Rather than sending your used plastic bottles to the recycling bin, gather your children and come up with a list of clever ways to reuse them as free craft material. Once you start brainstorming, you’ll soon realize there are endless creative ways to repurpose them. To help inspire you, I’ve included five plastic bottle crafts for kids to get you started.
6 Fun Plastic Bottle Crafts Kids Will Love
Make a discovery bottle
This is a fun and easy craft that can be done with any size plastic bottle – from a small 8-ounce bottle to a liter size. Pick ten, small toys or objects that will fit through a bottle opening, such as marbles, coins and crayons. Next, grab a bag of rice or small dried beans and use a funnel to fill the bottle a quarter of the way full. Then, add your toy of choice. Repeat these steps until all of the toys have been added, leaving an inch of space at the top of the bottle. Screw the lid tightly back onto the bottle. Have your child roll the new “discovery” bottle to uncover all ten hidden objects. It is a great way to keep them busy during a car ride.
Organizing trays
Create mini organizing trays for your desk or bathroom vanity. Have an adult cut the bottom of a plastic bottle off, creating small, round trays. Allow your children to decorate these trays with paint, glitter and buttons. Place them on your counters to keep loose items such as hair-ties, paper clips and bobby pins all in one place. For more tutorial with photos of how to make plastic bottle organizing trays, visit makezine.com
Flower pot
Have an adult cut off the top portion of a plastic bottle (where it starts to narrow) and punch a few holes into the bottom for drainage. Then, ask your kids to help decorate the new planter with paints. Plant a flower or herbs and display in a sunny area. You could even chose to cut off the top portion leaving ears to create an animal planter as they did at handimania.com
Crowns
Help your child make a crown by cutting off the top and bottom portion of a soda bottle – the mid-section will be used as the crown. You can cut out a pattern along the top. Once created, make sure to file down any sharp edges before letting your child decorate. Children can decorate their homemade plastic bottle crown using stickers, beads, buttons and glitter to make their perfect crown. You can see a cute example and tutorial at handmadecharlotte.com
Plastic Bottle Stamps
Use the bottom of a plastic bottle as a stamp for art projects. Put some paint onto a tray and dip the bottom of the empty bottle into various colors. Then, press the dipped bottle onto a poster or cardboard box. These make great flower prints that your children can paint around and expand into beautiful artwork. Different plastic bottles have different shapes and make different prints. Visit alphamom.com for a great tutorial of how Alpha Mom used a plastic bottle bottom as a cherry blossom stamp.
Plastic Bottle Planter
This plastic bottle craft is for older kids because it involves cutting the plastic but you can also do that part for them and just let them get involved in the decorating and planting. You can turn a large plastic bottle into a hanging planter! You just cut a large square window out of both sides of the plastic bottle and then you put dirt inside and plant some seeds or small plants like herbs. Then you can make it a hanging planter by tying string around the top or drilling a hole through the top and threading string through.
Which of these plastic bottle crafts for kids is your favorite?
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