Learn to make an Organizer with Paper Beads: Recycling Paper Craft

Summer vacations just got over and schools had just restarted here in the UAE when we had another long weekend with the Islamic New Year holiday. So, back after the long weekend, here's a small recycling craft tutorial for all of you crafting buddies out there.

We did a lot of crafting during the summer vacations and we have also posted some tutorials earlier to recycle magazine papers and use them for crafting purpose. 

We posted an easy tutorial on making paper beads for jewelry, you will find the tutorial on this link. Do visit this post if you wish to make some paper beads jewelry. It's an easy and fun crafting activity for the girls especially.

Paper beads Jewelry

Also, we posted a tutorial earlier on making the beads and make a photo frame using those paper beads. You will find the link to make the photo frame by clicking on the here. It's an excellent crafting activity for children, be it a boy or girl. Most of us like to show off their photos and crafting out a photo-frame all on your own is an addition to not only show off your photo but your crafting skills too!

Paper beads Photoframe

Finally, here's another little tutorial from our summer vacation crafts that will show you how to recycle magazine paper into something useful. Magazine papers? Well yes, they are shiny and glossy and are available in many colors. And crafting with them is fun. 

Now, this tutorial is for children who love crafting, for women who love to spend doing something useful on hot afternoon days staying indoors and for all crafters, of course, belonging to any age group. Also, if you don't like painting but would like to get crafty all the same, then this craft activity is a must try for such people. 

Just select colorful magazine papers and get crafty! 

No paints, no messy hands!

So this small recycling project can be basically be done by anyone and you don't need any special crafting skills. All you need is some patience and time in hand. 

However, for kids, I would suggest a little supervision under adults while they do this project. Take help of adults around you especially when you need cutting the magazine papers.

Materials required for this project

You will need magazine papers, crafting glue, paper cutters, skewer stick for making the paper beads and that's it.

Procedure 

Step 01:

As shown in the picture below, you need lots of magazine paper for this project. You can select and remove only those colored papers as per your liking. Thereafter, you will need to fold the paper in half longitudinally and cut it either with a pair of scissors or a paper cutter. Give it another fold lengthwise and cut it along.

Step 01: Cutting the magazine paper into long stripes.

For this step, you can take a couple of sheets together, align them well and cut them all together with a paper cutter. This will save time.

Step 02:

Since we used an A4 sized magazine, from every sheet, we got four long stripes as shown in the right inset in the picture below. Once your long strips are ready you can start with step 02 and that is making the paper beads.

For step 02, take a skewer and use it to roll the paper strips as shown below in the left inset. You will need a lot of patience in this step. Kids love this activity but may start getting bored after making 4-5 beads. So don't attempt to finish this activity in one single day. My kid spent many afternoons just making the paper beads. She would watch some cartoons on the television while she made these paper beads. 

Step 02: Start rolling the paper strip to make the paper beads

Step 03: 

Once you near the end of the paper strip, apply glue to seal it and leave it to dry. Keep rolling the paper strips one after the another on the skewer stick, apply glue at the end, and slide out the stick from the paper bead.

Step 03: Applying glue to the end of paper bead

After a couple of weeks, we had a row of paper beads all lined up and sorted colorwise. And they lied there all the same till we decided what to do with them.

Finally, we took a rectangle waste carton that was a tea package. We measured the size of the beads and cut the carton as per the height of the beads. Once the carton's height matched with the beads' height, we applied glue to the carton surface and stuck the paper beads one by one, covering the entire outer surface of the carton.

For gluing the paper beads on the carton box, I would suggest the use of good quality liquid glue or a glue gun; this will ensure that the beads are securely stuck on the surface of the paper carton. We used white liquid glue and neatly stuck the beads on the rectangle carton box.

Rectangle Organiser made with Paper Beads

Actually, once the paper beads are ready, all you need to do is use them to make something beautiful. You can make many such organizers to stock your medicine bottles, or cosmetics or anything. You can decorate an old picture frame or an old mirror using the same paper beads. Since these beads are made from magazine papers, they have a glossy and shiny look and give a good finish without having the need to paint them.

Some Aesthetic Tips:

• To get the right look and effect, it all depends on what color magazine papers you have selected. For example, if you want all greys and white beads, you should choose the magazine papers of those shades only. So decide the color scheme you want to use and select the magazine papers accordingly.
• Also, the consistency in size of beads is very important for this project. The more consistent the paper beads are in terms of thickness and size, the better look you will get in the final product. 

Hope this tutorial for recycling magazine papers is useful.

Try this activity and let us know your feedback. We are looking forward to constructive comments.

Thank you for stopping by...Have a good day.

