Octopus Garden

Posted 2013-08-05 by Lucy ⇒ follow

It's amazing what you can do with an old tissue box and a few toilet rolls. We had a lot of fun designing and creating this complete with several octopuses, a watery background, woolly seaweed and some fishy friends. What's more, this costs next to nothing and will be played with for weeks to come.

Time: 60 minutes
Age: Any Age
Level: Easy

Materials

1 tissue box

2 - 3 toilet rolls

Blue and red paper

Colored wool

Scissors

Glue

Colored paint

Paint brush

4 - 6 googlie eyes

Tissue box ready to be transformed

Method

Take one tissue box and paint the inside with a nice watery blue color, then allow it to dry off completely.

Paint the outside of your toilet rolls in bright colors, then allow the paint to dry, before cutting up the rolls from the base to create exactly eight octopus "legs", and curl them outwards (so that they can stand up easily). Glue on two googlie octopus "eyes" and draw on some smiley "mouths".

Two octopuses that need a home

Now your newly born octopuses need a home, so you can begin designing and decorating some waves and fish to fit neatly into the back of the tissue box. Cut them into shape and glue them into the scene.

Make some holes along the top of the tissue box (maybe with a hole punch) and poke colorful bits of wool through to make some hanging seaweed. You could also add in some hessian to be the sandy sea bed and a collected sea shell or two.