Do you struggle to throw away a cereal box? Can you rarely put a plastic bottle in your recycling bin? Do you always say yes to taking your shoe boxes home or heaven forbid……have you ever thrown a button or cotton reel away? If not; you too share my biggest problem – i think officially, you would call me an avid up-cycler – if you are my husband, you would simply call me a hoarder!
Since i have embarked on a career of crafting with my kids, it seems i can never truly see a piece of rubbish as just that – rubbish. Believe me, i love to recycle as much as the next person but, if it looks like it might make a nice addition to a dress up outfit / might be a good receptacle for paint / could have something poured through it, then i can’t bring myself to throw it away! I don’t have a large house but i do have many boxes of bits and bobs that simply look too good to loose.
I have already shared the cereal box village I made with you here. Now i thought i would show you the favourite craft we have made in a long while. Making a toy carry case out of an Innocent smoothie box. Now, confession time here, i know i saw the idea online somewhere but i simply can’t remember which blog / pinteret board it was on…. but all credit to the inventor of this craft, its easy and its fun!
We love a ‘squeezie’ juice in this house (especially when they are on special offer in the supermarket!) and, as well as collecting the magnets inside the boxes (has anyone got a G or a Z then we would have the lot?!) i simply think their boxes are lovely – they are strong, they aren’t too big and well, they are begging to be turned into something else!
Last week, I took 3 of these lovely empty boxes i had been collecting to my sisters house. We were playing there for the day and it was raining so with three girls to entertain, we decided it was a day for a craft…..
Once dry, i simply stapled on a little cardboard handle and the girls went to town with their sticking and glueing of little pictures cut out of magazines and old birthday cards and stickers.
The little houses really look great and as soon as the glue was dry, they each busily stuffed their favourite little toy inside and thought it was hilarious to see them peeking out of the ‘window’ at the front.
My girls have played and played with their boxes, they have been vets cases, handbags and dog houses – the possibilities it seems are endless!
It seems i am not alone in the love of these little things either, I couldn’t resist sharing this with you. As a definite Autumnal feel arrives and with her big sister embarks on her life in full time education, i think little Freya and I might be doing a lot of cardboard up cycling crafts – have you got any fun ones to recommend?