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Recycling Craft: From a USB to a KeyChain using Air Dry Clay

With speedy technology up-gradations happening each day, electronic devices become defunct too soon. Now wasn't iPhone 10 launched few seconds within the launch of iPhone 8? That was a real quick one! 

Keeping pace with technology isn't easy on a common man's pocket. And what to do with all the electronic gadgets that are of no use to us now thanks to technology upgradations!

What should you do with all those defunct or damaged electronic devices, say, for example, mobiles, USBs or pen drives, laptops or tablets, and so on...Neither do we recycle them nor do we reuse them. After all the money that we spend on these electronic devices, we do not have the heart to throw them away. Hence, once they become defunct, they would be stacked in some dark corner of our houses and there they would RIP!

I am amazed to find that some people actually upgrade their smartphones once in every two years. So what do they do with their old devices? Do they throw them away or sell them or give them away to the needy? I have no idea...but personally speaking, I don't have the heart to just give them away...so here's what we did with one of our old electronic defunct USB that was lying in our home for quite some time now. We recycled it into something useful and something beautiful. 

And here's how we went about it...

The size of the USB was around 8cm in length.  We used super light air dry clay that is really light weight and easy to work with. We covered the entire surface of the device with a thin and even layer of white colored super light air dry clay. Thereafter we added the details such as the flower and leaves as you can see below in the picture. We adorned it further by gluing a couple of craft stones.

We left it to dry for around 5 hours. Thereafter we added an old key chain ring to the model and done. Thus, we succeeded into recycling an old defunct USB into something useful and aesthetically pleasing too; a beautiful key chain that we could actually use. 

Recycling an old USB into a useful Key chain

This recycling project is a very easy one and you should give it a try..in fact, I completed this with my kid, who enjoyed making it with me. Below is a clear view of the key chain after we left it to dry.

The Keychain decorated with super light air dry clay

In fact, after the success of this project, I am planning to make something useful out of all the old electronic models that are stacked somewhere in some corner of our house..let's see in future what can I come up with!

What do you do with the old and defunct electronic devices? We can't even sell them and we don't have the heart to throw them since we have spent a lot of money on it. So what do you do? Let us know your ideas. We are open to creative comments.

Have a good day.

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Penguin Craft: Recycling Plastic

I was just sifting through my craft archive folders on my laptop when I came across this beautiful recycling project we attempted during our last summer break. We recycled a plastic bottle into a decorative penguin model. It was a very easy recycling project and my kid who was just 7 years old back then had great fun while modeling the Penguin.

Materials required for the Penguin Craft:

Plastic bottle (flat shaped as you see in the picture below), newspaper scraps, white glue, water, poster colors, paint brushes, crepe paper, string.

Procedure: 

Step 01: 

Prepare the surface of the bottle to apply paper mache to its surface. All you need to do is keep the surface of the bottle clean.

Step 02:

Tear some newspaper scraps that you would need to apply on the bottle surface. Keep the white glue or mod podge ready. We added white glue and water in the proportion of 1:2.

Step 03:
Apply the glue paste or mod podge on the bottle surface.

Step 04:

Quickly glue the newspaper sheets on the glue surface before the glue starts drying. Be quick while you do this step. You can also apply glue to the paper and then paste it on the bottle surface. 

Step 05:
Cover up the entire surface of the bottle with newspaper. We applied two layers of newspaper coating to the entire surface of the bottle.

Step 06:

We let the paper coating on the bottle to dry for a day. Once the surface had dried we smoothened the surface with sand paper. Thereafter we painted the bottle with poster colors.

Step 07:

Now, to cover up the top of the bottle, we made a pom-pom from crepe paper. For making the pom-pom, we cut the crepe paper into small strips.

Step 08:
Take the crepe paper strips and double them up as shown in the picture below.

Step 09: 
Take a string and tie the center as shown.

Step 10: 
Cut off the extra string.

Step 11:

Rearrange the strips such that the string tied at the center is hidden amongst the paper strips.

Step 12:

We painted the penguin with white color on the front side and painted black on the remaining sides. Also, we painted a red woolen cap with a yellow border, tied a bow with a red satin ribbon and lastly, glued the crepe paper pompom on the top, and tada...our cute little penguin is ready to walk the ramp!

Hope this tutorial is helpful. Let us know if you try making this one. Your feedback is appreciated.

Thank you for stopping by.

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Recycle Medicine Cartons into Stationery Holders

What do you do with medicine cartons lying at your homes? Throw them away or reuse and recycle them? Cartons, like these used to package medicine, toothpastes, shaving creams, gels, shampoos, etc. are more often thrown away since many of us don't know how to make use of them. Earlier I have posted a tutorial on recycling a shaving cream carton into a stationery holder and decorating it with origami. You can view the tutorial on that previous post by clicking on this link here.

