How to Make Cute Bird House from Plastic Bottles

Here’s a cute idea on how to recycle some of those plastic bottles (I have made many projects from plastic bottles before) you may have stuffed in your recycling bin. You can now make a cute decorative bird house in a few minutes! It would be exciting that birds stay in your backyard with this beautiful comfy new home you make for them.  JUD Arts shared all the details on how to make one of these and here we show the step by step tutorials in English.

1. Cut the body part of plastic bottle into flower shape, approach the plastic petals near fire to get it twisted into a more natural effect.

2. Cut the bottom part of coke bottle (15.L) as bird house.

3. Cut The top (roof) with bottle of Coke 2 liters, which stuck right on top with a hot glue, and then pass the string to hang.

4. Paint both top and bottom parts of plastic bottle with acrylic paint, add flowers as decorations.

5. Glue twisted yarn or twine cord along the door hole and add string to hang it.

Beautiful Hyacinth Bouquet from Plastic Bottles

You may find many ways to recycle plastic bottles from our website, today we are going to feature another beautiful project for home or garden decor – Hyacinth. You can make bundles of them in different colors and insert  in garden, it looks fab~

Materials you may need:

• Plastic bottles
• Paint and brush (or nail polish)
• Lighter
• Wire
• Skewer or other wood stick
• Scissors

How to Make Water Lilies

With Earth Day earlier this week, and since I had a lot of milk jugs leftover from these votives, I decided to try my hand at another "milk jug" project.

Water lilies are one of my favorite flowers; They're beautiful, vibrant and they grow in ponds. Awesome. My love for water lilies goes way back. My 14-year old self had a bedroom decorated with Monet's water lilies prints (I even had an impressionist water lilies bed spread!) and when I first traveled to France 15 years ago, visiting Monet's home and gardens was one of the highlights of the trip. It was at his home in Giverny that Monet maintained a beautiful water garden which inspired his famous Water Lilies (les nymphéas) series.

So with water lilies and dreams of outdoor dining on the brain, I decided to come up with a centerpiece for our patio table.

Materials needed:
2 clean gallon milk jugs
cheap pair of scissors (for cutting plastic)
multi surface acrylic paints (I used pink, purple, yellow & green plus pearl white & metallic gold)
clear adhesive sealant (if you want your project to be water resistant) or hot glue gun

Remove the handle and base of the milk jug. But don't throw anything away just yet!

Make a template for your petals. I used three sizes-- 2-inch small petals;  3-inch medium petals; 4-inch large petals.

Cut out your petals from the milk container-- 11 small petals, 8 medium petals and 8 large petals. Bend the bottom of each petal. Use a multi-surface acrylic paint to paint each petal.

Cut out a 6-inch strip of polyethylene (the material that the jug is made from) and fringe it. This will become the stamen. Paint the petals and the stamen with multi-surface acrylic paints. I painted the backs of the petals (the outside of the milk jug) since the color shows through. I also mixed paints to soften the color and add dimension-- I mixed in pearl white (for the pink) and gold (for the purple). You can also add highlights to each petal using the pearl & gold paints.

After the paint dries, roll the fringed piece and use a big dollop of hot glue on the bottom to hold it together. This will become the stamen of the flower.

Once the glue and paints are dry, it's time to start adhering the petals to the stamen. If you want your project to be water resistant, use clear adhesive sealant. It takes longer to dry, but will hold better if you decide to display your flowers on/near water. Start with the smallest petals. Bend the ends of each petal. I found it easiest to work upside down, overlapping and gluing down each petal to the base of the stamen.

A couple of notes about glue...
Using a hot glue gun works if 1) you're not planning on getting your flowers wet and 2) paint is being glued to paint. It's not the strongest bond, but it works for decorative purposes.

Using clear adhesive sealer works if 1) you're planning on using your flowers outside or near water 2) plastic is being glued to plastic. So don't paint the parts that are being glued together with adhesive sealer! I did this by painting the back of the petals. The part of the petal that is glued to the stamen is paint-free and has a nice bond. Make sure the sealer is clear (and thus 100% dry) before putting it near water.

Continue to glue down the medium and large petals. Your flower is almost complete. You can stop here...

Or you can add a lily pad. I cut mine out of the base of the milk jug. Paint it green and you're almost done!

When the paint is dry, adhere the flower to the lily pad.

If you're wondering... my water lilies don't float! I tested them in the pool. They stay up a little before sinking... the flower is too heavy. However, with some adjustments to the lily pad (maybe a bigger lip), I think it can be done!

So they're not completely waterproof and they don't float. But they do just fine propped up on some rocks... with a little water thrown in for authenticity.  :)

Have a nice weekend!

I've been getting a lot of emails asking "DO THEY FLOAT?" So I decided to try out my theory that if you left a little lip on the lily pad, it would float.

It works!  Behold the milk jug water lilies that actually float! 

How to DIY Milk Jug Waterlily Flower Luminaries - Milk Jug (Polyethylene) Votives

Most upcycle projects that I see are glass-- wine bottles, jars, even beer bottles. Not too many pretty projects with plastic milk gallon jugs though. I wonder why?  ;)  I guess they aren't the most exciting in their original form, but with their vellum-like quality, I thought they would be perfect for a votive project.

 Since I want to use these in our backyard this summer, I decided to make them as water-resistant as possible while also keeping it an easy DIY. After trying several adhesives, I'm happiest with this clear adhesive sealant. It is easy to work with (the texture is thick enough to adhere the pieces together without using clamps) and it also dries relatively quickly... although not as quickly as hot glue.

