Autumn Leaf Marionette Birds
These actually make a great Autumn Craft for Kids, however you can of course make them at any time of year. As we have been getting some hotter days this year, we have made a few trips to the park recently. Whilst there, we played ball, look at the stream and collected some leaves.
These fun Bird Marionettes were first published in Autumn 2010 and republished for your convenience!
Now, I know autumn is the absolute best time for collecting leaves, but as Red Ted was keen, I thought, why not!? I did horrify me to realise that when it comes to leaves, I am clueless. I will have to brush up! Time for some more fun with Toilet Paper Roll Crafts for kids!
We have the leaves. But leaves can become brittle with time. I decided we should try leaf rubbings – to discover that Red Ted is still too small. So I changed it to leaf printing and painting! We then wanted to use these printed leaves to make “something” out of it.. we ended up making some fabulous Autumn Leaf Birds!
Please Note: as this is an oldie goldie post that we created 10 years ago, some of the photos are not as detailed as in newer posts. However, there is plenty of information for you to go on and am sure you will still enjoy all of the process steps! Happy Crafting!
Suppliese needed for our Paper Roll Bird Marionettes:
- 2 toilet paper rolls per bird marionette
- Some masking tape (to shape the bird’s beak)
- Leaves for printing making
- Scrap paper (for printing making)
- Paints
- Bits and bobs – like recycled string
- Conkers/ small sticks (I LOVE the sticks) for the bird’s feet
- Chopsticks/ sticks for the marionette string holder
How to make a Bird out of Toilet Paper Rolls
Do some leaf printing
As you can see Red Ted LOVED the process of leaf printing. It made him very happy. He had great joy doing it all by himself. Choosing colours. Painting and printing. I also found that your preserve the leaf a little if you paint it with acryclic paints. But in a way that seems a shame – you want to look at the lovely colours, no?
Paint some toilet paper rolls in your bird’s body colours
Whilst at it, he painted some loo rolls too.
Let’s shape the toilet roll into a beak
Cut for slits ontp the top of your toilet paper roll.
And twice together into a type of spiral.
Secure the beak and paint the toilet paper roll
Secure with masking tape. Then paint and choose your colours for your birds.
Gather the remaining of elemets of your bird marionetter
And I decided t make some autumnal birds. One out of Red Ted’s craft and one out of mine. I selected Red Ted’s prints that worked together well (greens, blacks and greys) and picked an orange set of mine to represent autumn. I used all pieces of string from gift bags & pepples/ forked sticks for feet and marionette handles. (I think the pictures speak for themselves)
Glue the leaves to your toilet paper rolls
These are your bird’s feathers. We held them in place with clothes pegs whilst they dried. That was back in the day, before we had a hot glue gun!! Old skool 😉
Finally assemble your toilet paper roll bird
Then we strung them all together. As you can see, I made two holes on the top of the body toilet roll and attached the body to the stick. Then connect the body to the head with another piece of string. The head attached with a further piece of string to the sticks.
Finally we added two legs with conker feet and stick feet! So fun!
And then we played!
Hope you liked our Autumn Leaf Birds!
More Autumn Crafts for Kids here:
More great Toilet Paper Roll Crafts here:
