Eat Your Oatmeal, Save the Box
Recycling begins at home in a variety of simple, fun projects. In the beginning, you have two choices: You can either dump recyclables in a designated bin for pickup or deliver them yourself to a recycling center; or you can think creatively and find ways to re-use items. Adapt these to fit your homeschooling or family crafts needs.
This lens is about learning to imagine what might become of a simple oatmeal box...shoebox...cereal box...if only your family allowed creativity to take flight. We'll also look at how to reuse sturdy papers such as egg cartons. Check out the Plexo list of projects, and add your own.
I'll be adding free cardboard crafts projects regularly, with full instructions for young crafters. Enjoy this lens. It's built with fun in mind!
This lens is about learning to imagine what might become of a simple oatmeal box...shoebox...cereal box...if only your family allowed creativity to take flight. We'll also look at how to reuse sturdy papers such as egg cartons. Check out the Plexo list of projects, and add your own.
I'll be adding free cardboard crafts projects regularly, with full instructions for young crafters. Enjoy this lens. It's built with fun in mind!
New to Squidoo? Make your own lens today!
Cardboard Tip #1
Your life and mine is filled with boxes. Products come with layers of packaging, much of which gets tossed out. Think about the crafts potential of each scrap of paper, each box.
Don't Toss Those Boxes!
More cardboard crafts for kids
Even a small piece of cardboard can be reused. Here are free projects online, with full instructions for young crafters. Most need a minimum amount of assistance.
- Free Kids Crafts - Egg Carton Cat
- Free kids craft ideas including free printables, holiday crafts, coloring pages and more!
- Alphabet Noodle Bracelet - Simple Crafts for Kids
- Make a unique bracelet using alphabet noodles, cardboard, and yarn.
- Bird Supply Box
- Make a nesting supply box for birds.
- Alphabet Lacing Cards - Chapter 8: Educational Crafts
- This craft is featured in chapter 8 of the About.com Guide to Family Crafts book.
- Box Barn Craft - Enchanted Learning Software
- Box Barn Craft. You can make this barn using a cardboard box , scissors, and paint.
- Sugar Bush Crafts and Projects -Chinese Dragon
- Sugarbush Kids is a site for Kids, Families, Teachers and Organization
- Little Log Cabin Craft - Enchanted Learning Software
- Little Log Cabin Craft. You can make this wonderful twig house using a cardboard box , twigs, and hot glue.
- Make a box town - Enchanted Learning Software
- Make a box town with things found around the house.
Get Organized!
Tips on organizing your life and your recyclables
- ThriftyFun's Organization Ideas
- ThriftyFun.com invites visitors to share their organizational tips for crafters who like to collect recyclables.
- Use Recyclables to Get Organized
- With a little creativity, you'll reorganize your home and recycle at the same time.
- Organize with Recyclable Boxes
- Never buy boxes again! Here's how...
Cardboard Crafts Ideas
Here are a few selected titles to boost your crafts quotient a few notches. Your cardboard collection will thank you.
A New England proverb...
Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
Not Just a Box
Buying toys is easy. Just hand over the money and you can take home anything your heart desires. Keeping a child entertained is harder. How many times have you bought the latest-greatest toy, only to find that your child grew bored with it in a couple of weeks?Toys don't last, but a healthy imagination can come up with a myriad of ways to use one simple box. Hand your child an empty box and see what happens.
The box can be as small as a tissue or Bandaid box, or as big as a shipping box for a kitchen stove. (Call a local store and they'll sometimes set a day each week when their oversized cartons are left out for preschools and parents to pick up.)
I played with a box when I was a child, and my kids did, too. One large appliance box became a post office, a veterinarian's clinic, a spaceship, and finally, a house with curtains hung in the cutout windows and carpeting on the floor.
Forget those name brand toys. Make a phone call and see if you can locate a castaway appliance box. Your kids will thank you for it, and they'll spend hours creating fun from simple cardboard. It's the best kind of recycling ever.
*Thanks to GarrettWI for this great cardboard playhouse image at Flickr. Visit his Cardboard Creations group for more fantastic examples of cardboard recycling.
