Recycle a plastic bottle for planting

The lockdown period due to Covid 19, has turned out to be very fruitful for all those who wished to learn something new but never had the time to do it. It has made us realize that life has many facets and each one has to be lived with, whether you like it or not, you can't run away from it. 

So while we are trying to make maximum utilization of our time, we are also learning the importance of the environment. We are trying to value our time, interacting and spending more time with our family members.

Just as we try to deal with the pandemic, slowly trying to move ahead with our lives, here's a small tutorial on reusing and recycling a plastic bottle for planting saplings. 

"1...2...3...Let's plant a tree"...that's our slogan for the activity today.

"1,2,3...Lets plant a tree"

Materials required:

1. Plastic bottle (any juice bottle or bottled water container).
2. Sapling of your choice
3. Fertilized soil for filling up the container

As shown in the picture below, we planted a marigold sapling in a small plastic juice bottle. We cut out the bottom part of the bottle, filled it up with fertilized soil and got a sapling from our neighborhood to be planted in the container. We also made small holes (say around 3-4) at the bottom of the bottle to allow excess water to drain out from the bottom.

Recycled plastic bottle for planting a sapling

Materials required to decorate the plastic bottle:

1. paper cuttings
2. white glue 
3. water colors/poster colors
4. brushes

As shown in the picture below, first we stuck paper all over the bottle surface using white glue. 

Paper mache over the plastic bottle

Then we painted the entire bottle with shades of red, orange and yellow as shown below in the picture. 

Recycled plastic bottle for planting

Hope you also try innovative ways to use and recycle plastic wastes and do something about reducing carbon footprints rather than just sitting and complaining.

Hope you find our tutorial useful. Thank you for stopping by...

Tutorial: Using Paper Strips to make a Floral Decoration

Have you ever wondered what to do with all those paper scraps that you are left with after all the crafting activities with your kids? Most of you must be throwing them away for they are of no use after all the craft work. Generally, I avoid throwing any paper scrap and I stash them away for later use. I use them for making paper collages or in greeting cards or for some little craft project with my daughter.

Last weekend I was on a cleaning spree and I found a bag full of paper strips that I had kept aside from my previous workshop. My daughter was too busy watching TV and I wanted her to be away from it. So I decided to engage her in some craft activity that would keep her away from the electronic screen atleast for some time. I had something in my mind when we started but I was not very sure of what to do with all those scraps. I let my daughter take the lead.

Her first job was to segregate all similar color paper strips. And that she did quite swiftly. Next, I taught her to make loops and glue them. Once the loops were ready we were quick enough to make some hearts shapes and then the flower pattern and then I knew what we would do with those flower patterns. We stapled all the flower pieces and made a linear flower decoration. Once done, it turned out to be a pretty decoration that we hung from the ceiling in our kid's room.

Hanging Floral Decoration

Material required: Paper strips, glue, stapler, scissors.

Here the paper used was rainbow paper strips left over from our previous workshop. The size was about 6" long by 1" wide. 

Paper Strips Scraps

Tutorial: Follow the captions given below the pictures for detailed instructions. Here's how we did it.

Paper Strips Sorting

Step 1: Adding Glue to the edge

Step 2: Gluing the strip in the shape of a loop

Step 3: Made all the loops and sorted them based on colors

Step 4: Glue together two units to make a heart shape.
Make many such heart units. 

Making this heart shape is an easy task and my daughter usually loves getting involved in crafting activities which doesn't require much of complication. This is where her job ended. She loved making the hearts. And from here I had to take over. She also arranged them into a flower pattern after which I took over and stapled all the units together.

Step 5: Arrange groups of 5 pieces forming a flower pattern

Step 6: Staple all the units one by one.
Note the flower pattern forming in the centre as you staple them.

The flower patterns are ready

Step 7: Staple one flower unit with another unit

Step 8: Add a loop at the top of the unit for hanging it

Done: A decoration piece hanging from the ceiling of my kid's room.

Suggestion & Tips:

Apart from using it as decoration in the kid's room, the above decorating piece can also be used for decorations during parties. Choose the color of strips as per your requirement or theme of the party. It could also be used for decorating the nursery room for kids. Also, the entire assembly can be made longer or shorter by adding or removing the flower pieces as per your requirement.

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