Image from Our Beautifully Messy House
School may be back in session, but late summer and early fall weekends are the perfect time to create a fun craft with some items from your recycle bin! Everyday items like milk cartons or cottage cheese tubs become a quick and easy craft that keep kids busy for a few hours. Here are a few of our favorite dairy-container crafts to try with your family this weekend.
Milk Jug Bird Feeder
A gallon milk jug and bird seed along with a few other materials becomes a homemade bird feeder, perfect for late fall and early winter for the birds in your yard. The best part? Letting the kids decorate the outside with paint pens, stickers, or markers and seeing their creativity flow. Once done, fill it with birdseed, hang it from a tree branch, and you’ve got a backyard feeder that turns into an ongoing nature lesson every time a cardinal or chickadee stops by. Follow the instructions from Nature Inspired Learning blog and get crafting!
DIY Yogurt Cup and Ball Game
Empty yogurt cups become a fun and engaging game. Using clean, empty yogurt cups and large wooden beads, you can make your own toy that the kids can help with! Let them decorate the yogurt cups any way they want but washi tape is a real star for this project. Once that’s complete, help them with a few more steps to finish their new game. PBS Kids has a full tutorial and materials guide.
Dairy Foods Container Piggy Banks
A clean cottage cheese or sour cream tub with a snap-on lid is basically a piggy bank waiting to happen. Cut a coin slot in the lid, wrap the container in construction paper, and let kids go wild with googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and glitter glue. It’s a great excuse to talk with them about saving, and help them set-up a specific place to save for a coveted toy or book. Kids Wellness Club has instructions for how to create your own!
Milk Carton Fairy and Gnome Homes
Cut a door and a few little windows into a rinsed half-gallon, creamer or half and half carton, decorate with paint and glue on some sticks and you’ve got a cozy fairy and gnome home perfect for a windowsill or fairy garden. This craft doubles as a nature lesson as kids can spend time outside gathering small sticks, rocks, leaves and moss to use to create their homes. STL Motherhood and Our Beautifully Messy House have great tutorials and ideas.
Why It’s Worth the Mess
Getting kids involved in crafting is a gentle way to reinforce good everyday habits, since a glass of milk with lunch often becomes the very craft supply they’re cutting up that afternoon. The next time you rinse out a jug, cup, or tub, set it aside instead of tossing it. A little imagination, some tape, paint and markers and a handful of craft supplies are all you need to turn everyday packaging into your kids’ next favorite project.