DIY Pipe Cleaner Starfish Craft Tutorial

Learn to make a pipe cleaner starfish craft.

Looking for an easy ocean craft that is kid-friendly and super customizable? This starfish will definitely deliver.

In this post, I will share how I created this starfish using pipe cleaners. Once you understand the basic skeleton behind making it, you can customize it to fit your own style. This is one of the most beginner friendly chenille stem projects you can recreate.

Materials Needed

For this DIY starfish, here are the materials you will need:

10 Pipe Cleaners (in the color of your choice)
Pliers
Glue Gun
Soft Pastel
Pearl Stickers

Step-by-Step Instructions

I have filmed a video tutorial for those of you who are more of a visual learner. To make sure this post works for everyone, I have also written out every step below. Watch the video above to see the motion of each step, then follow along with the written instructions to lock in the details.

Instructions:

Take one pipe cleaner and fold it exactly in half.
Fold each half in half again, then twist the folded section tightly. You now have one V shaped piece with two twisted tips.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 with a second pipe cleaner, so you have two matching V shaped pieces, each with two twisted tips.
Take a third pipe cleaner and fold it in half, but this time only fold and twist one side. Leave the other side straight and untwisted. This piece will have one twisted tip and one plain tail.
Hold the two fully twisted V pieces and the third piece together at their center folds, then twist all three together tightly. This forms the 5 arm skeleton of your starfish, with the plain tail from the third pipe cleaner left free.
Using that plain tail from the third pipe cleaner, wrap it around all 5 arms close to the center to bind the skeleton together and start building up the body.
Repeat this same wrapping motion using the remaining lengths from your first two pipe cleaners.
From your fourth pipe cleaner onward, wrap each new pipe cleaner around the starfish twice instead of once.
Repeat step 8, adding pipe cleaners until the body looks as full as you like.
Take a new pipe cleaner and thread it through the tips of the arms, moving it around the circumference of the starfish. Secure it by twisting at the center and at the top of each arm.
For the last layer, use a glue gun to glue pipe cleaners around the circumference of the starfish for a cleaner, more finished edge.

Extra Touches

I like to use soft pastels to give the starfish a color gradient look. Simply grate your soft pastels and use a brush to paint the color on.

Then, I love going a little extra, so I top mine off with pearl stickers in different sizes.

Now that you know how to make this starfish craft, here are a few tips on how to customize your own.

Play with the pipe cleaner colors. You can use one color, or two colors, and then blend the colors together using soft pastels. This is such a huge hack.
Instead of pearl stickers, you can also top it off with other materials like jewels.
Turn it into a keychain simply by adding a metal keyring.

There are a ton of ways you can play with this, so have fun.