Life-sized Marionettes

Materials

  • Recyclables

  • Zip ties

  • Hole punching tool

  • Scissors

  • Acrylic paint/brushes

  • Miscellaneous decorating supplies

  • Masking tape

 

 

 

Instructions

1. Lay out recyclables to form a creature. If any of the pieces have flaps like egg cartons, you may want to close them with masking tape.

2. Using the hole punching tool, poke medium sized holes in the recyclables where you want the pieces to be connected. It is best to do this part for kids, as it can be difficult to pierce through some recyclables, especially plastics.

3. Connect the pieces by threading zip ties through the holes and locking them. Keep the zip ties loose. Trim the extra length.

4. Paint your creature.

5. When dry, decorate it with anything you want! Then, go set it up in a chair. It might startle some people.

 

Recyclable Sculptures

Materials

  • Masking tape

  • Recyclables of any sort (ex: cardboard boxes and tubes, milk cartons and jugs, egg cartons, etc.)

  • Scissors and/or craft knife

  • Paint & brushes

  • Miscellaneous supplies

Instructions

  1. Design your sculpture. Pick out the pieces to be used and arrange them best you can. For smaller details, like snouts, use scissors or a craft knife to cut items to your liking . See Tips below for ideas on what items work well for a specific purpose.

  2. Using the masking tape, firmly secure the tubes and other parts to the body. Tightly tape all the way around the sculpture. It may not look pretty, but the tape keeps the sculpture from falling apart. There is no such thing as too much tape in this project.

  3. Paint the sculptures. Let dry.

  4. Add decorations like googly eyes, pom-poms, or whatever you have lying around.

Tips

  • Toilet paper and paper towel tubes work best for legs, arms, and necks.
  • Several of the sculptures worked well when they used a vertical cardboard box for the chest and a horizontal box beneath to make it sit up.
  • Cut off the neck of a water bottle or pop bottle to make a nice snout.
  • Egg cartons are great for making ears in several styles.
  • Depending on how many sculptures you are making, you may need multiple rolls of masking tape.

  • Some kids put tape tubes together so they acted as joints.