Cardboard Tip #2
Make a sketch of how you'd like to use your box. Add notes so you won't forget your creative idea. Remember to list supplies you'll need--preferably items you already have on hand. (We're recycling here, so let that be your priority.)
Feeling Boxed In?
The Freedictionary.com defines "boxed in" like this:
Adj. 1. boxed-in - enclosed in or as if in a box; "boxed cigars"; "a confining boxed-in space"; "felt boxed in by the traffic"
What's Fluting?
Cardboard is made of two distinct kinds of paper formed into three layers. Two layers make up the liner, and the crinkly layer is called fluting.
Read more about the manufacture of cardboard.
From Junk to Art
Give new life to old cardboard
- Trash to Treasures
- Check out the variety of recyclable projects on this website. There's something for everybody here.
- Kaboose.com
- Make a recycled cardboard Pokemon Digimon Fan for kids.
- Decoupage Card Boxes
- Some cards are just too nice to throw away -- which was exactly the thinking behind these snazzy decoupage boxes @Disney Family.com
- Box Buildings
- Kids can create all kinds of cool structures -- from houses to high-rises, metal shops to museums -- with household boxes and a few found objects.
- Doll Couch
- Kids can give diminutive playmates a posh place to perch with this fabulously furry homemade sofa crafted from a tissue box
- How to Make New Bookmarks From Cardboard Train Tickets | eHow.com
- How to Make New Bookmarks From Cardboard Train Tickets. If you take the train often enough, you’ll find yourself throwing out train ticket after train ticket. All this extra cardboard does is accumulate in your recycling bin. Instead, consider r...
8 Cardboard Crafts
Make something with cardboard today!
Cardboard crafts have long been a mainstay of preschool classrooms, VBS, and home crafters. It's cheap, easy, and fun. Nowadays, it's also smart, as we seek ways to recycle instead of toss out.Lucky for us, the internet has a massive amount of ideas from parents and teachers, all for the borrowing. I've scoured the 'net and found some I think you'll enjoy. Follow the link and see what you think!
Train Costume
Pirate Ship
Box Guitar
Finger Puppet Theater
Easy Easel
Heart-Shaped Box
Oatmeal Box Cradle
Old-West Town
*Thanks to visualbasher for the "Cardboard Monster" image.
Christmas Cardboard Crafts
Don't toss that cardboard! There's plenty you can do to transform it into Christmas decorations you'll be able to use year after year.
Think of more lightweight cardboard, too--not just the heavyweight boxes things are shipped in. What about cereal boxes...popcorn boxes...shoe boxes? Can you imagine the fun your kids will have, turning throwaways into something usable?
Below are links to some fantastic Christmas ideas. Please add to the list, and let's see how long we can make it! Remember to reload your browser window, then vote!
If you've come up with a unique craft that works, or if you found one in this list that you especially like, please consider leaving a comment Guestbook. It's good to hear which ones work and which ones aren't challenging for kids. Thanks.
More Cardboard Crafts Ideas
(You're running out of excuses, aren't you?)
Good Ideas Straight from the Crafters' Mouths
What to do with all those boxes?
So, you say you'd like to find creative ways to use all that cardboard packaging and boxes. But where to begin?
Someone wrote to ThriftyFun.com:
"I find myself throwing out cardboard cereal boxes and things like pot pie boxes, etc, and I hate doing it, but I don't know how to recycle them as fast as we use that stuff. I don't have kids at home anymore, so I don't really need them for craft projects. Any ideas would be appreciated no matter how "far-fetched" they are. Oh, and I should point out that there is no household recycling pickup in my area."
Here are a few great replies from crafters who have discovered clever uses for cardboard boxes and other cardboard recyclables.
Be sure to visit my other fun crafting lenses:
Fun With Paper Bags: Ideas for Craftsy Kids
Fun With Cans: Ideas for Craftsy Kids
Fun With Fabric: Craft Ideas for Families.
- Make a cereal box tote
- Make this one-of-a-kind tote!
- Create a Covered Gift Box!
- Make a pretty covered gift box for your next surprise.
- Reuse Cardboard Tubes
- What to do with those cardboard tubes inside toilet paper, gift wrap, and oversized photo prints?
- How to Get Rid of Musty Cardboard Odor?
