Earth Day Junior Adventurer Crafts: Binoculars and Butterflies

There are so many things that you recycle every day that you can make use of. Egg cartons and toilet paper rolls for various crafts. As usual, I found these ideas on Pinterest. I thought they were simple, and easy enough to make with my little cousin, Isabelle. These cute crafts are fun to play with outside. 

     earth day toilet paper tube binoculars
~Two cardboard toilet paper tubes
~Patterned paper
~scissors
~decorative doodads (buttons, stamps, markers, googly eyes)
~ribbon (of various colors)
~hole punch
~Elmer's white school glue

Cut the patterned paper to length size of the card board tube. Cut up the paper into long strips, and then cut in half. Each of those halves will cover the tube. Drizzle glue on the flip size of the paper, the side that will cover the outside of the tube. Place the tube on the paper and roll it along with the paper. Once the tube is covered, take the flap and press it down on the tube (not smooshing the tube). Glue the flap down, put glue under the flap and over flap and spread the glue along the flap until it is stuck down and the tube is completely covered with the paper. Do that to both tubes. Decorate the paper covered tube with the markers and such. Punch holes (press hard) on one side of each tube. Just one hole punch for each tube. Make sure the hole punches are on the side toward the top of the tube. Next, take one tube and squeeze the glue along the side of the binocular tube, the side that will meet up with the other tube. Put your fingers inside the tube and press hard to make them stick. You will have to press them together for about 2-3 minutes. Next, cut some ribbon and tie the ends of the ribbon into the holes, make sure there is enough room for the child's head to stick through. 

This butterfly craft is so cute! I knew there was something missing when I made my butterfly, but I didn't really think about it until now that I have seen the pictures... I am missing antennae on the butterflies. Oh well, they still look so cute! 

       earth day egg carton butterfly

~1 dozen eggs egg carton

~construction paper, or patterned paper (scrap book paper)

~markers

~googly eyes

~scissors 

~Elmer's white school glue

~pipe cleaners 

First off, cut the egg carton in half, and then half again, long ways so you get three egg spaces. Cut wings out of the paper, and the wings I cut out look like hearts, so just draw about 5 inch long hearts. Decorate the wings and the egg carton, glue on the eyes and poke holes in the top of the egg carton to poke through the pipe cleaners to make antennae. You can curl the pipe cleaners to give them a cute effect. I couldn't find my googly eyes. I know I have googly eyes in my craft closet, but I couldn't find them, so we had to make do with drawn on eyes. Next, glue on the wings.  Fold the point of the heart shaped wing and glue underneath the egg carton. You may also have to spread glue on top to make it stick. You can also use tape. Do it to both sides. And there ya are. 

I didn't really make a step by step collage for this... but here are the results of our butterfly!

We made two butterflies. One for Isabelle and one for Raelyn. We borrowed Raelyn's binoculars and Raelyn's butterfly to go outside and play butterfly hunt with our recycled crafts. We went on an adventure and had so much fun! 

Recycled crafts are amazing.