Recycling Projects: T-Shirt Bracelets

Recycled T-Shirt Bracelets

    This is a simple and crafty project I discovered from a tweet by Earth911.com (@Earth911). The original project is featured on Camilla Fabbri’s blog.

 

Picture courtesy of: http://laandfriends.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/t-shirt-bangles/

Supplies needed:

-Old, unwanted T-shirts (colorful and patterned t-shirts tend to look the best)
-Bangles (try to use ones you already have, or find them at thrift stores)
-Scissors
-Ruler
-Glue gun and glue (optional)
-Extraneous decorative items, such as stickers, fabric markers, or glitter glue (optional)

Recycling Projects: Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder

Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder

Supplies Needed:

• 2 liter plastic bottle with cap
• String or wire
• Scissors, knife, hole punch, wire cutters
• Wood dowel or chopsticks (used or unused)
• Super glue or hot glue gun
• Ruler
• Spray paint and/or acrylic paint and paintbrushes (optional)
• Bird feed

 This project was adapted from a more decorative, intricate project I found online, which you can find here: http://www.favecrafts.com/Green-Crafting/Plastic-Bottle-Birdfeeder#
My version is more simplified. Mine is also less aesthetic, but don't let that discourage you from using your plastic bottle bird feeder. You can customize your bird feeder in any way you like to make it look, well, less like a plastic bottle. The bird feeder made from favecrafts.com is beautiful! So, if you're feeling crafty, check out the link above.

 This project involves some cutting, so please supervise your children or do the cutting for them to make sure they don't get hurt. I'm going to make my own plastic bottle bird feeder as I write this post, and add pictures of my progress as I go!

Recycling Projects: Cereal Box Magazine Holders

Cereal Box Magazine Holders

Supplies Needed:

• Cereal box (or cracker box, or wine box, or pancake mix box, etc.) about 10.5 inches tall
• Scissors
• Glue and/or tape
• Ruler
• Markers, crayons, colored pencils, stickers, paint, paintbrush etc.
• Construction paper, scrap paper OR
• Wrapping paper, designed paper

This will be a fun project for the kids that will allow them to draw and color and be creative. Be sure to supervise them with cutting the boxes, or do it for them, so they don’t get hurt and so the measurements are done correctly. If you’re going to let them do the cutting, it might be easier to mark the boxes beforehand so they know where to cut. Also, avoid buying new paper for this project. Use paper that you already have! Reduce, reuse, recycle!