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6 Earth Day Crafts From Recycled Materials
Earth Day is celebrated on April 22nd by people all over the world to promote environmental protection and conservation. Why not make some eco-friendly crafts in remembrance of Earth Day this year? Your recycling bin is a convenient and sustainable resource that you already have at home for craft items. Use paper towel rolls, egg cartons, recycled cereal boxes, and empty plastic bottles to make these six entertaining crafts for kids.
The majority of the materials required for these crafts can be found in your recycling bin and supply cache. Simply take a look at what you DO have in your stash and make adjustments to Use It Up before you buy new if you don’t have a supply.
1. Recycled Milk Jug Watering Can Craft
From a used milk jug, make a charming and useful watering can!
Supplies:
- Milk jug Hammer and nail (reserved for grownups)
- optional decoration supplies: fabric, buttons, ribbon, paint, glue, and coloured paper
Before you start, thoroughly rinse the milk jug. Then, let your children have fun decorating it however they choose. After using green acrylic paint to paint our jug, we added burlap flowers, ribbon, and glue to it.
Parents, use a hammer and nail to pierce holes from the inside of the lid into the lid to create holes for watering.
2. Recycled Egg Carton Flower Arrangement
Who would have guessed that these vivacious flowers were created from reused egg cartons?
Materials:
- case for eggs
- acrylic paint in a variety of hues
- straws for beverages or bamboo skewers
- Buttons
- (Only for adults) Hot glue and a glue gun
- a repurposed bottle or can
- a cloth strip
- Rough rice
- Scissors (parents can assist with any necessary cutting)
To make flowers, assist your children in removing the cups from an egg carton made from recycled cardboard. Snip around each cup several times, then round the edges into petals on each part. Each bloom should be pressed flat before being allowed to acrylic paint.
When the paint has dried, parents can use hot glue to attach a button to the centre of the flower and a blossom to the end of a drinking straw.
Use a fabric strip and an additional egg carton flower to adorn a recycled jar. Add the flowers after adding the dry rice to create a lovely arrangement.
April Showers/May Flowers wreath is a related endeavour.
3. Earth Day Rain Cloud Mobile
To construct this adorable rainy day mobile, recycle some egg cartons and your Kix cereal box.
Materials:
- Kix cereal box recycled
- egg crates
- acrylic paint in blue and paintbrush
- Cotton balls and white paper; string
- White glue Scissors (parents can assist with cutting as needed) Pencil
- Using newspaper to shield your workspace
A Kix box should be opened and flattened. Attach a white sheet of paper to the cereal box’s front and back with glue. On one side, draw a cloud form, and then cut it out.
To protect your work surface, spread newspaper on the table. Egg cartons made from recycled cardboard that have been cut into cups and had the outsides painted blue. Permit to dry.
Egg carton rain mobile – earth day craft
Glue cotton balls to the cloud as you wait for the paint on your raindrops to dry. We unrolled ours and used them to create wavy patterns.
Once the egg carton cups are dry, use a pencil tip to make holes in the tops and hang them from lengths of twine, yarn, or string. Four raindrop strands were created by us.
Attach the raindrop strands to the cloud’s base, and then add a thread for hanging at the top.
4. Paper Tube Rocket Ship
Using a few recycled paper tubes, you can create a stylish rocket ship craft!
Materials:
- 2 tubes of paper towels
- Letter stickers on white, grey, and orange paper are optional.
- White glue, rubber bands, and scissors are optional.
Cover one roll of paper towels with white paper and glue it down. To help the paper stay in place while the glue dries, use a few rubber bands wrapped around it.
The rocket’s pointed top was made by:
Rocket ship top
Cut a grey circle (use the lid of a jar as a template for your circle) and then carve a “pie piece” from the circle. Next, glue the two straight sections together by overlapping them. Add glue to the body of the white rocket.
Recycled rocket craft
Create rocket boosters by halves a paper towel roll. Grey paper should be used to cover the short rolls and a circle of grey paper should be placed over the top opening of each roll.
Orange paper should be cut into 2′′ wide strips with one side having a jagged edge. Each roll should have orange strips glued to the bottom. Let them dry.
Utilise letter stickers to decorate. You are now prepared for takeoff!
5. Handprint Blossom Tree Craft
Add handprints to recyclables, and what do you get? A cute memento handprint blossom tree!
Earth Day Craft: Handprint Blossom Tree
Materials:
- recycle box for cereal
- recycled tube for paper towels
- building paper in green
- a brown acrylic paintbrush and paint
- tissue paper in pink
- Black glue
- Paper and scissors to cover your workspace
To shield your workspace, spread newspaper on the surface. Make four handprints on green construction paper using the child’s hands after painting them in brown. Paint a paper towel tube brown while you have the brown paint out (you could even cover the tube in brown paper instead). Let all of the paint dry.
Attach handprints on a recycled cereal box with glue and cut outs to make “tree branches.” We cut out each of our handprints separately, then stacked them to form a tree shape. Cut two notches in the centre of the paper towel tube’s one end.
Cherry blossom handprint tree craft
To add blossoms to the tree, cut 1′′ squares of pink tissue paper, let your child crumple them, and then glue the squares onto the handprints.
Insert the tree top into the paper towel roll’s notched edge.
6. Recycled Soda Bottle Terrarium
A transparent lid is placed over a miniature garden to produce a damp, particularly plant-friendly environment known as a terrarium. Take a recycled soda bottle and turn it into your own little garden terrarium.
Earth Day Craft: Recycled Soda bottle terrarium
Materials:
- 2-liter soda container in clear
- Small plants in pots (your yard’s weeds are fine, too!)
- Clear packing tape and scissors
A 2-liter soda bottle should be washed and properly rinsed. Take away all labels.
2 liter soda bottle terrarium
About 5 inches from the bottom of the Coke bottle, cut it in two. On the cut edge of the bottle’s bottom half, make a notch. Apply packing tape to the notched edge and slightly overlap it. This will make it easy for the top half of the bottle to cover the bottom.
Add a few plants after halfway filling the bottom of the bottle with potting soil. If you’d like, you can also use rocks, shells, or tiny plastic figures!
Water the plants with a little mist, then replace the soda bottle’s cap.
Recycled soda bottle terrarium
You won’t look at your recycling bin the same way again once you’ve learned about all these entertaining projects you can make with recyclables. Simply look in the bin if your children are bored and use the materials you find there to come up with something fun. Cheers to Earth Day!
The mother of four sons, Heather Mann, is always looking for entertaining games, crafts, and cooking ideas to keep her boys entertained. She creates and posts tips on being the best mom ever (on a budget) at Dollar Store Mom as well as inventive crafts with a cheap spin at Dollar Store Crafts.