One thing we always have floating around our home is toilet paper tubes! The girls just love to store them away in the strangest places, to save for craft projects. On one of our recent cleaning missions, I decided enough is enough, we are going to make something out of all of these toilet rolls. And the toilet paper tube elephant was born!

Our original toilet paper tube elephants were not painted and decorated with pens. This is a great alternative if painting sends shivers down your spine. These cuties need not be grey, try a blue elephant or a fun patterned elephant. Let the kids get creative with this fun toilet paper tube elephant craft.

Toilet Paper Tube Elephant

You Will Need

• Toilet paper tube or cardboard tube cut down to the size of a toilet paper tube.
• Googly eyes
• Watercolor paints
• Sharpie
• Foam or Other decorations
• Scissors
• Glue such as PVA

Shop the full list here.

How To Make

First, draw out the ear and head shape onto the toilet roll tube. Have a look at the photos and video to see how we drew a line around the back of the ears. Carefully cut the ears, head and back out, making sure to leave a strip of card intact for the elephant’s trunk.

Using the scrap card draw the elephant trunk and cut out. Bend slightly at the end and stick onto the elephant using glue.

At this stage using a Sharpie draw some texture lines onto your elephant. These lines will show through your watercolor paint if well diluted. If you are using paint that gives a full coverage then feel free to add extra detail once the paint has dried.

Mix grey paint (black and white) or use any other color desired. With watercolor paint make sure to add water! Paint the elephant. A great advantage of using watercolor paint is that it should dry quickly. So ofter we use acrylic paint and the girls leave it super thick which takes AGES to dry. Any paint is fine to use but the dry time is something to consider if you are not wanting to wait around for to decorate your elephant.

Stick on eyes and other decorations. We used some foam flower stickers but there will be all sorts of decorations perfect for the job in your craft box so have a look before rushing to the shop!

If your Sharpie hasn’t shown through go over once the paint has dried.

As soon as our elephants had dried the girls stacked them up. Got to love the creativity of children! If you do make these elephants we would love to see them.

If you liked this article you may also enjoy:

• Toilet Paper Roll Toadstools
• Cardboard Roll Royal Family
• 12 Fun Kids Cardboard Roll Crafts

This post contains affiliate links. These links add no cost to you but we earn a small commission through linked sales which ensures that we can keep bringing you articles like this one. Thank you for your support!