by Baron Eliason
Founder, 123Recycling, Lubbock
Guest Contributor
The holidays are custom made for memory making as a family. Making memories happens best when we take the time to work with our kids on things that are fun. If you can do that and teach some valuable life lessons – so much the better. 123 Recycling will be happy to pick up your recyclables but how much better if you reuse them for some holiday fun with the kids!
The goal of this article is to combine the memory making potential of Thanksgiving with the world changing emphasis on recycling, repurposing, and responding to the need to be better stewards of our earth.
This week the focus is Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the perfect time to introduce kids to recycling and reusing with fun crafts made from reusable material. A great fact to know and share with them is that we believe 65% of what we throw out is recyclable. I’m guessing that the percent that is reusable in some way would raise that number even higher. That means there is a lot of free stuff we can use for art just lying around.
So without further adeu, here are five ideas from my little brain – get creative and I’ll be you can do even better!
Beauty of Fall Display Boxes
Containers for fruits are amazing resources for kids to use for stashing all kinds of things, especially the small ones. This one was used for organic apples and makes an amazing display case for the wonders of Fall such as beautiful leaves, acorns, pecans, and other wonderful bounty that kids love to find and to show off. Kids will love finding the best leaves and showing off their finds.
Turkeys, Pilgrims, and Indians – Oh My!
Egg cartons and cardboard rolls make great tools for creating all kinds of characters from Turkeys to Pilgrims and Indians. A quick trip to a craft store and you could find some really cool stuff to add like google eyes, feathers, felt for clothes. But, a simple set of markers and crayons will do the trick as well.
You could make a whole tableau of the first Thanksgiving meal. Special hint: paper plates are great material for making a turkey’s fanned feathers.
Pump-can Decoration
Here is an idea from Pam Bibb, art teacher at Miller Elementary. She loves to work with recyclable materials and her students have made some amazing robots. For Fall, she takes empty cans and colored paper to make pump-cans. This is something easy for kids to make and great for table decorations for the big feast. P.S. – mason jars will also work.
Fall Candle Celebrations
Here is an idea to take glass containers like mason jars or jelly jars, etc. and turn them into celebrations of Fall. My girl picked some leaves. I found a pickle jar. We used clear Scotch tape to attach them. If you are inclined, attach them by decoupaging. Insert candle and enjoy! The light will shine through the leaves and give you a beautiful show for free.
Napkin Rings
Take some paper tubes, apply glue, roll on something fun and Fall-ish. Next, cut them down to size. Finally, add whatever else you might desire to make really cool napkin holders. I will say that the glue is more of a project. Again, I went with Scotch tape.
We hope you enjoy Thanksgiving and that these ideas will help you create some memories with your kids. Stay tuned for our next blog post next month for more ideas related to Christmas. If you have some ideas you would like to share, please email them to me at baron@123recycling.org.