Recycling cartons into stationery holders

Here's, another easy tutorial which even kids can try at home or schools, and play their roles in recycling paper. Just be sure that they are clean and safe to be used for craft purpose. We would rather throw away those cartons which still retain odor of medicines or food stuff.

Below are some medicine cartons that were used for this tutorial. The size of these containers is about 6.5cm x 5cm with a height of @14cm. They can be conveniently used to hold stationeries like pencils, scales, scissors, sketch pens, etc.

Medicine Cartons for recycling purpose

Materials required: Medicine carton, glue, scissor, paper for wrapping, sketch pens or color pencils for decoration.

Material used: Paper, carton, glue, scissor

Procedure:
Firstly, remove the top flaps of the carton using a scissor as shown below.

Remove the top flaps of the empty container/carton

Now take any paper for wrapping around the carton. You can use a gift wrapping paper, or any other decorative paper to give it a more appealing look. Here, we have used a white A4 sized printer paper. which suits the size of this medicine carton. Cut along the edges as shown.

A4 size printer paper for wrapping the medicine carton

Apply glue as you keep wrapping it around the box.

Wrapping the medicine carton with paper.

Note the steps for sealing or covering the bottom side of the box. Apply glue, and overlap one flap over the other till all the flaps cover the bottom side of the carton.

Seal the bottom of the medicine carton

Once all the flaps are glued, the bottom side is neatly sealed and covered as shown in the picture below.

Bottom side of the carton is neatly covered

For the open side on the top, apply glue to the flaps and keep gluing them to the inner edges of the carton as shown below.

The top open side of the carton

Apply glue to the flaps,
fold them down to cover the inner edges

This is how it would look after they are neatly covered with a clean sheet. You can decorate them further with sketch pens or color pencils as you wish. 

Stationery Holder ready to use

In case you have many such cartons, you can simply join them by using a clear tape, and then cover them up with gift wrapping paper of your choice.

Join two or more cartons with a tape

Stationery holders from medicine cartons

You can recycle such cartons into beautiful stationery holders that can be incorporated into the kids' rooms or art & craft rooms. Once, you have covered these cartons with a plain sheet, ask your kids to paint or decorate these cartons, and you will see that they will gleefully oblige. 

Hope you like this tutorial. Keep visiting our blog for more such ideas.

Here's a quick link to the same tutorial on our youtube channel.

Thank you for stopping by.

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Stationery Holder - Origami using Paper Scraps

"The purpose - where I start - is the idea of use. It is not recycling, it's reuse." Well said by a famous Japanese fashion designer - Issey Miyake

There are lots of things we just throw away without thinking twice - after all who has the time in today's fast pace world: work, kids, family, festivals and life, in general, is moving fast. In this entire process called life, who has the time to collect junk and then reuse it? Well...me neither...but once in a while I just resist myself from throwing away the junk...and keep it aside thinking maybe someday I will make use of it...and if it lasts for a long time on my shelf I do throw it away...if not I find ways to make use of it in my everyday life. 

A lot of paper scraps end with me after my craft classes and paper doesn't come free...for that matter, nothing is for free in this world. I always stack them to make use of them later. 

This is a small effort from my side to make use of some paper scraps and a waste shaving cream packet, to recycle them into something beautiful and something useful. Origami is something I love doing and I try to find ways and means to incorporate origami into our everyday lives. So this recycling project is all about origami using paper scraps.

Recycling and Origami

What would you do with packets like toothpaste packets, shaving cream packets or such small cartons which usually end up in the trash cans? This is one DIY recycling project you can also try at your homes and reuse these packets/packages instead of throwing them away. Here's how I did it. 

Recycling a shaving cream packet

The width of the shaving cream packet is about 4cm. For using it as a stationary holder, cut away the top flaps with a pair of scissors.

I had some paper scraps of the size of about 6cm x 12 cm, out of which I made some square patterns with blossoms in the centre. The square patterns each are of @4cm x 4cm in size and would exactly cover the packet along the width as you will see ahead.

Square origami units with blossoms in the centre

Following is the tutorial for making the square origami units with the blossoms in the centre. 

Materials required:

Rectangular sheets, glue

Step 1:

Start with a rectangular sheet. You can cut a square sheet into half and use one rectangular part of it. 

Note the creases made as in the right inset. The black lines indicate mountain folds and red hidden lines indicate valley folds. 

You will first need to fold it in half first so that you get a mountain fold in the centre of two squares. Thereafter note the two vertical valley folds on each of the square parts indicated by the red hidden lines. Now make diagonal mountain folds in both the square parts as indicated in the picture below.

Left inset: Rectangular sheet
Right Inset: Note the creases for squash folding in the next step

Step 2:
Turn it over and start collapsing along the creases to get the shape as in the right inset.

