Craft Tuesday 4/20/10: "Green" Craft Day!

Since Earth Day is this week, I thought I would post a “green” craft.  Today my 3-year old daughter and I sat down and made a tropical fish.  She had so much fun making this, and the best part was that it was constructed from items we already had laying around the house.

Craft Glue
Paint
Paint Brushes
Scissors
Goggle Eyes
Pom-poms (totally optional- you could use any decorative items you have at home)
Masking Tape or brown packing tape

First we cut off the bottom of the 2-liter about 3.5 inches from the bottom.  Then I took the cut end and cut out a triangle to form the fins for the fish.

My daughter then taped the back of the fish together, closing off the opening that was created by cutting off the bottom.

Next we had to take an old newspaper (and I know you all have one laying around from Sunday’s coupons!) and rip it into small pieces.  It really didn’t matter if they were all the same.  I let my daughter do this on her own and she made all sorts of sizes and shapes!

We glued the pieces of newspaper to cover the entire 2-liter bottle.  I went back around the fish after it was covered and glued down any pieces that were sticking up so that it would be a fairly smooth surface.

The next part was my daughter’s favorite- painting!  She covered the entire fish in two different colors of pink (her choice of color of course!) and then we had to let it dry for several hours.

After coming back to it, she picked out a few more colors to add more detail to the fish, then glued on eyes and some pom-poms and her fish was complete!  I plan to add a hole in the top of the fish and put ribbon through it so we can hang it!

I got my idea from a recent issue of “Family Fun”.  For their full instructions on how to make this particular craft, you can go here.  They had a ton of really cute ideas for making recycled crafts.  You can view a ton of their other ideas here.  I really love the Treasure-Keeper Frog.  My daughter and I had started off making that, but we realized early on that it was a bit too difficult for a 3-year old.  If your kids are older, give it a shot!  I particularly loved that they used floss.  As coupon shoppers, who doesn’t have a stock of free dental floss?