Cardboard Tube Mermaids

You will need:

How to:

Begin by flattening your paper towel roll by squashing it. Cut the top quarter off the roll and keep that piece aside for the tail fin. With the larger piece fold the corner edges in on the bottom half as shown below.

Trim the corners off the edges and then tuck them inside the roll so it begins to take the shape of a tail.

With the reserved quarter, cut it as shown and then unfold into the tail fin shape.

It will slot in and be stapled together to make the mermaid body and tail. You can staple it together before painting if you like to make it easier for the kids to see what they are making, but I painted it first in pieces and then stapled after they were dry to get a cleaner result.

Once painted, dried and stapled they are ready to decorate! This is the fun part. We used yarn and felt for our hair, googly eyes and felt for the mouth, sequins and glitter glue for the embellishments on the tail and little craft flowers for the mermaids’ bikini tops. Of course, you can use whatever you like, the sky is the limit and you can be be as creative as you like.

The girls were really proud of their mermaid creations. I thought they were adorable too! And these are the lovely ladies I made myself…

Now they just need a lovely underwater city to live and play in!

More fun cardboard tube craft ideas

– Make some easy toilet roll shakers
– Create cut and fold toilet roll dinosaurs
– Here are some simple toilet roll fish
– Make some cute little bunnies
– Here are some colourful cut and fold toilet roll elephants
– Make some fun empathy dolls with movable faces
– Here are some simple and cute toilet roll Reindeer
– Here are some fun toilet roll houses with pom pom pets to live inside them
– What about an easy cardboard tube frill neck lizard