Children's Crafts

Plastic Bottle Recycling Crafts

Sometimes I think I’m surrounded by plastic bottles. There are so many of them these days, everywhere you look. I try not to buy them, but it’s hard to buy shampoo without the bottle, or coca cola, or tomato juice and, yes, sometimes even bottled water, although I try hard not to do that one.

As most of you know, I’m into recycling, so the plastic bottles are a natural crafting medium for me in that regard. Here’s some of my favourite recycling ideas for crafts using plastic bottles.

First up, a Recycled Bottle Fish Mobile, made from three different-sized bottles, including a two-litre pop bottle, a juice bottle, and a water bottle. These look wonderful floating in the air, and would make a great mobile for a kids room, or the neighbourhood fish-and-chip shop.

Secondly, these handy, dandy Recycled Bottle Greenhouses which I use every year to start seedlings and cuttings. This year, I transplanted a climbing rose bush and in the process a number of branches fell off. These I took, trimmed, dipped in rooting hormone powder, and planted in some potting soil in a bottle greenhouse. It was perfect because the trimmings were actually longer than normal, about five or six inches, but the bottle was long enough to accomodate this. And, yes…three weeks later, and I can see the roots growing up against the plastic, so I’ll be planting out my new yellow climbing rose bush very soon!

Aren’t these Pop Bottle Butterflies pretty? You make them from pieces cut from a plastic bottle, using a butterfly template (check out children’s coloring books for some excellent butterfly shapes). The colors are added with dimensional fabric paint and glass paints. Just gorgeous!

From the same Canadian craft designer, Susan Spatone, comes this Recycled Bottle Angel. The idea here is a little different, because you’re covering the bottle up completely and using it as the base for your lacy angel decoration, just perfect for Christmas.

One of the older projects on AllFreeCrafts is this simple idea for Recycled Plastic Bottle Soap Pumps. Liquid soap bottles with a designer look are so expensive in the stores. But save those bottles, buy a cheap liquid soap refill, and use it to refill those expensive pump bottles – along with your personal choice of silk flowers, or even fake goldfish, if you prefer a fish tank motif.

Off-site, one of the most appealing projects I’ve seen are these Recycled Bottle Apple Boxes. They are hinged at the back, and laced together at the front with ribbons, while the inside holds a small gift-wrapped gift. Simple, but so effective, you’ve got to love it.

Although I don’t have an illustration, you can make a very effective Pop Bottle Wasp Trap by using a serrated knife, or scissors, to cut the top third from a two-liter pop bottle bottle. To the bottom part, add half a cup or so or orange juice, or another sweet enticement, such as jam mixed with water. Remove the lid, and flip the top section over, then insert it into the bottom, so that the opening hovers above the liquid. The yellow jackets and bothersome flies will go in, but then find it impossible to get again. The wasp trap that I made like this last year made our back deck a much safer place for me, because I’m allergic to bee and wasp stings.

If you enjoy feeding the birds, then check out the Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder images on Google for ideas on how to recycle a plastic bottle to feed our feathered friends. There are so many design variations that it is hard to pick just one.

I have used attachments, similar to the WILD BIRD FEEDER RING shown here, at left, and found them very good for small birds such as chickadees, wrens, sparrows and finches. But you can make do by cutting feeding holes into the pop bottles, along with smaller holes placed just below the feeding holes, to hold a perch. One version of this is FamilyCorner’s Bird Feeding Station, shown at right.

Finally, do like the Victorians, and use a two-liter pop bottle as a Nature Display Dome. The Victorians, of course, would have used a glass dome, but modern pop bottles weren’t available to recycle then, which gives you a perfect excuse to make the substitution. This makes a good recycling project for a youth group, as all you will need is a pop bottle for each person, along with a collection of silk flowers (or, even better, dried materials collected on a nature walk).