We love working on Halloween crafts at this time of the year, it really gets us into the festive spirit of it all. Here’s how to make a toilet roll haunted tower scene.
In New Zealand Halloween is not so much of a big thing, with some really enjoying it, and others really hating on it.
As a kid growing up in New Zealand I think I went trick or treating once. But now that I’m grown up, I love taking my kids trick or treating. But I think it’s because we live in such a great neighbourhood. Where I live people will put a little something on their letterbox (like a balloon or a spiderweb) to let us know that it’s ok to come trick or treating.
And what I’ve found over the past couple of years of taking my children out is it’s a really great way to start to get to know the wider community.
My daughter is really excited about Halloween this year (she is 5). Her big idea this year is to turn her room into a haunted room for the night and bring her friends around to walk through it. So we’ve been putting a bit of thought into some of the things we could do to spook up her room.
We put our thinking caps on (which usually includes a little scroll on Pinterest) and decided on making a little haunted tower scene out of Toilet paper rolls. This activity is super-easy to knock up and can be made with a lot of things you probably already have on hand.
I had a look in the cupboards and found bamboo plates left over from a birthday party we had (you could use just normal paper plates). I raided our bathroom for toilet rolls, but you could use a kitchen paper towel roll. And I raided my cupboards for some rice, again you could use any grains, or even gravel from outside to add texture.
All different ages will love making these spooky scenes, and I’m sure the older they are the more creative they will turn out. For little hands you’ll need to give them some help but they will love it!
Make a toilet roll haunted tower scene
What you need
Toilet roll
Bamboo plate or a paper plate
Rice
Googly eyes
Spooky figurines (We used Halloween buttons and plastic spiders)
Resene testpot paints
A permeant marker
A cereal box for extra cardboard
Paintbrush
Glitter glue
PVA glue
Coloured card shapes
Glue sticks and glue gun
Cup
What to do
1. First paint your toilet roll a concrete grey. I used Resene Regent Grey and put aside to dry.
2. To make the cone for the tower top use your cereal box or extra card and draw around a cup. Next cut the circle out, and cut a slit halfway through to the centre of the circle. Lastly, twist the card into a cone shape and glue with your hot glue gun to secure.
3. Now paint the cone, I used a nice bright orange, Resene Daredevil, and set aside to dry
4. While your cone is drying your toilet roll should be dry enough to decorate. To decorate the tower first cut a small door out of the bottom, and fold back. Next use your permeant marker to draw on some bricks.
5. Decide where you would like your tower to sit on the paper plate and glue it down.
6. To make the path squeeze out some glitter glue, and squash your googly eyes in to the glue to make a spooky path leading to the tower (if you don’t have glitter glue you can just use PVA, we just really liked the effect of glitter glue!).
7. We then stuck on a skeleton ‘doorkeeper’ using the hot glue gun by the door and a spooky bat on the tower. We also added some spooky elements to the glitter path. But you can place things anywhere you like; the more creative the better.
8. Now paint on some PVA glue around your eye path and pour on the rice to fill in the gaps.
9. If your cone is dry now, glue this to the top of your toilet roll.
10. We kept adding spooky things to the tower roof too, a bat and some stars we cut out of coloured card.
10. And finally, to finish off we glued a circle shaped window, cut from coloured card, and a giant scary spider!
If you liked this craft, definitely check out our Halloween spooky puppets, or check out our Creative arts and crafts section for heaps more toilet roll craft ideas.
