Rainsticks {Tutorial}

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homemade rain sticks for kids play

The forecast is calling for a lot more wind and rain around here. Yuck! I usually don’t mind the rain too much, but now that it’s officially Spring I’m starting to miss the warmth of the sunshine. Just to keep with the rainy theme, we decided to craft some rainsticks out of cardboard tubes that we had left over from a roll of wrapping paper.

kid drawing on paper
The boys chose to decorate their tubes by covering them in crayon and construction paper, but you could use anything, really – paints, glitter, yarn, rhinestones (hey, why not?). I figured that it wasn’t going to be long before the rainsticks turned into swordplay, so I was happy to keep it fast and simple.

kid drawn on rainstick

child adding stickers to diy rainsticks
Everything is better with stickers.
black tape covering bottom of rain stick
Cap one end of your tube. You can make the cap look really clean and pretty by using a circle of paper and a gluestick, but again, I have boys that have been cooped up indoors for what seems like forever now. Rainstick sword fighting seems somewhat inevitable at this point. I sealed mine with Gorilla Tape 😉
kids adding tin foil to rain sticks
Loosely crumple up a piece of aluminum foil that is slightly shorter than your tube, and insert it into the middle.
child pouring items into rainsticks
Pour about 1/2 cup of rice, birdseed, etc into your tube and seal the other end shut.
little kid enjoying homemade rainstick
Turn it from side to side to listen to the sound of falling rain!
little kids playing with diy rainsticks
If we’re going to have to listen to all this rain, we might as well make some noise of our own…if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!
signature from Heidi, Happiness is Homemade

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4 Comments

  1. I juts wanted to say thank you for sharing your easy and wonderful crafts for little ones. These rain sticks are just hilarious and the kids will go nuts for them. Anything with noise, right? Thanks again

  2. Great idea! I love rain sticks, but not the price you have to pay for them. Making this is more fun, too.