This year has been a weird one. I mean, it’s a weird year in general, but especially for holidays. Celebrating them just doesn’t feel the same, which is why I haven’t even gotten our Halloween decorations out of the closet yet. I have, however, made a ton of fall decorations, like this DIY Toilet Paper Roll Pumpkin.

Toilet paper roll pumpkins are made from simple items you have at home: empty toilet paper rolls, paint, and glue mostly, but they’re a little more complicated than they look.

Mostly because the pieces of toilet paper roll have a mind of their own. I thought they would fall exactly the way I wanted them to when I tied them together.

No such luck.

But don’t fret. It’s super easy to move and manipulate the pumpkin pieces to fit the way you want after the pieces are tied together.

I’m giving you this warning now so you don’t get frustrated and give up on the craft in the middle of it.

If you have more empty toilet paper rolls leftover after you make this craft, be sure to check out our list of Halloween Toilet Paper Roll Crafts to make a few more crafts.

DIY Toilet Paper Roll Pumpkin Tutorial

Affiliate links are included in this post and Drugstore Divas may make a small commission if you use them.

DIY Toilet Paper Roll Pumpkin Supplies:

• 4 empty toilet paper rolls
• Orange acrylic paint
• Green acrylic paint
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Glue
• Curling ribbon or twine

How To Make DIY Toilet Paper Roll Pumpkins:

The toilet paper rolls I started with were 4 inches long. They can vary a little by brand.

Use your ruler to measure three of the four toilet paper rolls into four equal pieces (in my case, it was four 1-inch strips).

Cut four equally sized strips from three of the four toilet paper rolls.

Paint a light layer of orange paint on the outside of those 12 pieces. Set aside to dry.

By the time you get to the last piece, the first piece should be dry.

Paint a light layer of orange paint on the inside of each of the 12 pieces.

As with the top coat, by the time you get to the last piece, the first piece should be dry.

Paint a second coat of orange paint on the outside of the 12 pieces.

My orange was pretty light, but two coats was enough. If you want a darker color, you can paint an additional coat. And if you have a darker paint, you might be able to get away with one coat.

Just make sure you paint a light coat every time. A heavy coat will be too much for the soft toilet paper rolls.

Set them aside to dry.

Cut your final toilet paper roll in half. In my case, that was two 2-inch pieces, but yours might vary.

Set one half aside and cut a half-inch strip from the other half. Discard the rest.

Paint a light layer of green paint on the outside of the two non-discarded pieces. Let them dry, then paint a light layer of green on the inside.

My green was dark enough that I was able to use only one coat. Depending on how dark your green is, you’ll end up painting between one and three layers.

Set the pieces aside to dry.

When all your pieces are completely dry, string the 12 orange pieces together using ribbon or twine.

Tie the two ends of the ribbon or twine together, then stuff the remaining ribbon or string inside the orange pieces (or just cut them off).

That’s the part that could potentially give you a hard time because the orange pieces will want to flip and flop and go their own separate ways. Some of my orange pieces even hid inside other orange pieces. That’s fine. Just let them flop all over and tie your ribbon.

After the ribbon is tied, you can move the orange pieces around to shape the pumpkin.

I had tiny creases in mine from when I cut the orange pieces. So, I moved the orange pieces around so the folds were at the top and bottom of the pumpkin. The orange pieces wanted to lay so that the folds were in the middle, making a shorter pumpkin. But the taller pumpkin is cuter to me.

As long as you get all the pieces going in the same direction, you’re fine.

Take the larger green piece and stick it in the middle of the orange pieces. It actually fits perfectly in the center, so you don’t even need to use any glue to keep it there. That’s your pumpkin’s stem.

Add a dab of glue to the smaller green piece. Affix it to the side of the stem, letting it rest on the pumpkin. That’s your leaf.

If you wanted, you could save those extra pieces you discarded and make more leaves. I actually tried that and it looked really cluttered, so I went with one leaf. But if you want more, go for it.

If you wanted to, you could spray the toilet paper roll pumpkin craft with a coat of triple thick clear glaze to seal it, but since I’m not planning on using this outside or leaving it in natural light, I’m not worried about it fading. So I didn’t spray mine.

Want more pumpkin crafts?

I don’t know why I made so many pumpkin crafts this year. I also made a different version of a toilet paper roll Jack O’ Lantern this year too. But that was with a friend’s young daughter and I didn’t end up taking any photos of that craft.

If you want to try some more pumpkin crafts, check out the ones below.

• DIY Wooden Pumpkins
• Mix & Match Wooden Pumpkin Face Decoration
• Halloween Pumpkin Drinking Glasses

Want more Halloween toilet paper crafts?

My crafts run in themes, I think. Last year, I was all about making Halloween crafts from empty toilet paper rolls. So, if you didn’t use all of your empty toilet paper rolls for this DIY Toilet Paper Roll Pumpkin craft, use the rest to make some of the crafts below.

• Toilet Paper Roll Ghosts
• Halloween Mummy Candy Tubes
• Halloween Bat Candy Tubes

Would you make this DIY Toilet Paper Roll Pumpkin? Let us know in the comments.