand (shorten to about 10cm/4in, if you're using a kitchen paper roll). Draw a pencil line across your tube, a few cms (about 1in.) up from the bottom edge. This will be the road. Use a ruler and pencil to draw skyscrapers - make them different sizes.


2. Cut down the creases, either side to the first rooftop. To make it easier to cut around the outline, cut down to the other side of the roof of the first building, bend this flap of card out and cut it off.





3. Paint the background blue, the road dark grey and the buildings a lighter grey.

4. Once that's dry, add short downward strokes, or dots with the black pen for the windows - this takes a bit of time, but it's worth it! Then add any detail you want with paint and a fine brush. We added a sun, trees and little cars on the road (just a dab of paint for the cars. When dry, draw on wheels with the black pen), but it's really up to you. Instead of painting the sun, you could cut out a yellow circle, as we did for the desert island scene.


5. For the night cityscape - follow the same instructions, but paint the whole of the front part with the skyscrapers yellow, and the background black.

6. Once the paint's dry, use a black pen (and a ruler if you want) to colour in the high-rise buildings leaving little rectangles of yellow. (again, time-consuming, but worth it). Colour some windows in though, so it doesn't look like all the lights are on... 
On the road, for headlight beams, you could draw long triangles, then colour around them with the black pen. Cut a moon out of plain paper and if you have a metallic pen, dot on stars. If not, you could dot on yellow paint.

toilet paper tube craft

7. For the desert island, flatten the tube and draw a line across, about half way up. Draw your island above this. Cut down the creases to the pencil line and cut around the outline of your island. Draw and cut a small palm tree from the leftover card.



toilet paper roll craft

8. Paint the sky and sea blue and the island yellow. Paint the palm tree too. Once dry you could paint on the sun, but we cut ours out of yellow paper and drew an orange spiral on it with a felt tip pen. Add some painted white lines to your sea to make it look more wavy if you want. We also drew a shark's fin… and added birds. Glue or use sticky tape to attach the palm tree to the back of the island.

toilet paper tube craft

9. For a pretty meadow scene - paint your tube green. While it's drying, draw simple butterfly shapes and bugs on coloured paper and cut them out (or draw them on plain paper and colour-in or paint before cutting out). Add any detail with the black pen. 
For the daisies - cut a thin strip of plain paper and cut four similar length pieces from it (all about 2cm/3/4in. long). Cross them over each other to make a daisy shape, and use a glue stick to glue them together in the middle. For the centre, either use a hole punch to punch circles from a piece of yellow paper and glue in place - or paint the centres with yellow paint.

10. When the tube is dry, cut zig-zaggy grass - make the strands different heights and widths and keep them lower on one side, so you can see through to the back. This is great scissor cutting practice!
Use a glue stick to attach your flowers and insects.


Love to hear your tubescape ideas!