Tag Archives: Recycle

Recycling Quiet Book Set & Free Printables

Recycling Quiet Book Set & Free Printables
I’m always looking for ways to teach Jax about what we can do to help our planet. I knew a “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” theme would make a wonderful quiet book theme. Trash and recycle trucks are so much fun for kids to watch, so I had to add one in to expand the project into a fun recycling set.

Recycling Quiet Book Set & Free Printables
This is a pay pattern available in my Etsy shop. Purchasing my pay patterns will let me move towards making a living at crafting and give me more time to devote to both pay and free projects.

Recycling Quiet Book Set & Free Printables
The 6″ square quiet book features 3  double pages: Reduce teaches turning off lights and faucets to save resources. Reuse promotes using reusable cups and bags whenever possible. Recycle introduces sorting recyclables (and compost items!) into their bins. The cover has a recycle symbol and an earth with a heart.

Recycling Quiet Book Set & Free Printables
All of the sorting items can be used with the recycle truck that features a working back hatch. Pull the loop to open the hatch, then pull the ribbon to close it up again. There is also a recycle bin and a felt doll that is compatible with my other dress up felt dolls (fire station and dollhouse.)

I hope you’ll find the pattern files to be beautiful and helpful. A lot of time went into them! The pattern includes a stitch guide and full tutorial with photos and illustrations. You will also receive a coupon for $5 off at American Felt and Craft to help you get started on your felt stash.

Recycling Quiet Book Set & Free Printables
You can purchase this pattern for $8 in my Etsy shop, Imagine Our Life. If you would like to sell the finished product, you can purchase commercial licensed version for $20. This is a one time fee, and you’d be able to sell as many recycle quiet books as you’d like after purchasing it.

Recycling Quiet Book Set & Free Printables
As a free add-on to this felt set, I am providing my matching 3-part cards and recycle sorting game free for educational use! Click here to download the pdf.

Recycling Quiet Book Set & Free PrintablesThe cards and game include the same sorting categories as the felt set, giving you an additional way to teach the new vocabulary. (I include both the North American spelling on “aluminum” and the world spelling of “aluminium”.) The game features illustrations that were hand drawn by me.

Recycling Quiet Book Set & Free Printables

Montessori MondayTo assemble, print out the cards and cut them out. Glue them to card stock backs, then laminate and trim. I use this laminator. To make laminating a bit easier, you can try adding a dab of glue stick to the cards when you position then in the lamination sleeves. It keeps them from wiggling and overlapping.

I purchased two 3-packs of blue drawer organizers from Dollar Tree to use as my sorting bins.

If you liked this free homeschool printable and want more homeschool ideas, visit Montessori Monday at Living Montessori Now.

I hope you enjoy this pattern! I can’t tell how much your support means to me. Big thank yous to all of you who are a part of our Facebook page. You have given me so much inspiration! Please feel free to comment here or on Facebook if you have suggestions for new projects. I am sketching patterns and ordering felt for all my fall projects this week. I’ll post some sneak peeks on Instagram. Come follow along!

Recycling Quiet Book Pattern

Recycling Old Crayons

We eat out more than most families – I’m vegetarian and my husband is not. It can be hard to cook meals that satisfy us both. It can be easier (and often cheaper) for us to each pick out what we want in a restaurant instead of us having to cook two dinners at home.

One side effect to eating out with a toddler is I end up with a lot of kids’ menu crayons in my purse. I’ve been collecting them in a baggy for some time (as well as broken ones from home and party leftovers) and was finally ready to create something new with them.

There are plenty of recycled crayon tutorials online, though we just winged it. I heated the oven to 275° F and sat down at lunch time to rip the wrappers off. Ugh! Easier said than done! I ended up dropping the crayons into a glass of warm water. After a little soak, 90% of then peeled right off. Some of them were difficult to peel regardless of what I did. I think the baggy got left in the car at one point.

Sorting by color is a great toddler activity!

