Toilet Paper Art

This is absolutely the most popular piece of artwork in our home, so I decided that this would be the perfect tutorial to start with! This is made from all recycled paper towel and toilet paper rolls, but everyone thinks it is made of iron. It is super light weight and you can change it to look anyway you would like and costs less than 1$!

I found a picture of this on pinterest and LOVED it! There was no tutorial that I could find, so I figured I would just figure it out and it turned out to be super simple and really fun. The hardest part was the looooooong wait that it took to gather and hoard and “steal” enough toilet paper/paper towel rolls. But once I thought I had enough (and couldn’t wait any longer) I began! So here’s how:

First gather as many paper towel/toilet paper rolls that you need (mine took a LOT) and then begin cutting them into 1 inch strips. You don’t have to make them perfect, I like how mine turned out with lots of texture from the different sizes, but you want them kind of close in size.

Then form your center flower with as many petals as you would like with the tips touching and pushing them as close together as you can.

Next, like a puzzle, start laying new pieces in the in-between crevices however you like them!

Then you just keep adding….and keep adding…and keep adding…Until it is the size and shape that you want. I wanted mine really large, because it took up a whole focal point of a large empty wall, but mine ended up a little more square than I wanted.

Then, were you’re all done adding (or at least you get the hang of it) start glueing. This is the most time consuming part of the whole project. You have to individually glue each piece together, starting from the center and work your way out. I found hot glue was very quick and held really well.

Once you’re done, head outside with your spray paint color of choice. We used one entire bottle of 99 cent black spray paint from The Wal-Mart (yes, I call it THE Wal-Mart). You may want to wear gloves when spraying it because you have to pick up your piece to spray inside all the funny angles it has. We had to let it dry and came back to it to finish because of how large it was and we didn’t want to smear the already sprayed parts.

 I also think that it would be really cool to do two different colors in one piece, it would probably be better to spray paint the individual pieces (which would be very time consuming-but worth it) then glue them together randomly or in a nifty pattern!

Once it dries, you’re ready to hang!  We used 4 tiny nails (because it was so large) so that there wasnt too much weight on a single thin piece of cardboard and it has held just fine! We love this piece so much and get SO many compliments and NO ONE EVER guesses that it is good ole recycled toilet paper remnants!

Happy creating! Let us know how it goes for you if you try this and let us know what else you have made from awesomely recycled TP!