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The Craft Train

Crafty ideas for kids and parents

You are here: Home / Crafts and Activities / DIY Toys / Paper roll spider stick puppets

Paper roll spider stick puppets

October 12, 2021 By Kate Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no cost to you.

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Upcycle some old cardboard tubes into a set of paper roll spider puppets. This is a simple cardboard DIY toy kids can make. 

This spider craft is easy enough for preschoolers (with some help) and is also a great way to practice fine motor skills.

Once you’re done they will love making up puppet shows with their spiders!

This craft was first published in 2013 and has been updated and reshared for today’s audience.

You might also like these 30 paper roll craft ideas

paper roll puppets spiders

These spider puppets are a craft I’ve been meaning to update for a long time but haven’t gotten around to it. I thought of them this week when I shared our 3D paper spiders and our felt spiders from the Sewing Simple Softies book.

So, even though it means going into a bit of spider craft overkill, I decided to reshare them at last today.

The girls had a lot of fun with this project. You can tell that by the sheer number of spiders we made. Literally, a king’s court of spiders. 

kid with spider puppets

We made the king, queen, jester, princess, prince, and even the queen’s mum. We would have made a queen’s dad too but we ran out of time, haha. The royal theme was something my girls were into BIG time when they were four and five. It also added to their imaginative story-telling during puppet play later on.

Although we’ve used felt to make our spiders, you could easily do away with that and just paint the paper rolls instead. It would be easier, cheaper, and stronger too because glued-on felt has a way of falling apart.

How to make paper roll felt spiders

You will need:

  • Toilet rolls cut into smaller sections (approx 3 sections per toilet roll)
  • Felt in assorted colours, cut into strips (or use paint instead)
  • Fabric glue 
  • Googly eyes — or use our free printable paper eyes for a more eco friendly version
  • Pipe cleaners (4 per spider)
  • Dowel rod (1 per spider)
  • Scissors and small hole punch
  • Hot glue gun

How to

Cover the toilet roll with glue, and wrap a piece of felt around it. Trim to size.

spider puppet steps

Add google eyes and a felt mouth.

spider puppet steps

Use a hole punch to create four holes along each side.

spider puppet steps

Thread the legs through.

how to make the legs

Decorate your puppet further if you wish. We added felt hair and a crown to turn this one into a princess. We also twisted pipe cleaners together to make the legs stripey.

spider puppet idea

The girls had fun designing their own puppets too.

fine motor skills

kid with spider

Glue a dowel rod to the inside with a hot glue gun to finish off your puppet.

Here are some more of our finished puppets …

kids with her handmade spider puppet

The princess

kid holding handmade toilet roll spider

The jester

jester paper roll spider stick puppet

The king

king spider stick puppet

And the queen’s mum

the queens mum spider

You can theme your own paper roll spiders any way you like.

More puppet crafts for kids

  • Make a snapping paper plate frog puppet
  • Here are some seahorse paper roll stick puppets
  • Use our printable template to create flying pterodactyl puppets
  • Make some munching matchbox monster puppets
  • These paper roll empathy dolls have to be the coolest puppets ever. They can smile, but they can also get angry, cry and feel worried too

paper roll spider puppet collage

 

 

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  • Kate GronoKate GronoCrazy Craft Fanatic

    I’m basically a big kid who never grew up and still loves to muck around with paint, glitter, glue and toilet rolls. With the crafts shared here on this website I’m hoping to give other parents and carers inspiration to get crafty with their kids at home – make our projects, or use them as a source of inspiration to spark ideas of your own. When it comes to crafting no rules apply!

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