Toilet Roll Bear Gift Box

I love today’s little Toilet Roll Bear Craft! Simply, because it uses every day materials (the humbler toilet roll or kitchen towel tube), and a little paint/ paper… even better, you could technically make these with JUST toilet rolls and felt tip pens – for a low mess and super easy alterantive! I will give pointers on this as we go! Oh… AND… did I mention this isn’t just a cute bear craft, but also doubles up as an adorable Bear Gift Box?? Oh yes!! A handy little craft to boot!

Oh.. and did I mention as well, these are part of the Best Makes Ever series….

About the Best Makes Ever series

The Best Makes Ever Series, is a series of art and crafty videos, that Art Crafty Kids and I produced for Sky Kids UK back in 2020-2022. They were designed to bring delightful arts and crafts projects to kids – using every day materials/ limited resources. Enabling everyone to join in and have fun! Now, 5yrs on, we are (slowly) able to share these lovely arts and crafts projects with you on our websites too! So, DO explore our Best Makes Ever Series tab for more info.. or check out some of our highlighted projects here:

• Recycle egg cartons and use felt tip pens to make Egg Carton Butterflies
• How to make Lollipop Stick Bookmarks
• Use yarn scraps and cardboard to make Yarn Wrapped Flowers

Aren’t they cute?

Supplies needed to make these lovely little Bear Gift Boxes

I like making this little bear craft in “twos”.. mainly because you will need part of one toilet paper roll to make the ears of the other… but if you only have one roll, you can still make this, it is just the shorter bear in my photos!

• 2 toilet paper rolls or one kitchen paper roll cut in half
• Paint in desired colors (note: you can leave the bears toilet roll color, for a “low mess”, I think this works well too!)
• Colored paper for the dark bear’s nose, belly, ears and heart (note: you could use felt tip pens for this – the shorter bear has felt tip pen details to highlight this!)
• Marker pen
• Scissors
• Stapler (if you don’t have a stapler than good glue works, but you will need to hold things in place with a clothes peg whilst you wait for it to dry)
• Glue stick (if adding paper features)
• Paint brushes
• Tissue paper if using it as a gift box to “seal” the base

How to make a toilet roll bear gift box

Watch the super cute and easy to follow bear gift box video tutorial or follow the step by step instructions below! This video is also available on YouTube.

Cut the toilet paper rolls to size

You can use either a kitchen paper tube cut in half, or two toilet paper rolls to make the bears.

Take one of the toilet paper rolls and cut off a strip.

Then cut this strip in half. Each strip will make 2 ears for each of the 2 bears! You will get a tall bear and a short bear this way!

If you don’t have a spare toilet paper roll, you can always paint some paper in bear color!

Paint the toilet paper rolls in bear colors

Time to paint your toilet paper rolls in the desired bear colors, I have gone for more traditional bear gift box colors – browns and beiges.. but you can make these any color you want! These would be super cute as Care Bear Toilet Rolls for example!! If you give those a go, please do share any photos, I would love to see them.

NOTE: you can also leave the toilet paper roll plain – as they grey colour also makes a good bear colour!

Cut out some bear ears

Fold the strips of toilet roll in have and cut out two ear shapes. They are like two small rectangles with the top edges curved.

I also cut out two contrasting “insides” of the ears from paper, but you can also use a felt tip pen to draw this on!

Shape the toilet roll in the bear head

Now we need to shape the head.

Take the toilet paper roll in both hands.

Gently squeeze in the top sides with your index fingers.

Then flatten and neaten.

Staple bear ear in place

Now staple the ears in place. You can of course glue them in place too, but you will either need a hot glue gun, or some clothes pegs to hold everything in place whilst the ears dry.

Cut out bear shapes and draw bear features

Now you can have fun decorating your bear. For the brown bear, I cut out extra shapes – an oval for the muzzle and and a rectangle with a curved top for the tummy. Sometimes you need to recut this bigger or smaller.. so check if you are happy with your sizes of shapes.

Using a black pen decorate the muzzle and tummy.

This is wear Care Bear tummies would be really fun!

I also made one bear using just a pen – to show that this is still really cute!

Optional: add embellishments to your bear

Now if you want, you can cut extra embellishments. I decided to give my little bears some hearts. But you could also add a flower or bow tie – be inspired by our sloth pen pots!

Your bears a finished!

How to use as a bear gift box

Using these as a bear gift box is very simple and easy – fill your box with your treats (I inserted some cute handpainted ducks…) and then stuff some tissue paper inside. The tissue paper should hold your gifts in place! 🙂

Ta-daaaaa! Happy Bear Craft Making!

Check out more from the Best Makes Ever Series, for example we have:

• Shark Paper Toy – catch the fish
• How to make a pop up lion card (no templates needed as I guide you through the process using simple shapes)
• How to make your own checkers game/ chess game/ reversi game

Check out more Toilet Paper Roll Crafts here: