Today we are doing a sword craft! Kids of all ages will love making their very own sword using paper towel rolls. This budget-friendly sword craft isn’t just easy and fun to make, but it promotes pretend play. You can make a DIY sword at home or in the classroom. This DIY sword is perfect for a history lesson or just a fun way to upcycle toilet paper rolls.
Sword Craft For Kids
If you’re looking for a quick and easy craft for older kids and younger kids alike this sword craft is perfect. It requires very few craft supplies and only takes a few minutes to put together.
Plus, once you make this sword, you can use it for pretend play. Pretend to be a pirate, a knight, a gladiator! There are so many things you can do with this cardboard sword.
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Related: You can make this easy historical sword craft.
Supplies Needed To Make This Cute Sword Craft
*Optional: Hot glue gun
How To Make A DIY Sword
Step 1
Semi squish your toilet paper roll against the horizontal toilet paper roll and draw a line measuring your “hilt” (handle of sword) to your “guard” (the horizontal part of the sword above the handle). Do this to the backside too.
Step 2
Carefully use your scissors to cut along the line.
Step 3
Pull your cardboard tube through the hole. You may need to squish it a little.
Craft Notes:
If you cut your hole too big you can use your hot glue gun around the hole to keep it in place.
Step 4
Cut off the excess cardboard from your “guard”.
Step 5
Draw a triangle on the edge of your “blade” (the sharp part of the sword.)
Cut along the lines.
Step 6
Paint the blade gray or silver.
Now paint the guard and hilt yellow.
We added some black lines to our sword to make it look shiny. Add any details you want. And you’re done!
How To Make This DIY Sword Craft Your Own
Just like all our other crafts, you can change things up to make it your own. You can change things like:
- Instead of adding shine to your sword, draw a black line down your sword.
- Add faux gems to the guard and hilt of your sword to make it fancy.
- Use a hot glue gun to make texture to your hilt and guard.
- Paint your sword with metallic paint. It’ll make your cardboard weapon look more authentic.
- Add brown cloth on the handle. It’ll make the sword more comfortable on your hands when you go on adventures.
- Use a permanent marker for the black marks instead of paint.
- Add a large pom pom on the sword hilt to look official.
- You can add some paper spikes on the side of the blade to look like the Conan sword.
- Add some red dabs on your paper sword to make it look like your iron sword or steel sword is old and ancient.
- Add some glitter to your sword to make it look like it’s magic.
- Use aluminum foil around the blade to make it look like metal.
Our Experience With This DIY Sword Craft
We had so much fun making DIY swords. We have an abundance of toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls. So I wanted to use some of them up. And the kids had fun making swords.
They had even more fun playing with the swords. We ended up having to make some extra stores, because it does appear being rough with cardboard swords means they won’t last long.
But the kids had no problem making their own. I had knights, pirates, and dragon fighters in my living room squealing and having fun for hours after they made their swords. It was super cute, I won’t lie. I hope your kids love this DIY sword craft as much as mine did.
Materials
- Paper Towel Roll x2
- Paintbrushes
- Scissors
- Acrylic Paint
- *Optional: Hot glue gun
Instructions
- Semi squish your toilet paper roll against the horizontal toilet paper roll and draw a line measuring your “hilt” (handle of sword) to your “guard” (the horizontal part of the sword above the handle). Do this to the backside too.
- Carefully use your scissors to cut along the line.
- Pull your cardboard tube through the hole. You may need to squish it a little.
- Cut off the excess cardboard from your “guard”.
- Draw a triangle on the edge of your “blade” (the sharp part of the sword.) Cut along the lines.
- Paint the blade gray or silver and the guard and hilt yellow. We added some black lines to our sword to make it look shiny. Add any details you want. And you’re done!
Notes
If you cut your hole too big you can use your hot glue gun around the hole to keep it in place.
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How did your DIY sword craft turn out?
