I saw a really cute image of toilet paper rolls covered with Halloween fabric to make little pumpkins. While I have a lot of Halloween fabric in my stash right now (oh my I'm getting a fabric stash), I didn't want to use any of them to cover rolls of toilet paper. I did decide to try to make my own pumpkins using packing paper and the cardboard toilet paper tubes.
First I laid out some of the packing newsprint (left over from our move) and painted some vibrant patterns on it. My polka dot attempt is a little strange, but I know that the paper will get a little wrinkled as I'm working. From the other tutorial, I knew that I wanted about a fat quarter sized (18"x21") piece of paper so I estimated this as best as I could.
I'm really proud of the plaid I created! I don't even mind that I didn't wait for the black paint to dry before adding the orange stripes.
I've been saving toilet paper tubes with planning Lucky's Halloween Birthday Party in mind, but also because I know there are SO MANY crafts you can do with them so having a stash of these tubes on hand won't be a problem for our crafting future. (I really can't wait for when Lucky can get more involved with these crafting projects!)
I cut around the patterns I painted and prepared to fold over an empty toilet paper roll. Unfortunately my first attempt didn't stay together, I need some glue! Or maybe I just need some weight, the paper pumpkin attempt was so light that a puff of air would knock it over. Maybe there is a rationale for using full toilet paper rolls.
With my first polka dot paper, I couldn't get the pumpkin to stay closed in the paper towel roll. I needed to bust out my trusty rubber cement to hold it closed. Thankfully, the paper is glued to paper so the roll of toilet paper will still be usable once we're done with these Halloween decorations.
The next two pumpkins assembled easier and didn't require any extra glue.
For the stems, I cut one piece of construction paper into three long strips lengthwise (vines) and three short fat pieces for the stems.
I rolled up the stems and inserted them into the tops of the pumpkins. I didn't use tape or glue or anything, they held their shape pretty well when inserted.
For the vines, I took the long strips of paper and cut them in half again. I realized that they were too thick to curl. I then rolled one of the new thin strips around my finger and pressed a bit to set the curl. I took it off and stuck one end into the pumpkin, pulling out the curl a bit. You can trim this shorter if you'd like.
These painted toilet paper pumpkins are super easy to create, and best of all you can still use the toilet paper once you no longer need them as party decorations! I'm not quite sure where these will end up at my party, but it really might end up being the bathroom. Not that a guest would know to look in these for extra toilet paper, but I won't mind unwrapping them when needed someday since they were so fast to assemble.
