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Crafts for kids / Paper crafts / Recycling

Recycling project: Turn a cardboard box into a snowman!


I have not held a Saturday at FunLab workshop for several months.  Last weekend, however, I jumped back into the workshop swing with a great group of kids.  Since this winter has been rather snowless, I decided to combine one of my favorite characters (Frosty the Snowman) with another one of my favorites: a recycling based craft project.

The idea for the project comes from a great crafting site for kids called Kaboose.  The original project called for cereal boxes but even if my kids eat alot of cereal it would have taken me for ever to collect enough boxes for a FunLab workshop!  Instead, I decided that any cardboard box would work and I pooled all the cardboxes that I had in the kitchen: camomille, rice, pasta…you name it. The fun part of this adaptation is that every kid ended up with a unique snowman!

A couple of other changes and I was ready for my workshop comeback (or at least I thought so until saw that the group had grown from 6 to 12!)…

You will need:
Cardboard boxes
White and red acrylic paint
Acrylic gloss
Paint brushes
Markers
Orange craft foam
Craft buttons
Egg cartons
Scissors
Rice
Colored cardstock

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Carefully unfold your box and place cardboad side up on your work surface.

Step 2: Mix some acrylic gloss with your white paint and paint the box. The addition of the acrylic gloss makes the dried paint have a shiny finish.

Step 3: Cut out two egg holders from your egg carton. Make sure that the bottom edges are smooth.

Step 4: Paint the egg holders red.

Step 5: Once the box is dry. Re-fold it with the white side out. I used hot glue to hold it together. Before the gluing down the last flap remember to add a little bag of rice or beans so that it will stand up better.
Step 6: Cut out a piece of red card stock that will serve as the head band for your ear muffs. The size of this strip of paper depends on how big your box is. Once you have glued it to the top and the sides of the box, glue on the red ear muffs.

Step 7: Cut out a piece of colored card stock that can wrap completely around the box and have some hanging over the edge. Glue the card stock onto the box so that it looks like a scarf. Cut the ends of the paper so that it looks like the fringe of a scarf. I glued on a craft button to cover the seam in my paper scarf.

Step 8: Cut out an orange “carrot” nose out of craft foam and glue it onto the face of your snowmen.

Step 9: The eyes and mouth we left up to the individual artist

Stay tuned for more great SATURDAY AT FUNLAB activities!

Alison

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