Why I didn't use a hot glue gun... Unfortunately hot glue does not adhere well to polyethylene (the material that milk jugs are made from) and it is not water resistant. If you do want to use a hot glue gun, you'll have paint the polyethylene (clear spray paint or acrylic paints) or rough it up with sand paper. Even with that, the bond will not be as strong.

If you don't have any milk jugs on-hand or don't feel like an upcycle project, you can also purchase polyethylene plastic sheets. They vary in thickness though and, since I have never used them before, I can't vouch for their performance.

materials needed:
clean milk jug (once you cut away the bottom and handle, one jug should make one votive)
scrap paper for template
cheap scissors (to cut the milk jug)
clear silicone adhesive sealant (I used this one)
battery-powered votive lights
acrylic paint (optional)  i used this multi purpose paint in gold since it adheres well to many surfaces. i also used this glitter paint to add some dimension.

instructions:

The first step is to make a template for your petals. I cut-out eight (small) 2.25-inch petals, six (medium) 3-inch petals and 6 (large) 4-inch petals. There aren't any set rules for this. I wanted a lotus-like votive so I made my medium and large petals wide.

Cut out your petals from the milk jug as well as a round piece for the center. The round piece should be about the same size as your votive. You obviously don't want to use your best scissors for this project. I used a cheap pair and it worked fine.

Bend the end of your petals. Luckily polyethylene is very flexible and doesn't crease (at least my jugs from Trader Joe's don't). You can later add more "bend" to your petals when the project is complete.

Now it's time to glue everything together. Start with the circle and adhere the smallest petals first. You can wait a bit for the sealant to dry a little... or if you're impatient like me, you'll just plow ahead.

I then attached the medium-sized petals, followed by the large petals. I perched it upside-down on a acrylic paint bottle to dry. Let the sealant dry overnight. It will be clear when dry.


 During the day...

And at night...

Ready to add some ambiance to our back yard...

How to Make Beautiful Lily from Recycled Plastic Spoons and Bottles

Do you have lots of plastic spoon left after party? Recycle them and turn them into something pretty and decorative for your garden. This water lily flower is a great DIY recycle project you can try, you can make them for your mini pond, or garden for decoration. Lily of plastic spoons may not be brighter than the flower of corrugated paper , but it has its advantages . Unlike paper , plastic tolerates moist environment , so a pretty flower can decorate a small artificial pond . Furthermore , the plastic inlay can tolerate wet cleaning , whereby it will look aesthetically pleasing for a longer time.

To create crafts from plastic spoons require white spoon in two sizes and a plastic bottle (preferably green).

Materials you may need:

• plastic spoons
• knife
• hot glue gun
• yellow paint and brush
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   Steps:
  
  1. Make petals by neatly cutting off the handles of large and small spoons.
  2. Make the central circle of petals , gluing three small spoon with each other using hot glue.
  3. Glue petals of the following circles , increasing the number of spoons and change to bigger spoon.
  4. Make flower middles. Cut a rectangular plastic from plastic bottle (size 12 × 2.5 cm). Depending on the size of water lilies, the size for flower middles may vary. Cut along the short side of the rectangle into strips to the end – it turns a kind of plastic fringe, which should be rolled up and fix the roll using hot glue. Paint the fringe with yellow color.
  5. Stick the middle of a flower with hot glue, be sure that the paint is completely dry . 
     
  6. Cut out of plastic for leaves of water lilies . Best to use plastic bottle green , if not available, use transparent plastic and paint it in green.
  7. Glue flowers to the leaves.

Make New Year’s Eve Crackers

Crackers are decorated tubes filled with toys, trinkets, candy, confetti, and many times, tissue paper crowns.  They can be put on dinner plates or a table setting at a meal, or handed out at a party.  The recipient can either pull on both ends of the cracker, or one person can pull one side and another person pull the other.  Either way, when opened, confetti and other items come spilling out.  There are several ways to design them but I prefer this simpler method.

Materials to Make New Year’s Eve Crackers:

• Recycled cardboard tubes (i.e. paper towel tubes or leftover tubes from wrapping paper)
• Tissue paper
• String
• Glue
• Tape
• Decorative papers (scrapbook papers, old book pages, newspaper, sheet music, wrapping paper, comics, wallpaper, etc.)
• Embellishments to tie at the cracker ends– this can include curling ribbon, twist ties (i.e. I snipped some gold ones from the end of a holiday decoration), string, wire, or twine.
• Things to put inside the crackers.  For adults you can include candies, lottery tickets, fortunes, and confetti.  For children you can include trinkets or toys, confetti and candies.

Instructions to Make New Year’s Eve Crackers:

• Cut the cardboard tubes into 6″ length
• Cut the tissue paper into 10-12″ length.  Some people prefer crackers to have shorter ends, some prefer longer ends.
• Place the  cardboard tube in the center of the tissue paper and wrap the tissue around the tube.  I use a piece of tape to secure one end of the tissue paper to the tube then roll the tube till it is covered with tissue paper.  I then secure the tissue paper in place with another piece of tape.  I trim any excess tissue paper as needed.
• Use a piece of string to tie one end of the cracker.
• Now that one end of the cracker is secured, fill the cracker with the items you set aside for filling them.
• Tie the other end of the cracker with string.
  
• Decorate the crackers by wrapping them in colorful, patterned, and/or recycled papers.  You can cut thin strips of paper for the edges, longer and wider strips for the centers.
• Decorate the ends of the crackers by adding festive wire or twist ties, curling ribbons, wired garlands, or twine.
I made these crackers using pages from a vintage school book:

And last, I decorated this pair of crackers using a recycled paper gift bag with thin strips of scrapbook paper on the ends

Happy New Year!