crafts, key stage 2, kids, monster

So more brilliant Juice carton crafts today from the 11yo – who wanted to make a lamp…

Not any old lamp though, it had to be a blue narwhal of course, complete with pointy horn.
The milk carton is in itself waterproof, so will be coming camping with us this year apparently!

If you and your kids would like to have a go at this you will need:

1) Juice carton, or milk carton, empty (!) and rinsed.
2) Acrylic paint
3) Googly eyes
4) Scalpel (and a steady hand)
5) Battery powered tea light
milk carton crafts
So 11yo got busy cutting the holes for the eyes. And cutting the shape of the mouth, with a fold back to make the tongue. The *Narwhal’s (a whale!) ‘tusk’ was created by twisting a piece of paper into a cone shape and sticking into the hole left by the juice carton lid.

KidsChaos-Milk-Carton-Crafts-Lamp-close-up

If you enjoyed this craft, you may also like our juice carton birdhouse here.

The narwhal, or narwhale, is a medium-sized toothed whale and possesses a large “tusk” from a protruding canine tooth. It lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada, and Russia and according to 11yo, is blue.

BiB2014craftsVoteAli also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello! And if you liked this Craft on Kids Chaos, you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve been shortlisted in the Britmums Brilliance in Blogging Awards – whoohey!

crafts, create, gardening with kids, kids

We made a Birdhouse from a Juice Carton! We do have a lot of Tetra Pak Milk Cartons and Juice Cartons in our house. I drink soya milk, and we often buy orange juice as a special breakfast treat for the kids, and to try to reach our FIVE A DAY, or is it SEVEN a day these days?! You may have seen the video on Instagram, so now here’s the ‘how to’….

Ok…..so guess what we are making this afternoon….? Watch this little video for a clue!

Anyway, we don’t throw the juice cartons away…These naturally weather proof cartons stack up on the kitchen shelf waiting patiently to be made into something via the kids’ love of junk modelling, and had a big old milk carton crafting session this weekend with Red Ted Art and family – 11yo made a Blue Narwhal night light (more on that later) 9yo made a vase, and some seedling boxes (again, more on them later) and we all had a hand in making this Juice Carton Birdhouse!

We started by cutting off the pouring spout, and using it as a circular template on the front of the juice box, to make the hole for the birds to enter the juice carton birdhouse box.

cut off the pouring spoutThen started wrapping string around the juice box, adding a blob of glue occasionally. We wound the string all the way to the top of the box.

juice carton birdhouse
Stage-2-Juice-Carton-Birdhouse-KidsChaosUsing a section from a plastic milk carton, we covered the pouring spout hole. And glued pieces of broken twigs to the ‘roof’ of the juice carton to make an organic natural looking roof for the Birdhouse. Carefully cutting the string around the bird’s doorway, and gluing back the string inside to make a smooth entrance, and adding a lolly stick below finishes the juice carton Birdhouse off quite nicely! All we need now is one of Red Ted Art‘s juice carton bird feeders and we’re away!Stage-3-Juice-Carton-Birdhouse-KidsChaos

This is a really fun recycling craft to do with the kids at the weekend, and my sister has started collecting the Tetra pak’s and will be making these at Forest School next week too!

Stage-4-Juice-Carton-Birdhouse-KidsChaosIf you like this post, check out 11yo’s little blue narwhal lamp which he made from another milk carton here! Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello! And if you liked this Craft – you’ll be pleased to hear that we’ve been shortlisted in the Britmums Brilliance in Blogging Awards – whoohey!

BiB2014craftsVote