Upcycle some old cardboard tubes into a set of paper roll spider puppets. This is a simple cardboard DIY toy kids can make.
This spider craft is easy enough for preschoolers (with some help) and is also a great way to practice fine motor skills.
Once you’re done they will love making up puppet shows with their spiders!
This craft was first published in 2013 and has been updated and reshared for today’s audience.
You might also like these 30 paper roll craft ideas
These spider puppets are a craft I’ve been meaning to update for a long time but haven’t gotten around to it. I thought of them this week when I shared our 3D paper spiders and our felt spiders from the Sewing Simple Softies book.
So, even though it means going into a bit of spider craft overkill, I decided to reshare them at last today.
The girls had a lot of fun with this project. You can tell that by the sheer number of spiders we made. Literally, a king’s court of spiders.
We made the king, queen, jester, princess, prince, and even the queen’s mum. We would have made a queen’s dad too but we ran out of time, haha. The royal theme was something my girls were into BIG time when they were four and five. It also added to their imaginative story-telling during puppet play later on.
Although we’ve used felt to make our spiders, you could easily do away with that and just paint the paper rolls instead. It would be easier, cheaper, and stronger too because glued-on felt has a way of falling apart.
How to make paper roll felt spiders
You will need:
- Toilet rolls cut into smaller sections (approx 3 sections per toilet roll)
- Felt in assorted colours, cut into strips (or use paint instead)
- Fabric glue
- Googly eyes — or use our free printable paper eyes for a more eco friendly version
- Pipe cleaners (4 per spider)
- Dowel rod (1 per spider)
- Scissors and small hole punch
- Hot glue gun
How to
Cover the toilet roll with glue, and wrap a piece of felt around it. Trim to size.
Add google eyes and a felt mouth.
Use a hole punch to create four holes along each side.
Thread the legs through.
Decorate your puppet further if you wish. We added felt hair and a crown to turn this one into a princess. We also twisted pipe cleaners together to make the legs stripey.
The girls had fun designing their own puppets too.
Glue a dowel rod to the inside with a hot glue gun to finish off your puppet.
Here are some more of our finished puppets …
The princess
The jester
The king
And the queen’s mum
You can theme your own paper roll spiders any way you like.
More puppet crafts for kids
- Make a snapping paper plate frog puppet
- Here are some seahorse paper roll stick puppets
- Use our printable template to create flying pterodactyl puppets
- Make some munching matchbox monster puppets
- These paper roll empathy dolls have to be the coolest puppets ever. They can smile, but they can also get angry, cry and feel worried too
