Welcome back to Kids Crafts and this week’s cardboard tube robot!! I am a huge huge HUGE fan of cardboard tubes.. mainly because we have them in abundance in our house (*cough* I blame the Englishman).
We actually made this robot last year and it forms part of my Time On Your Hands ebook. But I decided to share him with you today. This little guy has once again inspired hours of fun in our house. Which is great for those long long holidays. He also forms part of our home made “puppet theatre”, where we have a range of wonderful characters.
Materials: The Cardboard Tube Roll, metallic or blue paint, silver corrugated card or tin foil, scissors, paper, googly eyes, pen, sequins, glue, elastic band to keep everything in place whilst drying
I used metallic acrylic paint, but you can replace it with tin foil or wrapping paper or ordinary paint, which you then varnish if you want to!
Step 1 Paint two strips at the top and bottom of the roll around 2cm wide in the metallic colour (or colour the whole roll, it doesn’t matter really!) – as per the photo above.
Step 2 Paint some plain paper in the same colour, so you can later use it for the arms. You will need to paint both sides
Step 3 Once dry, cut out a piece of corrugated card and glue it onto the roll. You could also use some contrasting plain card, tin foil or felt
Step 4 Stick on googly eyes, a mouth (white paper & pen drawing) and sequins for buttons
Step 5 Make the arms: these are “Witches Ladders” and consist of two strips of paper folded over each other. Glue them at right angles to begin with and then take turn folding them
Step 6 Glue on arms
I used an elastic band to keep corrugated card and arms in place whilst they were drying on.
Done! You have one little cardboard tube robot. What do you think?!
And did you know, you can find me on Pinterest. 
Do come and connect with me there, for all sorts of pins on kids crafts, family crafts, gardening, food… come and join in the fun!
For more Kid’s Craft ideas, click here for a full list.
If you have been crafty with your kid’s be it at home, in the kitchen or outdoors, I would love for you to link up:
Do you like crafting with cardboard tubes? What kids crafts have you made from it?
What others are reading
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10+ Cardboard Tube Crafts (Loo Roll Crafts!)
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Kids Get Crafty – Dog Loo Roll Marionette (Victor van Krumm)
Toilet Roll Angels
Kids Crafts – Paper Roll Mermaids
I love it! I have been looking for a fun robot craft for awhile- one that I know my son would enjoy- & this is perfect for him! It\’s one of the cutest robots I have ever seen 🙂
@artsy_momma and they are not too big, so you can make a whole army of them!!!
He\’s brilliant – love the concertina arms :0)
Thank you Liz! I rather like those too!
Your robot is adorable! We\’ll have to make some =)
Oh he is cute! Once again mine is a bit random, but they did craft!
Witches ladders? You learn something everyday! Cute project.
@maryanne – thank you and we need to make MORE too!
@actually mummy – I like random
@miya – uhm, I THINK that that is what they are called! Maybe no!
That is one of the CUTEST robots I have ever seen!
Love your robot! He totally rocks. 🙂
@Amanda now that is a compliment coming from you – you are SO good at TP crafts!!!
@Jenny THANK YOU 🙂
i love those Maggy, so cute!!!
Thank you Emma!
I think we\’ll be making a purple version in our house this weekend – purple is the colour of the moment! Having great fun catching up with all your posts after a busy few weeks! Thanks for the awesomeness 😉
Your robot is too cute! My kids will love making this! Thank you for hosting! Have a great week! 🙂
Wonderful. You are so creative and the photos with clear explanation make me sure I can try this, too. Thank you. Carolyn
Thank you all!! Hope you have fun making some!!
what a well done robot craft. It looks so good it\’s hard to believe it was so easy to make.
-Veronica
Love the robot! Looks so adorable:) And thanks for hosting the linky.
I love the robot 😉
I\’m glad you brought the robot back. I remember reading a post about making a robot here but last year, I\’m not sure my son would have been ready. He\’ll love that idea this year… what a difference a year makes!
Oh yes, I agree!! A year makes a HUGE difference! I see it in both of mine all the time!
The robot is so totally cute! I\’ll be linking up while I\’m here as well! Thank you!
have linked up BUT failed to manage to paste your button code. I just cant get my poc to recognise the box, any chance you could email it to me? Thanks!
This robot is too cute!!! We will ahve to make some robots some time soon! Thanks for the link-up also!
Love your robot! I think my boys would love it too…..thanks so much for sharing on craft schooling sunday, great to be back!