- Love the cardboard, but hate the smell? Freshen up those recyclable boxes in a hurry.
- Recycle cigar boxes
- So, you've inherited Uncle Harry's 67 cigar boxes? Here are some creative uses for them.
- The Crafty Crow
- What can you make with an egg carton?
Attention Parents...
Most children are eager learners. Give them a project and they'll run with it. That's why it's important to start early if you want to teach them responsible recycling.
Don't assume they're too young to help. Even the youngest
Running Out of Cardboard?
More crafts for busy hands...
While it's fun to find clever uses for cardboard packaging, that barely touches on the types of crafts available to families today.
If you're sick and tired of crafts, ignore this section. If you're itchin' for more, you're going to love the endless possibilities. Plus, imagine how your kids will brag. Even if you don't feel craftsy, here's something for everyone.
All it takes is a willingness to learn.
If you're sick and tired of crafts, ignore this section. If you're itchin' for more, you're going to love the endless possibilities. Plus, imagine how your kids will brag. Even if you don't feel craftsy, here's something for everyone.
All it takes is a willingness to learn.
- DLTK's Printable Crafts
- Imagine an online index filled with printable resources for kids' crafts? DLTK is that a a whole lot more.
- EnchantedLearning.com
- Crafts for kids. Kindergarten, preschool, and elementary school crafts. Make wonderful, simple crafts with things found around the house.
- Nutshell critters kids craft.
- Free craft projects for kids of all ages. Join the crafting fun at Craftown.
This craft project is for nutshell critters. - Fall leaves placemat.
- Easy and inexpensive leaves crafts to make with children. Step by step instructions.
Rate Yourself!
Where do you stand as a recycler?
"The beginning is the most important part of the work." - Plato
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Unusual Uses for Cardboard
Unique ways to recycle that cardboard...
Every so often, I run across some uses for cardboard that are...well, let's just say they aren't what you'd expect. Read on.
What? A Cardboard House?
Traffic Control in New Zealand
Cardboard speakers
Are you craftsy?
Share your favorite crafts project here...
submit
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Reply
- Evelyn_Saenz Evelyn_Saenz Nov 21, 2009 @ 11:13 am
- Loved this lens and the suggested ways to recycle boxes that I have written a blog called The Busy Toddler and the Oatmeal Box.
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Reply
- pepys pepys Sep 25, 2009 @ 1:59 pm
- I am glad i found your lens. i am interested in recycling, but over hear it is much more as it can become a platform for sharing with the family and having fun at the same time. The only thing is that you have to stay here a while to go through the whole list. Thanks!
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Reply
- WhitePineLane WhitePineLane Sep 6, 2009 @ 10:33 pm
- My favorite Henry and Mudge book is the one where they spend the weekend making a castle out of a cardboard box! Five-starred, favorited, and lensrolled to Learning to Read: The Henry and Mudge Books.
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Reply
- julcal julcal Jun 29, 2009 @ 9:57 am
- I can't believe it! As i was emptying my oatmeal box this morning I thought - there's GOT to be a lens out there that talks about what to do with this wonderful little box! And HERE IT IS!
Thanks!
Great lens! I love boxes! and you are a great writer!
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Reply
- Matt-Osman Matt-Osman Jun 25, 2009 @ 2:13 am
- combining recycle and fun, this is just a great idea
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If you would like to revisit certain sections of Fun With Boxes, here's an easy tool to take you back. Just click and go.
- Cardboard Tip #1
- Don't Toss Those Boxes!
- Get Organized!
- Cardboard Crafts Ideas
- Imaginative Recyclers
- A New England proverb...
- Not Just a Box
- "Imagination"
- Cardboard Tip #2
- Feeling Boxed In?
- What's Fluting?
- From Junk to Art
- 8 Cardboard Crafts
- Recycling Boxes
- Christmas Cardboard Crafts
- More Cardboard Crafts Ideas
- Good Ideas Straight from the Crafters' Mouths
- Attention Parents...
- Running Out of Cardboard?
- Rate Yourself!
- Unusual Uses for Cardboard
- Are you craftsy?
- Seedplanter's RSS Feed
- Tweet Me!
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