Back to school season is here! Today, I have a fun craft for you that will help add some cute pizzaz to your child’s new pencils, pipe cleaner pencil toppers!

These cute animal pencil toppers are made using pipe cleaners. Kids will love making these with you.

If you are making some pencil toppers with a little one, you might need to help them with the hot glue gun. You can have fun and be creative with the pipe cleaner colors and the types of creatures you make.

These would be a heartfelt gift for any child. They come together super quickly, so you could easily make a few and attach them to pretty pencils in your little one’s favorite color.

What an adorable way to get kids excited to do their homework!

Supplies You’ll Need

• 2x Brown pipe cleaners 12″ long
• 2x Brown pipe cleaners 6″ long
• 1x Tan pipe cleaner 6″ long
• Googly eyes
• Flat black sequin* x1
• Hot glue gun

*or a small bead or button

How to Make a Pipe Cleaner Pencil Topper

Step 1. Get your two longest pipe cleaners. Roll them up tightly so that they form two large circles.

Be careful not to make the circles flat. They should be 3D like a bowl.

When you have rolled each pipe cleaner into a circle, tuck in the loose ends at the back of the circle so that they don’t show.

Step 2. You should now have two large circles which will build the head of your bear.

Step 3. Roll the 3 shorter pipe cleaners the same way. When you are done with this step, you will have two circles for the head, two smaller circles for the ears, and one smaller circle for a nose.

Step 4. Take a 12” long pipe cleaner and bend it in half to form a “V” shape. This will be your pencil wrap.

Step 5. Take one of the largest circles that will form the head. Add two small dots of glue on either side of the top of the circle and place the ears here.

Press the ears down onto the glue so that they are firmly attached. Now, add a small dot of glue in between the ears on the top and another one on the bottom.

Then, place the open ends of the pencil wrap here.

Step 6. Add a circle of glue around the head.

Step 7. Attach the other large circle to complete the head of your bear.

Step 8. Grab your nose and glue it onto the head.

Step 9. Now, add the eyes and your sequins or small beads to the nose.

Step 10. This picture shows how you can be creative with these pencil toppers. You can form any shapes you want with these pipe cleaners.

Circles work great for bears, but you can play with the pipe cleaners and make triangles, ovals, hearts, and squares to make other animals.

Don’t forget to play with colors as well to make this pencil topper truly your own!

Step 11. Your pencil topper is almost complete. We just need to wrap it.

Step 12. Grab your pencil and begin wrapping the pipe cleaner around it.

Step 13. Keep going until the entire pipe cleaner is wrapped tightly around the pencil and there are no loose ends.

Step 14. Your adorable pipe cleaner pencil topper is ready to go!

Watch How to Make

How Long Do These Pencil Toppers Take to Make?

These fun pencil toppers will only take about 20-30 minutes to make. This would be such a great weekend or rainy-day project for kids.

Because they come together super quickly, these are great for even the littlest children with tiny attention spans. It could be fun to make a different animal every day for a week.

Children will look forward to their daily craft. By the end of the week, you will have an entire pencil’s case worth of animal pencil toppers!

More Crafts Like This

• Pipe Cleaner Butterflies
• Pipe Cleaner Flowers
• Pipe Cleaner Bracelets
• DIY Bookmarks
• Bookmark with Paper Clips