Upcycling at home: ideas to get crafty with your kids

You certainly have a tonne of plastic bottles, tin cans, and glass jars in your recycling, but if you give them some consideration, you can use them to make simple and creative games with your kids and educate them about resourcefulness and waste management.

Here are a few easy, kid-friendly craft ideas that you can try out with common household items.

Tin cans

For the crafty kid, metal cans are a great classic: all you need to do is add twine to make stilts to walk on or a great tin can phone to talk into. What more can you do with them, though?

Acrylic paint may be used to paint cans, which makes them an excellent base for vibrant handcrafted ornaments. Pick some simple-to-grow floral seeds, such as aquilegias or marigolds, and use a painted can to create the ideal customised planter that your youngster can tend to. Alternatively, you may use the can’s reflective surface to create lovely tea light lanterns for your garden if you decide not to paint the inside of it.

Just be certain that the can you and your youngster are using doesn’t have any sharp edges; a can with a ring pull would be preferable than one that requires an opener. Remember to wash them out as well; you don’t want your lovely lantern ruined by a roasted bean that has dried out!

Plastic bottles

It’s fair that plastic bottles have a bad reputation because over eight million tonnes of plastic end up in the world’s oceans every year. Recycling is undoubtedly helpful in addressing this issue, but you can also recycle old bottles to create something entirely new that your kids can play with at home.

Once you’ve drilled a few strategically placed holes in the lid, a plastic bottle can serve as a useful watering can for indoor or outdoor plants. Your youngster shouldn’t do this, but after you’ve carefully cut these holes yourself, let them use coloured pencils, twine, and ribbon to adorn the bottle’s exterior.

You could also assist kids in building a bird feeder, which they can use to learn about the local birds and fill with seeds or mealworms every day.

Glass jars

Reusing old glass jars is a terrific method to teach kids that food containers have worth and can still be used in the house even after they are used for the first time.

You can reuse your old jars for storing nuts, pasta, or even chocolate chips for baking. Since many stores now sell this type of goods without packaging, you could find your jars useful! Just wash and remove the labels. If you have coloured marker pens, your child can draw directly onto the glass to ensure that their design doesn’t wear off over time. Alternatively, they can use sticky labels to get creative and make their jars stand out in the kitchen.

If your kid is a flower lover, you’ll always have an almost endless supply of vases on hand if you recycle and decorate old jam or sauce jars.

Magazines and newspapers

Anything containing pictures that a child may cut out, such as magazines, newspapers, or even shopping catalogues, is a terrific opportunity to get them started with collage and imagining exercises.

Consider asking your youngster to design their own town. Allow children to select and cut out images of people and buildings, which they can then arrange on paper and adhere with glue. If they have an interest in fashion, you may help them choose ensembles by having them choose a shirt from one photo and trousers from another. Utilise your own creative juices to come up with collage concepts.

If their fingers are dexterous enough, you could even introduce them to basic origami. A fast internet search will yield a plethora of beginner-friendly patterns, such as boats or animals.

Cardboard boxes

Although cardboard boxes are plain and boring, to a toddler they are like a blank canvas waiting to be painted.

To get them started, consider creating a new den for their stuffed animals or toys, building a submarine with portholes to see below, making colourful masks for the family or making a personalised sign to hang on the bedroom door. A cardboard box, some adhesive tape, safety scissors, pens, and a little bit of optimistic thinking can do all of this.

Of course, you could stockpile your boxes for your next major move or purge, but it would take away from the enjoyment factor.