DIY Pen Holder – Toilet Paper Roll Craft

How to Make a Pen Holder with materials at home

Welcome to my Pen Holder – Toilet Paper Roll Craft tutorial! This is a super easy craft idea to do with the kids, and all you need are some old toilet paper rolls and an empty tissue box!

As the school year will soon be upon us, I did this craft with my kids so they could keep their pens, pencils and markers in one place when at their desks. (This doesn’t take away from the fact that they have 2 massive bins full of markers, crayons, pencil crayons, and whatnot. This is just to help them stay organized and feel a bit more grown-up).

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Pen Holder - Toilet Paper Roll Craft pin

What You Need to this Toilet Paper Roll craft:

  1. An empty tissue box – or any small empty box.
  2. Several empty rolls of toilet paper.
  3. Craft paper – I like Recollections Paper
  4. Glue or two-sided tape – I like Bearly Art Glue or glue rollers
  5. Paint – Acrylic paint is the standard item at our house for any craft job.

Let’s Begin Making Our Pen holder!

Make the Pen Holder Base

First, we need to cut our tissue box in half. After cutting it, I compared the toilet rolls with the 1/2 box and decided to trim it more so that you could see the tubes of toilet paper. Mine is 3 inches in height.

pen holder base

I measured the sides and size of the box and pre-cut a piece of card stock to the size I needed. This was done using my Cricut, but you can do this by hand. I thought the tissue box needed some more character. Also, the one side still had the slot where the tissues came out which needed to be covered and sealed. This is the design I made.

pen holder template

My kids helped tape the paper onto the box to give it a nice finish.  I used two-sided tape as I ran out of my glue tape, which I would have used otherwise.

I applied 4 pieces on the outside to hold the box together and 4 on the inside flaps.

Pen Holder - Toilet Paper Roll Craft apply tape 1
Pen Holder - Toilet Paper Roll Craft apply tape 2

Paint the Toilet Paper Rolls

The tissue box fits 3 toilet rolls nicely, so I had my kids do a craft session of painting the toilet roles.

The whole toilet paper roll does not need to be painted as a large section will be hidden in the tissue box.

Pen Holder - Toilet Paper Roll Craft pen holder tubes
Pen Holder - Toilet Paper Roll Craft pen holder tubes

Assemble the Pen Holder

Put all the toilet paper rolls into the box.  You can glue the bottom of the toilet paper rolls to keep them in place.  This will keep them from moving once you have the pens in place.

Pen Holder - Toilet Paper Roll Craft with glue

And That’s It! You’re Done! Your DIY Pen Holder – Toilet Paper Roll Craft is Complete!

Pen Holder - Toilet Paper Roll Craft

Things I have learned along the way, while making a Pen Holder – Toilet Paper Roll Craft

This craft was for my kids, but I wanted the end result to look fancier. Hindsight being 20:20, I could have just had the kids paint the tissue boxes instead of making a nice paper cut-out to cover the box and left the tissue box more childish.

It has been a few years since we made these pen holders, and they are still holding up great, so it was a great craft to keep the kids busy and to use for years to come.

Did you find this Pen Holder – Toilet Paper Roll Craft tutorial helpful?

Let me know if you found this Pen Holder – Toilet Paper Roll Craft tutorial helpful!

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