11/05/2021
With COP26 going on in Glasgow right now, it’s a perfect
time to talk about recycling and upcycling, and the Eco Crafts series from
Capstone gives great inspiration on using plastic, cardboard, paper and
cast-off clothing to create fun toys, décor and gifts for family and
friends. Each book tells readers to get
adult assistance for cutting and other tricky bits and offers short tips for budding
environmentalists.
In Create with Cardboard, the series’ authors, Marcy
Morin and Heidi E. Thompson, show kids how to make projects including a whale
phone holder, a bee sanctuary, a goat puppet, and more. Children will have fun
making each of the items and proud to show them off while keeping cardboard out
of the landfill.
Upcycle Cast-Off Clothing ties in with the hot trend
of using old clothes in creative ways to make something new. In the US alone,
14 million tons of clothing ends up in landfills each year, a figure that’s doubled
in the last twenty years. This book will have kids using old t-shirts to make
hair scrunchies, turning flannel shirts into pillows, and making cat toys and dog
beds out of old socks and sweatshirts. There
are even instructions to make a Laundry Monster laundry bag out of an old
towel! Young and middle readers will love making home and gift items using
ideas ion this book.
Using old maps, magazines and other paper around the house, Recycled
Paper Projects offers a plethora of fun projects. Strips of paper from an
old gift bag become a pretty ornament, magazine pages metamorphosize into
butterflies on a lovely garland, and an old map gets turned into an envelope
for a special letter. Each project will keep kids entertained and reuse paper
in interesting and creative ways.
Over 80% of marine debris is plastic, with at least 8
million tons of plastic entering the ocean each year. A walk on any beach in
the world will reveal plastic left behind or washed up, and while the ultimate
solution is to reduce reliance on plastic, recycling and upcycling plastic are
other ways of keeping it out of our waterways. Upcycled Plastic Projects
offers young readers wonderful ways they can help by making fun projects out of
household plastics. Some projects are even aimed at the outdoors, such as a
small troll house made from a soda bottle, an outdoor pillow made of duct tape
and plastic grocery bags, and a bird feeder created using a take-out food
container.
This series is the perfect way to get kids started down the
road of reduce, reuse, recycle, and taking better care of our planet by keeping
more out of landfills. These books come in Capstone’s reinforced library
binding and are perfect additions to any collection. You can find all four of
them together here.