How to make toys from recycled materials: 7 original ideas

Do you want to make a fun, original gift that also helps the environment? Recycled materials are the perfect opportunity to let your imagination run wild and create lots of toys. Cardboard boxes, plastic caps, straws, cork, anything you can find around the house can be used to be creative and make personalized, economical and fun toys for kids.

And by doing this, you bring your children the importance of recycling and reuse.

Ideas for original recycled toys for children

If you also want to give waste a second life and at the same time have fun designing and crafting with the little ones at home, we propose in this message 7 ideas for making toys from recycled materials. Join us Planet First!

An airplane with toilet rolls

The first thing you need to do to design a recycled airplane is a few rolls of toilet paper or kitchen roll get what you have in your inventory. Take two or four rolls depending on the size, cut them in half and... draw two ovals with a pencil (one should be twice the size of the other). Then take a brush and tempera to paint each of the ovals you cut out in the color of your choice, which the wings of the plane will form.

Then take a fairly long roll of paper towel and paint it (don't forget to add the windows). It is important that you use a box cutter to cut out four holes on each side so that you can attach the wings. Then get creative and fill it with colors, beautiful motifs and stickers to make it even more beautiful.

Cardboard table football

One of the other ideas we propose in this post is making a table football. This recycled toy is very simple, but very original and fun. All you need is one shoe box, tweezers and some skewers or long sticks.

Take the shoe box without a lid and cut a few holes on each side the goals to make. Then make other small holes on each side to put the sticks in. Since this toy is ideal for two children, four long sticks, two for each child, are sufficient. Then make it the tongs players, personalize them and put them on the sticks. And so you have a table football made of recycled material for the little ones at home.

A bowling game

If you are not very good at crafts but would like to make toys for children from recycled materials, we suggest a bowling game. All you have to do is Collect 6 or 9 actimel or milkshake bottles. Remove all labels, paint and decorate each jar in a different color. Then glue a ping pong ball on the top of each pot, which you must also have painted in advance. Finally, get a ball and have fun with your kids!

A domino with cardboard

If you want to have fun with your children and have a fun afternoon, you can make a recycled board game that is as fun as dominoes, ideal for children between 6 and 12 years old. To do this, simply take a piece of cardboard, outline each piece and then paint them with acrylic paint in black. Add the dots and lines of the pieces in white and your homemade dominoes are ready!

A recycled toy truck

Immediately cardboard egg cup and four bottle caps you can design a nice toy car. The first thing you need to do is take the egg cup and paint it. Depending on the size you want to make the car, you can cut it out or not. For example, if you have a fire truck If you want, choose an egg cup of at least 8 pieces. And if you have one British bus If you want, glue two egg cups together to form the two floors of the bus ;)

Then take so much styrofoam balls if you want to have passengers in your vehicle and bring them to life by decorating and painting them. Finally, take the four plastic bottle caps and glue them together add wheels joints on the car made of recycled material.

Recycled puppet

We think this is a great idea paper rolls and plastic caps to give it a second life. To make your own doll, take a roll of toilet paper and paint it the color of your choice. Then, on a piece of paper or cardboard, draw the face of the character or the head of the animal you want to represent. Glue it to the top of the roll and you have the body and head together.

Then take four pieces of wool or string and glue them onto the body to make the limbs. Don't forget the bottle caps to the end of each limb to be glued. Finally, four strings are tied to each of the limbs two straws in the shape of an "X" to create the command that controls the character. You'll definitely have fun making up stories - the kids will love it!

Snakes with cork

If you want to know how to make an original recycled toy, pay close attention because you'll love our latest idea. Collect as much as possible bottle corks and when you have some, cut them into three equal pieces. Then make a hole in each piece of cork with an awl. Thread red wool through each of the holes, just as if you were making a beaded necklace, and tie a knot at the beginning and at the end so that the wool doesn't spill out.

Forget it head not. We recommend that you do this a whole cork to take it, put eyes on it with a marker or stickers and let the wool stick out a little to make the tongue of the snake after to imitate.

As you can see, there are plenty of ideas for making toys from recycled materials that are not only very economical, but also benefit the environment. Are you a craft enthusiast or would you like to have a fun time with your children creating and imagining? What are you waiting for to choose one of these ideas?