This is a gathering of some past toilet paper roll crafts and it makes a really sweet little display - perfect for storing pens and pencils, or a few Easter eggs!
You will need:
3 Toilet paper rolls (or use kitchen paper rolls)
Egg carton
Cereal box card
Plain paper
Paint
Craft glue (and a glue stick is useful too)
Scissors
Feather (optional)
Black pen
Yellow/orange tissue paper (optional)
1. Cut a piece of cereal box, about 12cm by 14cm (5in. x 51/2in.) and cut one cup from the egg carton.
2. Paint one of the tubes green, plus about halfway down the inside, and paint the plain side of the cereal box card.
3. While that's drying, gently press one of the other cones flattish, so it's easier to draw on - try not to crease the sides too much, and draw bunny ears. It helps if you draw a light pencil line down the middle of the cone first, then draw the ears either side. This keeps things even. Roughly half the tube should be bunny body and the rest, right up to the top, should be ears.
Continue the pencil line around the back - we curved ours down a little, then up to meet the other side, but straight is fine too.
4. When cutting out the middle of the ears, cut from the top down to the bottom of the ears on both sides, then fold out the flap of card and remove.
5. Cut down the other side of the ear, then cut down to the line a little further around the back of the tube, fold out and cut the flap off. Cut along the pencil line to the bottom of the other ear.
6. For the chick, flatten the last cone carefully again, and draw a curved line across, about a third of the way up the cone. Continue the line around the back. We curved this down a little, like the bunny, but straight is fine too.
7. Paint the chick, egg carton cup and some spare card (for the basket handle) yellow, and paint your bunny grey (or any other colour you like!)
8. While they're drying, Cut zigzags into you green cone. Make them different widths and lengths. On one side make the grass shorter, so you can see longer strands behind. This adds to the 3D effect.
9. Make some little flowers and insects to add to your grass. The daisies are thin strips of white paper crossed over each other and glued together with a yellow centre (either paint or draw this on, or use a hole puncher to make a little yellow circle. The butterfly and ladybird and made from cereal box card. There is a more detailed tutorial for this meadow scene HERE.
10. To finish the bunny, either paint the inside of the ears pink, or fold a small piece of paper in half and draw a petal shape that's smaller than your bunny's ears. Cut out so you end up with two identical pieces. If you don't have pink paper, colour in some plain paper.
Glue these in place ( a glue stick is the easiest and least messy way to do this)
For the bunny's tummy, fold a small piece of plain paper in half and draw half an oval shape on the fold. Cut out and open up. Glue near the bottom of your cone.
Use a black pen to draw on eyes, nose and whiskers. Keep the eyes close to the bottom of the ears. Add a cotton wool tail on the back if you like.
11. For the chick, draw eyes with a black pen near the top of the curve, and glue a small orange triangle between them. (You could paint or draw the beak on instead)
If you have any feathers, glue one behind the top of the head.
12. The little basket is based on the nests for happy hens in my book, 'Make Your Own Farm Animals'. There's a link to Amazon here if you'd like to see it.
If you don't have tissue paper, or want a more speedy option, just cut a strip from the yellow card thats a good size for a handle, and glue the ends inside the egg carton cup. Use some paper clips to hold this in place while the glue dries.
If you want to use tissue paper, loosely fold a few sheets of yellow and orange over several times, and cut across, keeping the strips really thin. When you feel you have enough, unfurl and pull the strands apart, then scrunch and rip them up a bit.
13. Brush some glue inside the egg cup and press a good amount of your ripped up tissue paper strands into the glue. Fun and messy! Keep pressing the tissue paper around the inside until it moulds to the shape of the cup, and most of the strands are glued down. Do the same on the outside, pressing and squeezing the cup until the tissue paper looks quite flat. Cut off any fly-away bits.
14. For the handle, glue and press another handful of strands onto the yellow painted card. Press as flat as you can.
Then cut a strip from the middle - shape and size it for the basket, and glue the ends inside. Use paper clips or something similar to hold the ends in place while the glue dries.
15. Assemble all your pieces on the card and glue in place.
To make the base more sturdy, you could glue to a thicker piece of cardboard.
