Preschoolers will love making this silly, adorable monster mobile for Halloween! It’s a great Halloween craft for daycare or home, and a fun way to use up your stash of cardboard rolls.
Of all the Halloween crafts we’ve made here over the years, this monster mobile is one of my favourites!
Sure, some monsters are scary, but these toilet roll monsters are fun, friendly, and kinda goofy! The hooligans had a great time painting and decorating them, using basic craft materials that we had around the house.
Great Craft for Preschool Boys
Bonus: This monster craft really appealed to the boys who generally don’t *love* crafting. They sometimes skip craft-time because they’d prefer to keep playing whatever it is they’re playing. Not today though! At the mention of a monster craft, those boys were at the table quicker than you could bat an eye.
Supplies needed for our toilet roll monster mobile:
- Cardboard tubes
- pipe cleaners
- googly eyes
- craft foam
- paint (purple, black, green and orange are perfect for Halloween)
- yarn
- scissors
- glue
An alternative to toilet paper rolls:
Some schools and preschools aren’t permitted to use toilet rolls for crafting. Great substitutes are paper towel rolls, wrapping paper rolls, aluminum foil/plastic wrap rolls, and poster tubes.
Making your monster mobile:
Have your kids begin by painting the toilet roll tubes.
Show them how to hold the tube by inserting a few fingers into it. That makes it easy for them to paint the whole tube without getting too much paint on their hands.
When the paint is dry, poke a hole in either side of the cardboard roll (use a pen or a skewer), and poke the pipe cleaner right the way through to create a pair of bendy arms.
Have your child glue on a bunch of googly eyes. The more eyes, the sillier the monster.
While your child is gluing eyes onto his or her monster, you can cut out the craft foam mouths. A jagged set of teeth are easy to cut but feel free to get as creative as you like with your monster mouths.
When the glue has dried, your hooligans can play with their monsters as they are, or you can do what we did, and string them into a mobile.
To make our monster mobile, I looped a length of yarn under each pipe cleaner where it ran through the inside of the toilet roll, and knotted it there.
When I had yarn attached to several monsters, I gathered them together, and arranged them into a mobile by staggering the monsters so they’d hang at different lengths.
More Monster Crafts and Activities:
- Monster Hands – a fun tactile Halloween craft for preschoolers
- Monster Swatters and Monster Spray – fun and funny ways to keep bedtime monsters away
- and from a few of my blogging friends…
- Monster Shirt – how to make a Frankenstein tee-shirt for your child. Crafts by Amanda
- Monster Book Marks: simple paper monsters to mark the corners of your pages. Red Ted Art
- 10 MONSTER Birthday Parties party ideas for monster-loving kids! Spaceships and Laser Beams.
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
Maro's kindergarten
These monsters are so cute!!! We will definitely do some too!
Carolyn @ Mama's Little Muse
Love it and pinned it! Thank you!!! 🙂 And too will share it on my FB page!
mommygyan
these are way too cool! Gotto share with mamas on my blog. Awesome project mama!
winny
wonderful staff that I found from u r site…
Ann @ My Nearest and Dearest
These are so cute, Jackie! I just bought a bag of googly eye stickers so I think we’ll be making these soon rather than waiting until next Halloween!
happyhooligans
Glad you liked them, Ann. They did look pretty darn cute!
Courtney
I just love this craft!! I have to share it on my Facebook page today!! I’ve been following your site for awhile now and I get so inspired!! I just love a toilet paper roll craft.
happyhooligans
Thanks so much for sharing, Courtney! I’m so glad you’re following along and getting inspiration from our activities!
Pinkoddy
They are cute little monsters.
happyhooligans
Thank you! The googly eyes make it. Everything is so much cuter when you add a few googly eyes. 🙂
Sabrina Banks
I love these cute little monsters! Featured it on my 40 Halloween Crafts for Kids Round-Up! http://sowsproutplay.com/activities/40-halloween-crafts-for-kids/
happyhooligans
Thanks so much for including us in your round up, Sabrina!
JayNine
Absolutely perfect!
Almost Unschoolers
Coming in from Crafty Crow – Those are really adorable, and would also be a nice craft-along actvity for “Monsters U”. So cute!
happyhooligans
Thank you! I’m glad you liked them. This was one of our favourite Halloween crafts last year. 🙂
CraftCollector
These are great! I want to do these with my class…what did you hang them off? We have high ceilings so I’m trying to think of an alternative? Thanks!
morewithlessmom
What is it about monsters that is so much fun? This came out great!
Miss Brandi
We did this at our Family Halloween Fun Day. Everyone had so much fun! I would love to share the pictures with you.
happyhooligans
I’d love to see them, Brandi! Feel free to share them on my Happy Hooligans facebook page!
Shari
We are making them now and she is having so much fun!
jessica
are there people who dont use toilet rolls for crafts? why not? im so curious
rishi
wonderful idea