recycled Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Kid Made Ornament – Branch Bracelets

December 11, 2013 By Deirdre

The idea for branch bracelets came to me as we were decorating our Christmas tree last week. When we came to a kid made ornament that JDaniel had created himself, he face just lit up. He was so proud of each kid made ornament he had made in preschool or with me at home. It occurred to me that we hadn’t made any new ornament this year and we really needed to. I remembered creating spider web ornaments last year with him and how much he enjoyed weaving the yarn up and down though Christmas cutouts that had been punched with holes. This year’s kid-made ornament needed to have weaving be a part of it.

When I went to school the next day, the kids were all wearing homemade bracelets. Why not my brain thought make branch bracelets for our tree what incorporate JDaniel’s interest in weaving through hole punched holes.

When I go home a noticed a small pile of empty paper towel tubes, they were just waiting to be taken out to the recycling bin in the garage. (I take care of sorting through what we recycle and what could be possible craft item.) Sections of an old paper towel tube would make wonderful branch bracelet Christmas tree ornaments I thought.

With the materials and idea decided on I set everything we would need out on the kitchen table for JDaniel to find. He instantly understood that the craft idea was to randomly punch holes into the section of tube and then weave ribbon through it.

Kid Made Ornaments -Branch Bracelets

I explained that there wasn’t a right or wrong way to make a branch bracelet ornament, but I did show him the one I made. He was thrilled about using the hole punch and quickly had holes all over the tubes. It took a little longer to decide to which holes to weave through. Honestly, I don’t think there was a plan.

After Constructing This Kid Made Ornament More Constructing Was Done

After creating two branch bracelets, he declared the remaining tubes sections and ribbon needed to be used to create a sculpture for under the tree. Who knew that we would end up with kid made branch bracelet ornaments and a free form sculpture by the time our crafting time was done. (To see what the sculpture looks like you will need to visit our Facebook page.)I explained that there wasn’t a right or wrong way to make a branch bracelet ornament, but I did show him the one I made. He was thrilled about using the hole punch and quickly had holes all over the tubes. It took a little longer to decide to which holes to weave through. Honestly, I don’t think there was a plan.

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock.

Kids Art Project- Plastic Container Jellyfish

April 10, 2013 By Deirdre

JDaniel has decided that gelatinous creatures are his favorite animal. We have both poured over pictures of them in library books. I think it is the ones that are found in the deep sea that he loves best. They have bio-luminescence which he think is the coolest thing. I decided to make a kids art project that focused on jellyfish. (I will tell you more aboutv the kids art project later.

Visiting Jellyfish

When I told him we were going to the Tennessee Aquarium during our Spring Break, he was excited. When we visited the aquarium’s website and found out that they had a special jellyfish exhibit, he was over the moon. I don’t know how many times we looked over the pictures of some of the jellyfish that were going to be in the exhibit. While we were at the aquarium, we got to go behind the scenes to to moon jellies in incubation tanks. (The aquarium lets kids pick two special activities to attend during your visit. ) When I saw baby jelly fish on the activity board, I knew we had to select it. He loved it.

Kid's Art Project- Plastic Jug Jellyfish

Moon Jellyfish in a Holding Tank

We searched from the top to the bottom of the first building in the aquarium for more jellyfish and didn’t find any. Then we searched from top to the bottom of the second building for them. Finally we entered the final exhibit in the building and found them.

There were several wonderful tanks filled with jellyfish. Some glowed like the ones above. Others just looked cool like the upside down jellyfish below.

It wasn’t until the very last tank that we saw the comb jellies. They are JDaniel’s absolute favorite. I didn’t end up with a clear picture of them or I would have shared it with you. They display a colored thread inside them that changes color. They really are cool.

Creating Our Kids Art Project Jellyfish

On the way out of the museum we stopped in the gift shop and looked over the jellyfish items they had on sale. There weren’t many and one jellyfish that caught JDaniel’s eye was a plush jellyfish with tentacles made of ribbon. I told him that I thought I could make him a jellyfish mobile for his room when we got home. He decided that I probably could.

When we got home I dug through our recycling bin and pulled out a few items we could use for the body of the jellyfish. They was a plastic jug that used to hold green tea and a plastic berry container.While JDaniel was at school, I put it together. I think he could have made this a kids art project he completed on his own, but I really wanted to surprise him by having it done when he got home.

It is really just a berry container with two types of ribbon (One was wide with colored stripes and the other was bright blue with sequins.) and bright green rick rack woven through the air holes. One of the types of ribbon has a wire in it that allows the ribbon to be bent and twirled into place.

The berry container was placed inside a cut down plastic jug. I used fishing line to connect the two plastic items to together. I wove the fishing line through a hole in the jug and down into a whole in the berry container. Then I wove it back out through the berry container and up through another hole in the jug.

The berry container was attached upside down so I could adjust the ribbons it I needed to and so I could put a light stick into the container from time to time. JDaniel would love to watch it glow.

JDaniel was thrilled with it. It is now hanging from the ceiling fan in his room. I don’t mean to brag, but I think this plastic jug jellyfish is cuter than the plush jellyfish from the museum.

Earth Day is coming up. I hope you will dig through your recycling bin to find items you can craft with. Maybe you could even make a kids art project or join the tissue box creation. The Tissue Box Challenge starts next week on the 16th. I hope many of you will enter the contest.

This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday. It is U week and this mobile is really unique.

Halloween Craft- Milk Jug Skeleton

October 31, 2012 By Deirdre

There isn’t an x-ray needed to see the bones in our milk jug skeleton. Last weekend we visited the Roper Mountain, a local science center, near us for a Halloween event. While at the Roper Mountain Science Center, we saw these wonderful milk jug skeletons. They looked so cool. I knew I just had to make a milk jug skeleton for our yard.

Roper Mountain Science Center’s Milk Jug Skeleton

I have been forgetting to put out our recycling on Mondays so, we had enough milk jugs to create one. This skeleton took six milk jugs to create.

Making Our Milk Jug Skeleton

The first milk jug was used to create his head. The Roper Mountain skeleton used the back of the milk jug to create the facial features of the skeleton. I created the face using the jug handle as our skeleton’s nose. They also turned the milk jug upside down so he won ‘t have a cap on his head. Our skeleton has a cap on his head because his mouth would have had to be under the handle if I had flipped our jug upside down.

We used a second jug to create the skeleton’s chest. I cut out ribs and a breast bone out of the second jug. To keep the ribs and breast bone cut out symmetrical I cut a template out of paper and traced it onto the jug before cutting the design out. I didn’t cut out the back of the skeleton’s chest the way they did a Roper Mountain on their milk jug skeleton . It probably would have let more light in. I want to reuse this milk jug skeleton and thought not cutting out the back would give him more stability.I used brace fasteners to attached the skeleton’s shoulders to his trunk. The shoulders were handles cut out of the third and fourth milk jug.

The hip section of the skeleton was cut out of the top third of the fifth milk.

The milk jug caps were then glued on the milk jug sections. When they had dried, I strung fishing line down through the head cap, then through the trunk section, and down through the hips. The fishing line allows the skeleton to rotate and move, but not swing wildly.

The remaining milk jug and the leftover pieces of the other jugs were used to create the bones in the arms and legs, hands, knee caps and feet. Two of the arm pieces and two of the leg pieces had oval holes placed in them to represent the two lower arm and leg bones.

The arm and leg sections all got holes punched in them. Paper clips were threaded onto bones and they were attached to each other.

I think our skeleton came out pretty well.