If you’re here, you probably know that I love to make stuff out of materials found in the recycle bin…and, of those, my absolute favorites are toilet tubes! In fact, I have a whole book of toilet tube crafts called Toilet Tube Treasury! Surprise your Valentine and decorate their room with this toilet tube heart garland from the book! (Or a tube heart necklace, see below!)
Read MoreIt's almost December! Time to set up an advent calendar! Save a few toilet paper, paper towels, or shipping tubes to create this advent calendar wreath. Fill it with small presents like candies or little toys or little notecards describing “activity” gifts like: “movie night!”, “hot chocolate with candy cane stirrers!” or “evening drive to see holiday lights!”. As presents are removed you can fill the holes with a small ornament, toy, or piece of candy.
Read MoreIn our house we have a tradition of leaving surprise messages for each other. They're usually in the form of garlands or banners, strung across doorways or along the edge of the mantel. These tube letters, from our book, Paper Goods Projects, are a fun way to display a message, no tape or string required! And they marry type and cardboard tubes, two of my favorite things! (See a “happy birthday” tube message here!)
Read MoreMy brother and I used to make marble runs out of blocks and his Hot Wheels track and it was one of our favorite things to do! I made this marble run out of recycle bin items like paper towel tubes and recycled cardboard for the new-ish magazine, The Week Junior. Have you seen it? It is a fantastic news and activity magazine for children aged 8-14. I am thrilled to be contributing to their How To column!
Read MoreAs I’ve written many many times, recycled toilet and paper towel tubes are some of my favorite materials. The charm of these animals is that they are animal-like but still look like cardboard tubes— cylindrical and raw cardboard brown. (Though, of course, painting them is a fun thing for little kids to do!) Older kids handy with scissors can make these creatures and adults should handle any cuts made with the utility knife. Once they see how many ways there are to cut cardboard tubes, they will come up with tons of ideas of their own! Create a habitat by cutting paper watering holes and cardboard trees. The eyes are made by hole- punching black construction paper. To glue on tiny circles and other shapes, dot glue onto the tube with a toothpick. Alternatively, the features can be drawn on with a marker.
Read MoreIf you’ve visited this blog before, you may know that my one of my favorite materials is recycled toilet paper and paper towel cardboard tubes. Never throw them away! You can make letters, holiday decorations like these, these, and these, pretend ice cream cones, annnnnd these sea creatures! They’re fun to make and can be strung together into a mobile for a cute room decoration.
Grownups can help by cutting the slits (which require a craft knife). Using pinking shears or zig zag paper edgers adds spikiness to the fish fins and is a quick way to add a mouthful of teeth to the shark!
Read MoreIn this month's Family Fun magazine, I shared a few easy crafts you can do with or for your kids to make your July 4th celebration even more fun!
Read MoreTune in to NBC tomorrow (Saturday, February 18th) at 11:30 AM to watch Naturally, Danny Seo. Danny and I had so much fun making jewelry, toys, and decorations out of items that you probably have in your recycle bin right now, like these flower necklaces made out of squeeze pouch caps and felt scraps!
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©2015 Jodi Levine. All photographs by Amy Gropp Forbes unless otherwise noted.
