When is a cardboard tube not a cardboard tube? When it becomes anything your child can dream up for their crafting!

We made two adorable projects this week, one with a short toilet paper tube and one with a longer paper towel tube – seriously, why doesn’t someone just sell these so you don’t have to wait for the roll to end before crafting?

For the shorter tube, we made an octopus. I snipped the bottom to form 8 little tentacles, which absolutely delighted Travis as he helped fold them up.

I asked what color his octopus should be and he settled on yellow.

When the octopus dried, I glued on two googly eyes. Travis adored swimming his new little friend around, and wants to make a whole family (so we’ll have to wait for more empty rolls!)

Far more complicated, we turned our paper towel tube into a magic wand. To start, Travis very carefully selected which paints to use, adding a bit of white, purple, and blue.

Once the paint dried, we added further decoration with foam stickers and glitter glue.

For the top of the wand, I traced a heart from a cookie cutter on construction paper and cut it out for Travis. This, too, needed glitter glue and foam stickers!

I glued the heart onto poster board backing to make it a touch sturdier. Next, Travis wanted to help punch two holes in the heart. We threaded ribbon through this for a fluttery magical wand effect.

Finally, I affixed the heart to the top of our tube with glue. Now he can cast magical spells wherever he goes! What will Sorcerer Travis turn a cardboard tube into next?