Colorful and fun, kids of all ages will love making their own Toilet Paper Roll Butterfly! The process starts with the wings and decorating cards and newspapers. Our printable wings make it easy to create the perfect butterfly wing shape. Once the wings have been constructed it is time to construct the butterfly. This is an adaptable craft that uses recycled resources which means that not only is it fun to make and more sustainable but it is also a low-cost craft project!

Toilet Paper Roll Butterfly

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Like many of our crafts, this toilet paper roll butterfly craft can be adapted to suit the resources that you have handy at home as well as the time you want to spend on this craft. We decorated our wings but you can simply print the wings on colored cardstock and color with pens if you are wanting to save time and potential mess! Or get really creative and decorate with all sorts of other exciting resources! Either way, your butterfly is sure to be stunning.

The same can be said of the body of the butterfly, do as we did and cover with paper and decorate with washi tape and pens. OR why not use paints? OR decorate with fun adhesive gems. Again, no matter how you decided to decorate your butterfly it will be lovely and lots of fun to make!

You Will Need

This is a list of supplies that we used to make our toilet paper roll butterfiles.

The Wings

• Sheet of newspaper
• Watercolor paints or diluted liquid food coloring
• Watercolor paper or other fairly stiff paper
• A dropper, medical syringe or paintbrushes
• The free printable below
• Scissors
• Gluestick
• Palette or containers for the paints
• Paper towels
• Pencil

The Body

• Toilet paper roll
• Colored paper
• Washi tape
• Sticky tape
• Googly eyes
• Sharpie pens
• Pipe cleaners
• Craft glue

The Printable

Click the link below the image to either print now or to save for later.

Let’s Start Our Recycled Crafty Fun

This is a great craft to split into two different sessions. If you are wanting a quick craft project then we would suggest that you print out the wings and decorate with pens so you are not sitting around waiting for paint to dry or rushing kids along as they experiment with color.

The Wings

Start by setting up before inviting children to partake in this art activity. To do this we prepared the colors. Half were food coloring that had been diluted slightly and the other watercolor paints. We used a combination of solid watercolor paints as well as tube watercolor paints which we diluted to a liquid form. The solid watercolor paints will work well but are more suited to being painted on with a brush rather than dropped on with a dropper as we did. Also available are liquid watercolor paints which would be great to use for this project.

We started with the newspaper as I knew once we moved onto white paper the girls wouldn’t want to go back to newsprint! Using a dropper or medical syringe (or anything similar) drop on the different colors bit by bit. Watch the color spread and colors side-by-side combine. If too much color is added, or at the end of the painting stage, place a paper towel gently over to absorb any of the extra paint. As you can see in the photo above, Miss 6 didn’t hold back with her painting at first. By the time we got to the watercolor stage, she had figured out the perfect quantity of color to add without flooding the page.

Once the newspaper has been painted it is time to move onto decorating the watercolor paper. Use the same dropper technique to cover a page of watercolor paper. Set aside to dry.

Print out the wing printable and cut around the wings. Place onto the dry decorated watercolor paper and trace around the wing shape. Cut out the wing shape from the decorated paper. From the newspaper cut circles using the most vibrant or favorite section of painted newspaper. Glue these onto the wings using the gluestick.

The Body

Gather all of the supplies and measure out and cut the colored paper so it is wide enough that it can be wrapped around the toilet roll. Secure in place using sticky tape.

Decorate the body using washi tape. Add on a mouth and rosy cheeks using a Sharpie or other pen. Stick on two googly eyes. Fold the pipe cleaner into a V shape and cut shorter for the antennae. Glue the antennae to the top of the butterfly body using the craft glue.

Once the eyes and antennae have dried stick on the wings. To do this you can either use glue or keep it simple and use sticky tape.

Other Fun Recycled Crafts To Try

• Recycled Bottle Bee Craft
• Newspaper Lion Craft
• Egg Carton Penguin Craft
• Cardboard & Magazine House Craft

Thank you for stopping by. We hope you enjoyed this Toilet Paper Roll Butterfly craft today!