Yesterday we made these little paper roll penguins, as a way of highlighting that it was World Penguin Day! There are 17 different species of penguin in the world (although some may say 16 or 18, as there are also several sub-species and other named variations, and some disagree on which ones that should qualify as actual species), and our DIY penguins here are mostly inspired by the Rockhopper penguins, with their yellow ‘hairdos’.
To make our penguins we used:
- 2 paper rolls
- black felt (two squares, each large enough to go around its paper roll with some overlap, and about an inch more in height that the paper rolls)
- white felt (two pieces large enough to make white bellies out of)
- orange card (for beaks, plus feet if you wish, so only a tiny piece needed)
- yellow card (we used a corrugated type, but plain will work fine too!)
- 4 googly eyes
- craft glue, scissors, pencil/crayon (optional)
Making penguins!
Firstly we wrapped the black felt around our paper roll (we made one each), and used glue to seal it in place. We then folded down the excess black felt into the center of the roll.
Next we drew an oval on the white felt, and cut it out. If you’re happy to cut freehand without first drawing the shape, then feel free to do so. For Penguin it definitely helped to draw first (although following the curved line when cutting was very tricky for him). I realised too late that colouring pen wasn’t a great choice, as it would bleed through the white felt so that you can see traces of it on the finished item. So I’d recommend using a crayon or pencil instead. Once the white ovals had been cut out, we glued them onto our penguins.
We added googly eyes and orange beaks cut out of card, and then made the fancy hairdos using yellow card which I cut into a shape as can be seen in the picture above. In hindsight I think I could perhaps have made them slightly smaller. Anyway, cutting into the yellow card to make it “hair-like” provided a lot of scissor skills practise, even bordering on too much, as I had to help out a fair bit to avoid Penguin losing his patience with it all. But he was very happy to squeeze loads of glue onto them (and squeezing is great for working on hand strength!) after all the cutting was done. We then rolled the yellow card up and stuck it into our penguins’ heads, and shaped their yellow strands to give them their final funky look!
At this point, out Penguin was done, and I think these little Rockhoppers look pretty cute as they are. I’ll admit though that my original plan also involved adding wings (cut out of black felt and glued on) and feet (using orange card as for their beaks, although if you look at real life penguins, their feet are usually pink, grey or black). So feel free to add those features too, if you’re feeling ambitious!
For more art & crafts ideas from us, please take a look HERE. And to see more of what else we get up to, join us on social media!:
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Below are a few products from amazon.co.uk relevant to this post (click on picture or text, links open in new window). Prices stated were accurate at the time of publishing but may of course change.
- 24 pcs Non-Woven Felt 1.4mm (30×30 cm) £12.48
- 1200 pcs Googly Eyes £5.99
- 100 sheets Coloured A4 Card (220 gsm) £9.99
All links included in this post are Amazon Affiliate links, meaning that if you click through here and decide to make a purchase, I should recieve a small commission from Amazon (of no extra cost to you, of course!) as thanks for pointing you in their direction. Every little helps, thank you ❤
Linking up with:
These look awesome. I love the use of felt.
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Thank you Jade! Yes, felt is such a lovely material to work with, I think. It’s got a nice tactile quality to it and tends to give great results without too much effort x
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They look lovely, I know my boys will love making them so we will have to give it a try!
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Thank you! That’s brilliant, hope you have great fun making penguins! x
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Super cute!
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Thank you Camie! 🙂
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These are so cute. I am the worst at crafts but my niece will love to try making these! #kcacols
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Thank you Tracey! These are so easy to make (as are most of our craft projects), so you can’t go far wrong. I hope you and your niece have great fun together making penguins! xx
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Oh my goodness, these are adorable. My children all love penguins although some of them probably think they are too old to craft their own. The littlest and I will have to make some for them! #mmbc
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Thank you so much Louisa, I’m very pleased to hear that your family loves penguins too! Hope you and littlest have great fun creating a little paper roll penguin flock! xx
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Aww! These are so cute and look like a lot of fun to make. #MMBC
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Thank you Kim! Yes, they were easy and fun 🙂 x
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This is great! I’m collecting a file on things to make with the kids, so this went straight in there! 😀 #KCACOLS
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Yay, that’s so lovely to hear, thank you! xx
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Oh, I do love crafts and these cute little penguins are fab! I think my boys and I will have to make some too. 🐧x #MMBC
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Thank you Jayne! They’re simple but effective, I think 🙂 xx
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Oh my gosh I’m so glad I found this. We’ve been saving the toilet rolls hoping to find a project to do with them. My kids LOVE penguins, so we’ll have to give this a go. #kidsandkreativity
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Thank you so much Naomi, that’s really lovely to hear! We too have a large collection of toilet rolls, so we may well make a few more penguins for our flock. I hope you and your kids have great fun with this! xx
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Your little penguins are adorable and I love the use of felt. #MMBC
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Thank you Carol! I love using felt, it’s so tactile and the results often look great while being simple and fun to make 🙂
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So cute, and an easy little make! I had no idea there was a day dedicated to penguins! How fabulous! 🐧🐧🐧 #KidsandKreativity
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Thank you lovely! xx
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These are too cute! Pinning this for later as Olivia is a huge lover of penguins #KCACOLS
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That’s really lovely to hear, thank you Sarah! And thanks for the invite to your Pinterest board, too! 😊x
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I totally love these. We make quite a few toilet roll crafts as they are always a plenty. Thanks so much for linking to #kcacols and hope to see you again next time lovely.
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Thank you so much, Ann! And yes, the toilet rolls keep on coming so I too love finding ’crafty’ wasys of using them 🙂 xx
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Such a cute and clever idea. Great way of recycling old toilet rolls X #kcacols
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Thanks Sam! Toilet rolls are a gift that keeps on giving, lol! xx
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I love this!! So cute!! I love penguins. My boys would love this. Thanks for sharing! #KCACOLS
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Thank you Lana! I hope you and your boys will enjoy crafting some penguins together! xx
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You are so welcome!!
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Love these, they are so cute, and simple enough that they would appeal to a wide age range too. Thanks for sharing it with us at #KidsandKreativity x
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Thank you Kerry, I’m very happy to hear you like them! xx
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I absolutely love penguins! These look so cute and quite easy to make. I like the idea of using corrugated cardboard for their hair, great tip! #KCACOLS
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Thank you Rachel! Yes, they’re very easy indeed, and I think it’s always fun to find different textures to work with xx
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These are such a simple craft to make. They turned out really well! Thank you for sharing such an easy to follow tutorial. My kids will definitely have fun making these. #kcacols
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Thank you so much for your lovely comment! I hope you’ll have great fun creating a flock of penguin with your kids! 🙂
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These are so cute! Great way of recycling toilet rolls.
#kcacols
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Thank you Veronica! We use enough toilet paper to make flocks of these, haha! 🙂
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Brilliant! My two would love making these. Thanks for sharing and linking up at #twinklytuesday, hope to see you again soon!
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Thank you Kate! I hope you’ll enjoy makng penguins with your little ones xx
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I love these, so cute. I think everyone loves penguins, how can you not.
#MMBC
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Thank you Ali! I’m very happy to hear you like them, and yes, penguins have something about them which makes them very easy to love indeed ❤ xx
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