This swan craft for kids has to be one of the EASIEST toilet roll crafts ever.
Paper roll swans are a fun recycling craft for kids of all ages and your finished swan can be embellished with real feathers and sparkles if you choose. We just opted for simple painting in rainbow colours this time around.
This kids craft activity was originally published in 2016 and has been updated and reshared for today’s audience.
You might also like our paper roll dinosaurs
Toilet roll crafts are something I find a little bit addictive. When you figure out just how many possibilities there are for cutting and folding them it’s hard to stop one idea from leading to another and then another.
These swans are particularly simple to create, the first time we made them was back when the girls were princess-obsessed preschoolers.
We originally put together a set of 11 swans along with a paper roll princess as story telling props to go along with Hans Christien Anderson’s fairy tale The Wild Swans. They went perfectly with our cardboard castle! Here is a pic of the preschooler-made swans for you…
Aren’t they sweet? You can find the original article where we shared it as a guest post over at Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas back in 2013.
Today the swans have been modernised slightly, but they are still super easy and a great craft to make with little ones who can paint and decorate them.
I know there are people out there who get a bit squeamish at the thought of making anything from toilet rolls. It doesn’t need to be a toilet roll – paper towel rolls cut in half are perfect too!
How to make a Toilet roll swan craft
You will need:
- Cardboard tubes (toilet rolls, or paper towel rolls cut in half)
- Scissors
- Paint
- Sharpie
- PVA or craft glue
How To:
Squash your toilet roll flat, then cut it in the shape shown above. Use the discarded piece of cardboard to cut the leaf-shaped wings from.
Pop the toilet roll back into a round shape and bend the pointy piece down so that it looks like a swan’s graceful neck. It’s easier to glue the wings on after you paint them, but for the purposes of showing how to put it together I have stuck them on before painting.
Paint and decorate your swan, and draw two dots for eyes with your sharpie marker (or use black paint) once it’s dry. I’ve gone for bright colours but you could stick to the more accurate white or black colours if you want your swans to look more realistic.
They make a fun DIY toy for kids – go on, make one.
More paper roll animals kids can make
Squash, cut and fold paper roll animals our our specialty! You can also make…
- A frill-necked lizard
- A Triceratops and Diplodocus
- A frog
- Some bunnies
- A tropical fish
- A seahorse stick puppet
Love this idea, but I’m a bit squeamish about using toilet roll tube, maybe it would be more hygienic to use paper towel tubes 🙂
You can definitely use that instead, I actually find a particular brand of paper towel gives the best paper rolls for crafting so I usually stock up on them and use for all my cardboard tube crafts. I don’t know why I call them toilet roll crafts!
Why? You don’t use the cardboard roll. It is quite clean!
really cool
Ooh! These could end up as dragons! I love recycling materials to make new awesome crafts!
If using toilet rolls just pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds.
Great tip!