Adorable Printable Owl Craft for Kids

You’ll need:

1. A toilet paper tube
2. Kid-friendly paint
3. Printer and paper (optional)
4. Printable Owl Craft Template (optional)
5. Marker, crayon, pencil or colored pencil
6. Scissors
7. Glue or hot glue gun
8. Yarn or sturdy string

Step One: To create the owl’s body, we upcycled a cardboard toilet paper roll. Toilet paper rolls are useful for a wide variety of crafts, so it’s always helpful to keep a few of them on hand, just in case.

Step Two: We used a small paintbrush to paint our toilet paper roll with white paint. If you don’t have white paint at home, you can paint the owl body any color you have on hand or use markers or crayons to color the body. Fun fact: An owl’s plumage helps it blend in with its environment, which is useful for hunting its prey. If you have a few paint colors to work with, you might even paint a camouflage body. Feel free to use your favorite owl or the African Grass Owl from the Premier Series as your inspiration!

Step Three: After allowing the painted toilet paper tube to dry, we folded both ends of the tube inward to create the appearance of owl ears at the top of the tube and talons at the bottom.  Fun fact: Owls have sensitive ears and strong talons for catching prey.

Step Four: With the owl’s body prepped, we drew the parts for the owl’s body including eyes, beak, wings and feathers on paper. If you prefer, you can print our template of owl parts instead.

Step Five: Before cutting the circles intended for the owl’s eyes out, we used a black marker to color the medium-sized circles. You could use a black or dark blue crayon or a colored pencil for this step, or color the owl’s eyes whatever color you and your child like.  Fun fact: An owl’s eyes are quite large, but it doesn’t actually have eyeballs like humans do. This means an owl can’t move its eyes to look about. Instead, it has to move its entire head.

Step Six: To create the owl’s beak, we used a pencil to draw a small triangle on a piece of yellow construction paper and then cut the triangle out. You can use construction paper in any color, any kind of craft paper, or even a paper bag for this step. You could even draw the beak on white paper and color it with a crayon, marker, or colored pencil.  Fun fact: An owl’s powerful, curved, downward-facing beak is important for capturing prey, just like its talons.

Step Seven: We used a mini hot glue gun and mini hot glue sticks to glue the owl body parts onto the cardboard body as you see in the video. *Note: You might want to keep the glue gun out of little hands to prevent burns, or use these tips for allowing kids to safely use glue guns. White glue and craft glue work just as well, though they will need more drying time than hot glue.

Step Eight: We thought it would be nice to add a string and hang this cute owl on a sturdy plant, on a door knob, or over a threshold. We glued both ends of a piece of yarn to the back of the owl’s head and allowed the glued parts to dry before we hung it. This is a versatile craft, however, so you can hang it or use it to decorate your table, mantlepiece, wall, or any surface you like.