Toddler Activity: Cupcake Liner Octopus

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If you’re looking for a fun, ocean animal themed animal craft that’s not a mermaid, you’ve came to the right spot. This Cupcake Liner Octopus is easy to do and turns out looking cute!

When I say easy, I mean that Mila made her octopus with little assistance by me. Yay for independence and growth.

I also like that even though we LOVE mermaids, we’ve done so many this year. It was nice to switch up the ocean themed activities with a different sea animals. Mila remembers them from our trip to Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach, which helped a lot!

The best part of this activity, you can find everything at your local dollar store for less than $5! Here’s what you’ll need:

First, have your child pick out what colors they want the octopuses to be. In our pack of cupcake liners we had pastels: pink, yellow, blue, and green.

Mila picked pink for her (of course) and yellow for me.

Then, to help your toddler succeed in this craft, cut four, long strips of scrapbook paper and tissue paper. These will be the octopus’s legs.

Then, glue together a strip of tissue paper and a strip of scrapbook paper. The scrapbook paper should be on top of the tissue paper. I folded them in the middle to help my guide where they should meet.

Mila did help me with gluing, but she doesn’t have the scissor skills yet to cut long strips. She enjoyed cutting some small pieces off though.

While the legs are drying, take two of the same color cupcake liners and glue them together. This reinforces the octopus and makes it stronger if you want it to hang longterm.

Then, it’s time for the googly eyes. Mila matched the octopuses’ body color with their eyes. She’s been obsessed with googly eyes so I knew I needed to have a craft that had them in there. It was a success.

Just glue the eyes on to the cupcake liner. For this, I flattened the liner to make sure they stayed.

After that, I had her used a marker to draw a smiley face.

Now it’s time to put the legs and body together!

I assisted her with this a lot because it’s a little tricky for toddler.

Take one of the legs and put glue on the center of the scrapbook paper part. Then, place it in the inside of the cupcake liner. It should look like the octopus has two legs dangling down.

After, flip it upside down again, repeat the gluing, and rotate how you put the legs so it’s opposite. You want to make a little ‘x’ in the middle.

While the first two strips dry on the octopus, help with the other one or wait until it dries a little more. I found it dried better if it was flipped on the octopus’s head.

When it’s strong enough make another ‘x’ with the remaining legs.

The legs should look like a star when they’re laying down. It’s hard to explain, but simple to do.

If you’d like to hang then, just take a string and scrapbook paper and glue it on top of its head. I put the string under the paper to give it a little more strength.

Now you’re all done!

Mila was super proud of our Cupcake Liner Octopus and I think they both turned amazingly cute.

If you try this craft out, let me know in the comments. Also, if you know of a cute octopus book, I’d love for you to share it too. It’d be a great idea to pair this craft with a book for other toddlers.

After that, check out how these other moms incorporated mermaids and sea creatures in their day too!

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26 thoughts on “Toddler Activity: Cupcake Liner Octopus”

  8. This is super cute. Thank
    You for sharing since my kindergartener gets out of school early I’ve been trying to Fill our afternoons with crafts. I can’t wait to try this.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  11. How cool! We have all of the supplies handy in the house this would be a great activity for this afternoon since it’s rainy here. My girls enjoy watching their shows and Octonauts is one of their favorites, I’m sure she would love making this octopus.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

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