Milk Jug Snowman Ornament

We are all for quick, affordable crafts that are easy for kids to make...and an even better bonus is if they're recycled! I had fun whipping up a snowman ornament out of a milk jug last year...

Toddler Play: Fine Motor Skills

Here's a fun game for toddler's to play, and all you need are drinking straws and an empty box!

Recycled Turtle Craft

My boys got a pet turtle last fall, so turtles have been a popular topic here. One day, my 4 year old asked if we could make a turtle craft so I looked through my stash and we made these:

Here's what you'll need to make your own cute little turtles: applesauce cups (washed and dried), green craft foam (or construction paper), googly eyes, scissors, permanent markers, glue sticks.

Soda Bottle Jet Pack

I have to be careful not to leave my Pinterest page open, or my boys will start scrolling through and demanding we do every single craft they find on it…soda bottle jet packs were one of those demands.
We don’t drink a lot of soda, so my 6 year old went nearly crazy waiting for two 2-liter soda bottles to be consumed, washed and dried. But when they were, this is how we made the jet pack with things we already had on hand:

Peanuts and Toothpicks

I keep meaning to buy some mini marshmallows and have my boys build something with those marshmallows and toothpicks, but since we had a box full of peanuts arrive at our doorstep, we did the next best thing!
We built with peanuts and toothpicks. My boys were captivated for nearly an hour with the challenge of building. My 4 year old made a tent among other things and my 6 year old made a stadium. Free, easy to clean up, and entertaining!

I'll be linking up to...Works For Me Wednesday, Kids Get Crafty, Look What We Did, Mom’s Library, Let's Hear it For the Boy! Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Share it Saturday, Fine Craft Guild, Share Wednesdays, TGIF,

DIY Yarn from Grocery Sacks

When I was a teenager, one of the service projects we did at our church was making yarn out of plastic grocery sacks. The yarn would be collected and shipped to Africa where the women could crochet and/or knit the yarn into products they could sell.

I’m learning how to crochet right now so I thought some grocery sack yarn would be a great way to learn without going through tons of normal yarn. This Is how I make my grocery sack yarn:

Grocery Bag Flowers

If there’s any craft I get really excited about, it’s one that recycles every day objects into awesome, new things! Flowers from grocery bags was no exception…even though I use tote bags for much of my shopping, I still have plastic bags growing out of my ears so I was stoked to find Silly Simple Living’s plastic bag flowers thanks to Pinterest!

I added a few twists to make these flowers make-able for anyone with stuff we all have lying around including…plastic grocery bags, paper clips, scissors, and masking tape. Use different colored bags for more diversity…I even left the wording on some of them because I liked the contrast on the “petals”.

How to Make Gift Bows from Magazines

Last year I saw several blogs post about making their own gift bows, but I procrastinated too long, so the idea has been simmering in my mind ever since! Thanks to eHow, I can now share with you how you can make your own gift bows :).

All you need is a magazine, scissors, some paper board (like a cereal box), and glue.

Bottle Cap Reindeer Ornaments

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m on a bit of a bottle cap rampage right now and am loving all the different ways you can reuse little metal bottle caps…just more proof to me that just about everything can be recycled! Anyhow…

All you need to make these darling ornament is some brown paint, white and black paint (or googly eyes), and a little red for the nose. Hot glue small twigs on for the antlers and hot glue a ribbon on the back to hang up your darling ornaments and you are done!

I’ll be linking up to Christmas Crafts Link Up, Make it 4 Monday, Motivate Me Monday, Market Yourself Monday, Mad Skills LInk Party, Homemaker Monday, Making Monday Marvelous, Monday Blog Hop and Mommy Monday.

Halloween Luminaries

After I posted about my Jack-O-Lanterns from a Jar last year, Debbie left a comment explaining how she used to make Luminaries for Halloween and of course I had to try it!

The process is fairly simple...you empty and clean how ever many cans you want. Draw a Jack-O-Lantern face on them and use a nail and hammer to punch holes along your lines. When you light a tea candle inside, you get something like this:

Homemade Marble (AKA Dirt) Run

I have been saving these cardboard wrapping paper tubes for ages and we moved to a place with a chain-link fence…just what I needed to make a marble/dirt run for my boys (as inspired by Fun on a Dime).

All you need is wrapping paper tubes (or paper towel/toilet paper tubes), a hole punch, twisty ties and if desired, the mouths of some water bottles to act as funnels. My boys had so much fun pouring dirt and they were absolutely filthy by the time they came inside :). Punch holes in the tubes and cut into them as shown below so the dirt can make it into the tubes.

Peek-A-Boo Blocks

If you’re in the “buying ridiculous amounts of baby food” stage of life and hate throwing all of those containers away, consider using some of the plastic ones to entertain your little one by making peek-a-boo blocks:

To learn how to, head over here.

Make Your Own Lacing Cards

I was at the store recently and saw a box of lacing cards which got me wondering how hard I would be to make some for my boys…turns out it’s pretty easy!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

At Christmas time I ended up with a bunch of empty wrapping paper tubes knowing that they were craft worthy and just barely put one to use (other than the rolls they have played numerous times as swords). This is what K and I came up with:

That’s right…the Very Hungry Caterpillar! Who can resist this cute critter from Eric Carle?

Cereal Box Magazine Holder

If you’ve signed up for free cooking magazines recently, you might have more magazines than you know exactly what to do with…or is that just me? This morning as I was pouring my cereal, I happened to glance on the inside of my Honey Comb box and noticed directions on the flap detailing how to make a recycle rack (which I have converted to a magazine holder).