Today we have an ADORABLE DOG DIY for dog lovers for you! Welcome back to Kids Get Crafty and our loo roll dog marionette! I actually wrote this post a while back as a Guest Post for Rachel at Sun Scholars! I was very pleased to be asked to stop by and share one of my crafts. I have been regularly visiting Sun Scholars over the past year and linking up to Rachel’s fabulous kids craft link up parties. When it comes to crafting with young children, it is sometimes about letting your child’s creativity run riot, and other times, it is a joint team effort – time to sit together and bond and then play with your crafts! We do love all Toilet Paper Roll crafts – especially when they are so cute and easy – and this is just another fab addition to our huge collection!!!
Today, I am showing your our Sausage Dog TP Roll Marionette! We love marionettes over at our house, especially those that you can make with recycled and nature’s materials – we already made Giraffes and some Autumn Birds.
This Dog DIY article was first published in Nov 2011 and has been updated and republished for you.
The Dog Book
Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy, By Lynley Dodd
We love Hairy Maclary.. a hairy little dog that gets up to all sorts of mischief with his dog friends. It usually involved teasing the cats in the area, but there is one cat that all the dogs are scared of. The book is written in verse, which repeats itself (and gets longer) from page to page. The children love this repetition and seeing what “new crazy” dog characters are invented… one of them is Victor van Krumm the sausage dog… who has been the inspiration for today’s post!
The Dog DIY Craft – Materials
- one kitchen towel roll (or two loo rolls stuck togther, by pushing on into the other),
- one toilet paper roll,
- paint,
- twigs,
- googly eyes,
- glue,
- string,
- chestnuts (or similar),
- scissors
This may seem like a “long list” of materials to make this simple Cardboard Tube Craft.. however, I simply listed the materials we used.. you can of course have a hunt around your home to see what you could substitute!
How to make a Dog Cardboard Tube Marionette!
1) Paint your loo rolls the desired colour. We went for black!
2) Shape your dog’s head – cut 4 slits about 2/3s of the way down, then squeeze them together so that they overlap as in the picture shown. Add some glue and hold in place with an elastic band or piece of string – mind that you don’t glue the band on by accident!
3) Trim a little off the long roll to make the ears – cut ear shapes and glue onto the head. Add googly eyes.
4) Add the feet and tail. We used some of our chestnuts left over from all our Autumn collecting activities.. perfect way to use some of them up. We managed to pierce our chestnuts with our scissors, but you may need a metal skewer. Make sure an adult does this. Make holes in the long roll – one for the tail (a twig) and 4 for the chestnut feet. Thread one piece of string through the first chestnut, through the body and then through the 2nd chestnut. If you can’t find chestnuts – how about some acorns? or maybe some shells or stones? As to the tail – we “just stuck” ours into the hole and add lots of glue to secure it a little.
5) Attach the head with one piece of string running through the head.
6) Make the “marionette” hand piece out of two twigs tied together (although in the configuration we have it in, one twig is plenty!).
7) Assemble and play! Hooray!
I do hope you like our little fella! And that you have a go at making one yourself…
Pip Squeak (2yrs) ADORES our dog marionette and even took it to bed one nap time!
See our full set of Chestnut DIYs here:
Looking for more Nature Crafts for Autumn? Take a peak at these!
Enjoy playing with your Dog Marionette DIY!!!
What others are reading
Little Red Riding Hood Craft – TP Rolls Again!
Kids Crafts: Chestnuts Crafts – Spiderwebs
Kids Get Crafty: Chestnut Crafts (Pencil Toppers)
Kids Get Crafty: Chestnut Streamer Toy
Conkers Crafts (aka Buckeye Crafts or Horse Chestnuts!)
Autumn Crafts: Horse Chesnut Spiders (Kastanienspinne)
Chestnut Crafts for Kids – Conker Faces
TP Roll Giraffe – Giraffe’s can’t dance
My little guy would love playing with this! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Pip Squeak is in love with it! I think it is a winner with little people! 😉
how wonderful! I love this marionette, your loo roll crafts are the best:)
🙂 Maria, I thought you may like it as “Recycled Craft Queen”!! And I do LOVE using Loo Rolls!!!
That is so cute, Noah would love to make that! xx
I love the dog! It is so funny how many chestnuts you have…we don’t have many (or any) chestnut trees here in Toronto. How fun it must be to have them all around!
Love the marionette! How cute is that?
Adorabel as always! Thank you so much for linking up your crafty goodness! I love seeing your beautiful work every week on my blog.
Another fabby idea – we looooove that book in our house! Thank you xxx
Jen – I sometimes take our chestnuts for granted! Funny how when you connect with the world you learn about how different everywhere is!! Of course you can still make Viktor… you just need other feet! 🙂
Melissa, Robin, Maxine & Multiple Mummy – *thank you* and *beam*
Gotta Love Hairy Maclary!!! That is a very clever puppy puppet you guys made!!!
I awarded you the Versatile Blogger Award. Stop by my blog sometime to see the post
http://learningideasgradesk-8.blogspot.com/2011/11/versatile-blogger-award.html
Happy Thanksgiving!
Very nice. You are doing wonderful things for your children and others. What a nice memory for your children. Carolyn
Love the book, love the dog! What a fab idea. I can see from the children’s faces that they are loving it too. Fabulous!
Oh we love Hairy MacLary! This is too cute!
Marcia – thank you so much for the award! Much appreciated 🙂
Jen – oh yes, Pip Squeak in particular loves her puppy!
Carolyn – what a lovely thing to say. Thank you so much. *beam*
Chris & se7en – gorgeous book, isn’t it?!
That is so cute Maggy! Fab use of the chestnuts! xx
Very cool!
Need to try that one.
I think that for the head I would use an egg carton though..(it`s easier 😀 )
We think this puppet dog is absolutely genius! Love it!
Thank you 🙂
What a cute puppet! I really love his feet!
love it!!!
oh he is adorable! I love Pip Squeak’s expression,looks like she has having great fun 🙂 Added your linky now,thanks for linking up to Book Sharing Monday.xxx
Thank you! And thanks for adding me to Book Sharing Monday 🙂
He is stinking adorable!!! My girls will love this. Thank you for sharing.
love love love! thanks so much for sharing on Craft Schooling Sunday! it’s been a great year thanks to contributors like you, and hope to see you back the first Sunday in January!
hi maggie, would love to feature your dog, but need bigger photos….could you send me the one with the white background and the one with your daughter playing with it? no guarantees, but if I get it in time, like tomorrow, i’ll try to add it in. all the best!
Oooh Sarah – thank you – have emailed the photos to you! And LOVE LOVE LOVE the Creative Jewish Mom linky – there are always such beautiful crafts there that I really do feel honoured and chuffed to bits when one of mine is featured! Look forward to more linking in January! Have a lovely holiday break!
This looks so cute and will be a fun craft for the dogs storytime I am planning! Is there an easier way to view and print out the instructions please?
Sorry, I think you can only hit print page!? I haven’t got any print friendly settings, I am afraid!