Craft tutorials and free templates

Halloween // Spinning paper toy

I love thaumatropes. They have been around forever and make very cool toys. All you need is some paper, a stick (or straw), some sticky tape and five spare minutes. If you haven’t got a printer then you can draw your own.

Halloween spinning toy // by minieco

Halloween spinning toy // by minieco

I used to live in Fremantle (Western Australia) so I made a redback version too!

Halloween spinning toy // by minieco

If you fancy having a go you will find the files at the foot of the post as usual. There are also some other non-Halloween designs here.

Halloween spinning toy // by minieco

PRINTABLE FILES
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Each file makes two thaumatropes
Spider thaumatrope
Redback thaumatrope

YOU WILL NEED:
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+ Good quality A4 paper
+ Scissors
+ Glue
+ Stick/straw

HOW TO
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1. Print out your thaumatropes. Set your printing preferences to ‘text & image’ or ‘photo’. Cut around the outside of your thaumatrope.

2. Take your straw and carefully stick the spider to one side of the stick and the web to the other side of the stick. You can use glue or sellotape.

3. Put your stick between your flat palms and spin your stick. Can you put the spider back in his web?

18 thoughts on “Halloween // Spinning paper toy

  1. Hello fg&b,

    Yeah….we were out there for about 7 years. I actually started the blog out there and had my kids out there. Love it (& miss my Australian friends).

    We have citizenship so hoping to return one day…

    Hope all is well with you 🙂

  2. I love your style and how easy and simple your craft tutorials are! You are seriously talented!
    Pinning a lot of artwork from your site!
    Ursula
    blogger at kraftmint.com {modern crafts}

  3. I tried this today and it’s not working ??? I have the spider on the bottom of one circle and the web on the top of the opposite one, stuck them together with a stick in the middle and the spider doesn’t move up when I spin it. Any ideas? I’m stumped as to what I’m doing wrong!

  4. Thank you for sharing this. I am a speech therapist and will use this for children learning to use s blends – spider, spin, stripe, scary…

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