Our Best Makes Ever Series adventure carries on, and over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing this delightful collection of easy crafts for children! Today’s project is perfect for anyone who LOVES simple sloth crafts for kids. We’re creating incredibly cute recycled sloth pencil holders or pen pots—ideal for summer camp activities or back-to-school crafting! They also make charming little planters, especially for slow-growing succulents. They’re absolutely adorable! Come along and let’s see how to make them!
Aren’t they wonderfully cute? Their cheerful little expressions and playful paper decorations are so lovely. Use them as desk organizers, pen holders, or even tiny plant pots! What fun.
All About the Best Makes Ever Series:
More About the Best Makes Ever Series
The Best Makes Ever Series is a collection of art and craft videos that Art Crafty Kids and I created for Sky Kids UK between 2020 and 2022. The projects were made to offer children enjoyable arts and crafts activities using everyday supplies and limited resources, so everyone could participate and have fun! Now, five years later, we are gradually able to share these wonderful creative projects with you on our websites too. Be sure to explore our Best Makes Ever Series tab for more details, or take a look at some of our featured projects below:
Aren’t they absolutely adorable?
Let’s Make Our Sloth Craft!
Materials required for your sloth plastic pots
- Plastic pots in assorted sizes – although tin cans are suitable as well
- Acrylic paint or another type suitable for plastic, such as enamel paint – if you don’t have these supplies, try today’s pen pot idea using the same style as our Penguin Tin Cans, an extremely simple method with cans and paper
- Paintbrushes
- Paper scraps for decoration – or use anything available, such as ribbons, fabric flowers, pom-poms, and more
- Pens for adding details
- Glue stick for attaching decorations
View the Sloth Pot Video Tutorial
You can also watch this tutorial on my YouTube channel if that’s easier! 🙂 The rest of the Best Makes Ever series is available on YouTube as well!
How to create your Sloth Pencil Holders/ Sloth Plant Pot Craft
Paint your recycled plastic pot in sloth shades
As noted above, if you can’t find paint designed for plastic, try following the method we used for our Penguin Tin Cans! It’s a fantastic way to get a very similar finish.
Start by covering the pot with brown paint for the sloth’s body.
Next, blend some of that SAME brown paint with white to create the contrasting shade for the face.
Paint on a large oval, then leave it to dry.
Create sloth features with simple shapes
Use a few simple shapes to decorate the sloth’s face:
- Form a small, rounded triangle for the nose.
- Add “tear-shaped” eyes.
- Finish the eyes with white dots.
One brilliant benefit of the Penguin Tin Cans paper technique is that you can cut out the shapes and make them just right! Painting requires a little more confidence, although you can lightly sketch the outlines in pencil first. Also keep in mind that painting gives your sloth pencil holders extra personality and charm, since every one will turn out uniquely!
Apply the final details
Use a black felt-tip pen to add the finishing details!
Decorate your Sloth Pencil Holder
Now it’s time to give your sloths some style. This is the perfect stage for getting creative with decorations.
Create a paper flower – cut out the shapes
Paper flowers are fast and simple to make.
Begin by folding a piece of paper in your chosen flower color until you have five layers.
Cut out a teardrop shape, remove the pointed end, and snip a small indentation at the top. This creates a pretty petal shape. I folded mine in half to give them a slight 3D appearance later.
Cut out a green leaf as well. Start with a broad leaf shape, then add a few indents to create that tropical sloth look.
Put together your paper flower
Cut out a few small flower centers—you can draw them yourself or create them with a hole punch.
Stick the flower components together with glue.All finished! So adorable!
Create a Paper Bow Tie using white paper
(You might recognise this charming bow from my LOVELY paper bows included in my Easy Paper Projects book!)
To begin, I chose to embellish my white sheet of paper – naturally – but if you already have attractive patterned paper, feel free to use it!
Since I wanted a spotty bow, I sketched the dots first and then filled in the surrounding areas with color.
I trimmed my paper neatly and cut a strip that would later serve as the bow’s centre.
Next, I folded the paper in a “concertina style”.
Spread the sides and form the bow tie centre
When the concertina fold is complete, pinch the centre and fan out both the left and right sides to create the bow shape.
Pick up the extra paper strip and fold its edges inward – this tidies it up while also making it “thicker”.
Now attach the strip around the middle of your bow with glue!
Attach your paper bow to your Sloth Pot!
Your bow is now complete!
Next, glue your bows and flowers onto your sloth pen pots!
As a final detail, I used a hole punch to create a few rosy cheeks!
Hooray!
Create various sizes
Just a little warning…
You might become carried away and decide to paint an entire collection of yoghurt pots to create a whole family of Sloth Containers. They are perfect for holding pens and pencils, but they would also look adorable as tiny sloth flower pots, don’t you agree?
Fill your Sloth Pencil Holders or Sloth Flower Pots:
Ta-daaaa. These make me so happy!
I really hope you try making them too. Have fun creating!
Take a look at more projects from the Best Makes Ever Series, such as:
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More Adorable and Simple Sloth Crafts for Children:
