Recycled Crafts – Turning Trash to Treasure In The Kids’ Craft Room

Raid the blue box and turn trash into treasure with these simple recycled crafts and activities for kids!

I SPY BOTTLES

Discovery bottles, also known as I spy bottles are wonderful for kids to make and play with.

Set out an assortment of small, colourful objects and have children pick a colour theme i.e. red/pink, green/purple etc.  Then have them select objects to match their chosen colours, and drop them in an energy drink bottle.

The Hooligans love dropping things into things, so this alone is a fun exercise for them.  When they’ve loaded their bottles up, fill ’em up with water and add a few drops of matching food colour.  Add some co-ordinating glitter and you’re good to go.  These looked SO pretty, especially in the sunlight, and they had a lot of fun spinning and tipping the bottles, looking for/identifying the treasures inside.

RAIN STICKS

Sturdy wrapping paper tubes painted with acrylic paint make great rain sticks. Punch holes in the end and thread long lengths of curling ribbon through.

DOOR HANGERS

We used one of my boys’ door hangers as a template and traced a bunch on cardboard for the Hooligans (we just go thru the recycle bin whenever we need cardboard – cereal boxes, pizza boxes etc. always come in handy).  Cover with scrap-book paper and decorate with assorted colourful craft bits.

CARDBOARD CLUTCH

 Take the back or front panel of a cereal box and let the kids go wild with paint and stampers/sponges, whatever you have, until the box is nicely covered.  Let the paint dry, and then fold it into 3 sections so you have a clutch front, clutch back and a flap to fold over (basically you’re making an envelope).  You can staple the sides shut, but little fingers could catch on staples, so I opted to throw the clutches through my sewing machine and stitch the ends shut.  Add a button and ribbon clasp.  Aren’t they sweet?

SHOEBOX HOUSE

We LOVE little worlds here!  These are so fun to make.  Decorate the inside of a shoebox with scrapbook paper.  Go through magazines and cut out furniture, doors, windows, clocks, lamps etc., give your child a glue stick and let them unleash their interior decorating skills.

WINTER SUN CATCHER

We saved this plastic cake pan, knowing it would come in handy for something one day.  One frigid winter day, we filled it up with water, and crammed it full of sparkly, colourful craft scraps.  It sat outside overnight in sub-zero temps, and the next day we popped our sun-catcher out of the pan, and hung it in a tree  (just remember to partially submerge a loop of ribbon at the top so you’ll have something to hang it with.

CEREAL BOX BACKDROP

Turn a cereal box into a backdrop for play with a little paint, some markers and pencil crayons.

Fun stuff, and a good way to teach your children about repurposing and upcycling before discarding an item!

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Jackie Currie

Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.