Supplies:

1. Toilet paper rolls (note toilet paper rolls work better than paper towel rolls, since paper towels rolls are a lot thicker and harder to cut and manipulate.)  

2. Wooden frame.  My dad made one from scrap wood he had laying around, but you could also buy one pre made or even a picture frame.  My wooden frame is about 12 X 24 inches.   

3. Glue.  I used a mixture of hot glue and Elmer’s glue 

4. Scissors  

5. Ruler  

6. Spray paint.  I chose to use only black, but you can pick whatever color you want or use what you have on hand.  You can also make the frame and the toilet paper rolls different colors.  Here is the spray paint I used. 
   • Rust-Oleum 338944 Stops Rust Advanced Spray Paint, 12-Ounce, Semi-Gloss Black

To start take your ruler and mark every 1 inch on your toilet paper rolls.  At the end I had an extra piece that was less than 1 inch.  I gave this to my cat to play with.  She loved it.  Then with your scissors cut the toilet paper rolls at the 1 inch marks you made.  So, each piece should be about 1 inch thick.  

Once all of your pieces are cut, lay out your design.  I recommend laying them in the frame to make sure all pieces of the toilet paper are touching something, either another toilet paper roll or the frame. The more pieces touching the sturdier your piece will be.  For the branch like pieces I cut one end of the 1 inch thick toilet paper roll open, then stretched it out and cut it to the desired size. The little leaves were from the extra pieces from the branch I did not need.  If the end of the branch pieces are not curling, then you can wrap the one end around a pencil to get the spiral affect.  

Next, I glued everything down.  I started out by using hot glue gun, but the string from the hot glue gun was getting everywhere, so I switched to Elmer’s glue.  I used the hot glue gun to secure the toilet paper rolls to the wooden frame, but the Elmer’s glue to glue the toilet paper rolls to each other.  I then spray painted everything.  If I do this again, which I may make two 12x 12 ones to go on either side of this one, then I may try spray painting them before I glue things down.  I found it a little difficult to spray the insides of the toilet paper rolls when everything was glued down.  I did about three coats of spray paint to insure everything was covered well.  I also added small pieces of scrap black felt to the 4 corners of this piece to insure the spray paint did not scratch up my walls. This is optional.

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