Elmer's - Recycled Crafts

Children are never too young to learn the valuable principles of recycling and using recyclable household materials for crafting is a great way to get creative with the kids.

"Use recyclable items that are easy to clean," says Elmer's product manager Alicia Buter. Pop and juice bottles, cereal boxes and potato chip containers are all perfect recyclable items to keep on hand.

Instead of recycling potato chip and hot chocolate containers, Buter is using them to make cute recycled coin banks.

If you're looking for standard items to keep in your craft cupboard you should consider having an assortment of the essentials says Buter. These should include chenille stems, jiggley eyes, foam sheets and feathers.

Materials:

Potato chip or hot chocolate can, foam sheets in two or more different colours, elastics, X-Acto knife, Elmer's Tacky Glue, four pompoms in two different colours, one pair of jiggley eyes, feathers in assorted colours, chenille stems. Adult supervision required when using X-Acto knife.

Steps:

1. Take your empty and cleaned potato chip or hot chocolate can and turn it upside down so that the lid is on the bottom. This will make it easy to get the collected coins out when the bank is full. Wrap the can in a sheet of foam and glue down the seam using Elmer's Tacky Glue. Add elastics around the can for decoration and to help keep the foam in place.

2. Next you want to create the slit where you can insert the money. This step requires adult supervision as you will need to use an X-Acto knife. Make sure you cut through both the foam and the can, making a big enough rectangular slit that will fit the biggest coins.

3. To make the bird's face you'll want to start with the beak. Using a piece of foam, cut a heart shape that you will place at the top edge of the can, making sure you pucker it up so that you can get the coins in underneath. You should use Elmer's Tacky Glue for this because it has a quicker tack than regular glue.

4. For the eyes you will glue two pompoms in the same colour side-by-side, then use two more pompoms in another colour and glue them side-by-side on top of the first two. On top of those pompoms you can glue a pair of jiggley eyes then glue everything on top of the beak.

5. To create the bird effect you will use a number of coloured feathers and glue them upright just behind the eyes onto the can. Wings are created by adding a chenille stem on each side of the bird's body and then you can glue circle foam shapes on the front for extra decoration.

Add coins and start saving!

Written by: Christine Davis

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• elmers
• elmer's
• craft
• glue
• recycle
• bank
• piggy
• saving
• feathers
• eyes
• paper
• instructions
• crafts
• arts
• fun
• reuse
• making
• whatsupfamilies
• look

[kateBN1]

:)