When the crayons were all peeled, I broke them up into a bowl. Jax loves to sort items by color right now, so he helped me put all the like colors together into cupcake tins. I also did a rainbow one with some extras. My tins are Reynolds Wrap Fun Shapes I’ve had forever, but you could use a normal tin or a silicone mold.

We stuck them in the oven and I watched until they were all melted. It was maybe 20 minutes. The deeper the crayons, the longer it takes. Quality crayons like Crayolas melt the best and color the best. Cheap, waxy crayons (which we unfortunately had a lot of) don’t melt as well or color as dark. I’d recommend Crayolas if you are making these as a gift. I made a trio of crayons (not shown) with just some of the primary color Crayolas we’ve collected, and they color great.

When they were fully melted, I  took them out of the oven to cool. I sped up the cooling by sticking them in the fridge. They popped right out of the tins once solid again. They look so cute all stacked in a treat bag! Jax loves then, even though some of them don’t color very dark due to the cheap crayons. I’ll definitely be making these again!

Recycled Starbucks Card Earring Tutorial

Inspired by my search around the internet for Starbucks-themed crafts, I put together a the first in a series of Starbucks tutorials.

Everyone knows I am a huge Starbucks fan, so I often get their cards as gifts. They are so cute and I can’t seem to throw them out when they are empty. When I saw it was possible to turn them into jewelry, I had to give it a try!

These will make a great gift for our favorite barista. I’ll be making more styles, but this tutorial features Starbucks logo from the upper corner of two cards.

What you need: 2 Starbucks cards, scissors, emory board or sandpaper, something to punch a small hole (I used a corn cob holder!), beads and earring findings (I used two silver french hooks, 2 head pins, 2 large seed beads and two round beads) and jewelry-making tools.

Starbucks Crafts and Halloween Costume

1st Starbucks Visit

I love Starbucks! Their soy no-water chai lattes are always delicious! But I get a little something extra out of my visits…

When I had Jax, I switched to working from home full-time. Perfect for taking care of a little one, but suddenly my only adult contact was my husband in the evening. So I started taking Jax out to Starbucks. Our trips have become a beloved routine and we’ve become friends with all the baristas. We both like to people-watch and he adores flirting with the ladies. I get adult conversations and a worn-out baby when we get home.

For Halloween, I created a Starbucks barista costume for Jax that was a huge hit. You can recycle Starbucks cups to create it. I bought some green fabric and sewed a simple apron in a tiny baby size. I cut the logo out of a vente (large) cup and used strong glue to attach it to the chest. For his hat, I painted an old ball cap of his black, then attached another cut-out logo. Because he was so tiny, we used little sample cups as his drink prop. So simple!

Later on, I made a scrapbook page featuring his costume. I re-used some coffee stickers that had decorated the envelope of the birthday card Jax received from all the baristas at our Starbucks. I love how it came out!

More crafts from around the internet:

Starbucks Felt Playset
Make It Lovely has an adorable tutorial for making a felt Starbucks play set with two drinks and two mini donuts. Recycle your Starbucks sleeves and a pastry bag to add the branding. You could use one of their paper shopping bags to store it all!

No-Spill Paint Cups

No-Spill Paint Cups
Muffin Tin Mom came up with a great idea for reusing dome-top cold cups from Starbucks – no-spill paint cups! The straw hole up top is perfect for your paint brush. Jax isn’t quite coordinated enough for this, but it is a great idea for the future. I tested it out with some leftover green paint from our last project. This would also work great with clean water in the cup to clean your brushes between colors.

 

Starbucks Card Notepads
Onegroovyday on Crafster came up with the cutest way to reuse your old Starbucks cards. She made mini notepads! If you aren’t feeling crafty, you can snag one pre-made off Etsy.

Starbucks Card Jewlery
Okay, there are so many cute things to made with empty Starbucks cards. Maybe some of my favorite baristas can snag some for me that are destined for the trash bin. Knitphomaniac has made some really pretty jewelry by cutting old cards and stringing them with jump rings and other findings. Gift ideas for barista friends!

Bottle Cap Flower Mosaics
I love these mosaics by Shawn DuBois available on Esty! A fun way to reuse any bottle cap.