Recycling Projects: Apple Gift Boxes

Plastic Bottle Apple Gift Boxes

Supplies

• Two plastic bottles of the same size
• Scissors
• Green, yellow, or red acrylic paint and paintbrush
• Brown pipe cleaners
• Green tissue paper or paper rope
• Ribbon (optional)
• Glue (to apply ribbon, optional)

    This simple, adorable little project was borrowed from http://krokotak.com/2013/03/plastic-bottle-apples/ and the end result can become a gift, a house decoration, or a usable container. All of the pictures in this post came from the link above.


    Steps:
From the two plastic bottles, you’ll only need the bottoms. The top halves of the bottles can be recycled, unless if you can find a creative way to use them for a different project. Be sure to clean out the bottle bottoms to remove any leftover soda or drink. Dry with a dish cloth.

Cut slits in the rims of the two bottoms and fit the two different parts together with these slits.

Paint the “apple” whatever color you would like. If the bottles you used were green (i.e. Mountain Dew bottles) you can skip the paint! Cover the surface completely with paint and allow to dry.

Stab a small hole in the center of the top of apple so that you can insert a brown pipe cleaner. This will serve as the stem of the apple. Take a piece of green tissue paper or green paper rope and shape it into a leaf. Twist the pipe cleaner around the base of the leaf.

Select a piece of ribbon and wrap it around the place where the two pieces of bottle meet. Cut the appropriate length. Use glue to apply the ribbon around the circumference of the apple to hide the intersection. If you want to be able to reopen your apple in order to use it as a container or a gift box, skip this step.

 Your plastic bottle apples can hold candy, pocket change, or jewelry, or you can use them as office organizers and fill them with erasers, paper clips, rubber bands, and more. They make great gifts for favorite teachers or secretaries, and can have a small note of thanks tucked away inside as a surprise. Use them to decorate your kitchen, bathroom, or your child’s room. Your child can add them to his or her kitchen play set and serve them as part of dinner to their stuffed animals.



Animal of the Month Update

Picture courtesy of: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snow_leopard_face.jpg

Snow leopards prefer steep cliffs, rocky outcrops, and ravines. These habitats provide them with camouflage to help them surprise their prey. They usually spring onto their prey from a distance of twenty to fifty feet. Their long and powerful hind legs can propel them up to thirty feet, or six times their body length.

Snow leopards are rarely seen in the wild because they are mostly active at dawn and dusk. They are famous for being elusive and hard to capture on camera. Solitary in nature, they pair only during the breeding season.

Organizations that protect the endangered snow leopard and its mountainous habitat include the Snow Leopard Trust, the Snow Leopard Conservancy, the Snow Leopard Network, the Cat Specialist Group and the Panthera Corporation. I will be providing more information soon on how you can support these organizations and their missions to preserve the snow leopards. In the meantime, I encourage you to look them up and learn more about them.

 Picture courtesy of: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/8640194/Snow-leopards-by-numbers.html 

Thank you for reading! Come back tomorrow to read a post by Viridorari's third guest writer! The next scheduled post will be on Friday, and will include "Suggested Reading" and "Activism Spotlight."