Left inset: Turn it over
Right inset: Start collapsing along the creases made

Step 3:

After collapsing along the creases, this is how it would look - a perfect square shape as shown in the left inset with two triangular halves.  Thereafter, fold in the flaps on both the sides, to meet at centre as shown in the picture below.

Left inset: After collapsing, you will get a square shape with two triangles
Middle inset: Fold in the flaps
Right inset: Fold the flaps to meet each other at centre

Step 4:

Squash the four triangles to get four mini squares in the centre. Now focus on the mini squares. Fold in both the flaps to meet at the centre. Repeat the same for all the squares.

Left inset: Squash fold to get four mini squares in the centre
Middle inset: Fold in the flaps to touch at centre
Right inset: Repeat folding the flaps for every square

Step 5:

Now open the folds and squash them one by one to get the blossom pattern in the centre. You have one square unit ready. Make similar 6 units.

The origami square of size @4cm x 4cm

Step 6:

Meanwhile, take the packet and cover it with a similar colored or contrasting colored sheet to hide the packing details.

Step 6: Covering the packet with a sheet

Once the sheet is glued on all the four sides, just glue a contrasting coloured strip on the top for decorating it. You may even skip this step.

Cover the packet and glue a strip on the top edge

Step 7:

Now glue the blossom square origami units made earlier one below the other. Three square units were required for each of the two sides, so I had made a total of 6 square units.

Step 7: Glue the blossom squares on the two sides of the packet

Stationary holder - front view

Stationary holder - side view

You can also use toothpaste packets, perfume packets, deodorant covers, etc. for making such stationary holders. Such packets/packages can also be decorated in a similar manner and be reused for gifting purpose also. 

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Recycling Empty Containers for Useful Purposes

Instead of disposing empty packaged containers that comes along with drinking chocolate, cocoa powder, milk powders etc. that usually are made from thick cardboard paper, they can be reused in our homes itself by just upscaling them a little bit. I often do this - a small part I play in the process of recycling and reducing the carbon footprints. This post contains the tutorial on how I often recycle them. Keep reading till the end for suggestions and tips on decorating them and using them for various other purposes too.

Materials required:

Empty containers, some decorative sheets, satin ribbons, beads for decoration, needle & thread, glue, a pair of scissors.

Empty Packaged Containers 

A4 colored sheets, ribbons and beads for decoration

Procedure:
I had a couple of empty containers I wanted to reuse for storing stationery materials. I used the same procedure to decorate both of them.

Step 1:

The procedure is very simple. Just cut out strips from A4 sized colored sheets and glue them on the containers' outer surface. I left the inside of the containers untouched for they were already coated and lined with a silver sheet. If the container's inner surface is damaged, you could certainly cover it from the inside.

Step 1: Glue the paper strips on the outer surface of the containers

Step 2:

To decorate the container further, I used a satin ribbon and some beads. I had saved some satin ribbons from an old dress of my kid and used it for decorating this container. Instead of gluing the beads, I used a needle and thread to attach the beads to the ribbon permanently. 

Just measure the size of ribbon needed by rolling it around the surface of the container and cut the required length, keeping a little margin to glue it later.

Step 2: Satin ribbons, some beads, needle & thread

Step 2 (contd.): Using a needle and thread to attach the beads to the ribbon

Step 3:

Once, the ribbons with the beads are ready, just glue them on to the surfaces as required.

Next, make a simple bow using the ribbons. I didn't have to make the bow, since I had saved this from an old dress of my child. Once, I glued the ribbon around the top of the container, all I had to do was glue the ready-made bow onto it - a quick and easy way to recycle old clothes.

Step 3: Adding ribbons with beads and
a ready-made bow to the tall container.

Step 3 (contd.):
Ribbons with beads for the short container

Step 3 (contd.): Glue the ribbons to hide the joints
where two colored paper strips meet.

Done:
So just in a few easy steps the container is ready for use. I used the short one for storing pencils and the tall one for storing other stationery items.

Done: Pencil holder ready for use

The Stationery holders are ready to use

Suggestions and Tips:

• You can also use gift wrappers or other decorative sheets to cover the surface and decorate them further. 
• These containers can be used for various other purposes. It can also be used in your kitchens for holding knives/spoons, etc. as a cutlery stand.
• You can also use them for holding spoons, straws, etc. to match the themes for your parties or other events. A couple of years ago, I made one to hold spoons for a 'Frozen' theme birthday party for my daughter with a painting of the Olaf character on it and all the kids loved it. 

Olaf Spoon holder for 'Frozen' themed birthday party

• Another spoon holder made for 'rainbow' theme birthday party. All I did was glue strips of seven different colors onto the surface of the container and a rainbow spoon holder was ready in a few minutes.

Spoon holder for 'Rainbow' themed birthday party

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