Product Description

Corrugated Castle. Fancy Foil Fish Mobile. Paper Bead Bangles. Braided Rag Coasters. Old Shoe Flower Pots. Puppy Dog Sock Puppet. With a little imagination, just about anything we think of as trash can be transformed into an art project good enough to give as a gift or to keep and treasure yourself.

In her first Storey Kids book, Nature's Art Box, master crafter Laura C. Martin showed kids how pebbles, twigs, seedpods, and shells can be turned into things of beauty. Now, in Recycled Crafts Box, she uses as her art supplies the paper, plastic, metal, and cloth we usually consign to the recycling bin or the garbage can.

The way Martin sees it, just about everything around us holds artistic possibilities. Plastic picnic plates can be cut up to make a bouquet of flowers that will never wilt (and don't need watering). Roll leftover gift wrap into tight tubes and cut it into small sections to make one of- a-kind beads. Decorate the sides of old paint cans with acrylic paint and tie sturdy rope to the handles to make a pair of stilts.

Along the way, Martin offers sidebars on the history of rubbish and profiles of artists whose medium is junk. She passes along important lessons about being a good steward of the Earth. But the lessons are light and fun--never preachy.

Fun for kids, perfect for involved and homeschooling parents, and ideal for schoolteachers who have seen their art supply budgets slashed, Recycled Crafts Box shows budding artists how to make something beautiful and save the planet at the same time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50236 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781580175227
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From School Library Journal
Grade 1-6–From its cover with raised letters that look as though they are made of various recycled materials to the helpful back matter (including a list of books and Web sites on recycling), this title is attractive and informative. Divided into sections dealing with paper, plastic, metal, and fabric, the book tells how these materials are made, traces their history, and explains how they can be recycled, emphasizing benefits to the environment. Tips on how youngsters can make a difference appear throughout, and interviews with artists who work with recyclables are included as sidebars. Scattered circles contain information about the inability of various substances to break down. Several art projects are provided for each type of material. These activities produce items that children will enjoy making and using, such as jewelry crafted from paper beads, dolls created from plastic yogurt cups, stilts fashioned out of empty paint cans, and planters made from old shoes. The finished items are shown in full-page color photos. The procedural steps are clearly written, well numbered, and illustrated with clear pencil drawings. Great for Earth Day or any day, this colorful, inviting, and well-organized book is a wonderful choice for instilling environmental awareness or encouraging creativity. Bobbe Needham's Ecology Crafts for Kids (Sterling, 1998) is another excellent title.–Lynda Ritterman, Atco Elementary School, Waterford, NJ
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Gr. 3-7. Much more than just a craft book, this title includes a brief history of trash--illustrated in a colorful "trash timeline"--that shows how the invention of disposable products and packaging has created increasing waste. Another diagram shows the "anatomy of a landfill." Organized into sections based on common recyclable materials (paper, plastic, metal, fabric), the easy-to-follow, mostly appealing projects include a "Fancy Foil Fish" aluminum mobile, paper jewelry, and milk-carton castles. Each section has useful information about the material being used, such as a chart that deciphers the codes used in various plastic products. Throughout, Martin makes suggestions for "living lightly" on Earth, although in many cases (purchasing choices, for example), kids will have to pass on the tips to their parents. Illustrated with cheerful cartoon drawings and color photos of the finished projects, and bolstered by many resource lists, this is a surprisingly attractive, substantive offering that is just the thing for teachers planning Earth Day activities. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“Great for Earth Day or any day, this colorful, inviting, and well-organized book is a wonderful choice for instilling environmental awareness or encouraging creativity.” –School Library Journal

“Discover hidden art supplies in your recycling bin with tips from “Recycled Crafts Box…” –Indianapolis Star

Customer Reviews

A delightful resource for rainy-day fun
Laura Martin's Recycled Crafts Box is a compilation of forty ecologically-friendly projects and activities that can be done cheaply from old things, from crafting sock puppets and cardboard castles to rag coasters and colorful picnic plate flowers. A delightful resource for rainy-day fun, artistic stimulation, and stimulating quality time to be shared with young ones. Also a highly recommended creative diversion, especially as an alternative to the ever-present press of television and other passive media.

Very nice!
A friend got this for my daughter and I, and a lot of the projects in it are really suited better for parents with younger children, that being said, we loved it.
My daughter is almost 13 years old, and while a lot of the projects were a lot easier then she likes, they gave her ideas for doing similar things with a bit more complexity. The cardboard castle is a favorite, and she's got big plans for building her brother a dice tower now.
The other thing the book had that we both liked was a lot of information about how things are recycled, and a timeline of disposable manufacturing, so we both learned from it. It's good without being overly preachy, and since it's recycled crafts, the crafts are very inexpensive to make.

Recycled Crafts Box
An excellent book to help parents teach their children the importance of recycling while having fun as a family doing the crafts!
Potecting Mother Earth is a fantastic way of spending quaility family time together!