creative jewish mom

Plastic Bag Pom Pom Fruit Craft

I've been wanting to make fruit from plastic bag pom poms for a few good years now, and it finally happened, and I just love them. Now if only I had plastic bags in orange and yellow, well things would be even more festive. Plastic bag pom pom fruit can be great hung as a mobile in a child's room, used as party decor for a fruit themed party, or of course made to celebreate Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish new year for fruit bearing trees, which is why I made these! Right now I have plastic bag pom poms hanging over my dining room table, and while I had planned to add these to the mix it was looking a little bit too much like a child's room, so I've been displaying them elsewhere. That said they truly are adorable, and certainly something one can keep on hand to pull out in a pinch, I think they'd make great cake toppers as well. Okay, lets make some plastic bag pom pom fruit!

DIY Plastic Bag Pom Pom Cake Toppers

Looking for a festive cake topper idea in a pinch? How about plastic bag pom pom cake toppers? I'll admit, this was truly a last minute idea as I had made the pom poms to hang from our dining room table chandelier but hadn't quite gotten around to it, so I quickly stuck skewers into the pom poms and voila a festive cake was born. I'll admit that these toppers would be more successful on a high cake rather than my chocolate chip cookie cake, but with the cake placed on a cake stand, and some red rose petals on the table to add more color, it worked. After the birthday party I removed the skewers and got one of my teen sons to hang the pom poms where they added a festive touch for the week of chanukah together with some golden wire dreidels. While I've been doing the more sophisticated look in our dining room lately, loving the return of some fun color via a great recycling craft, so the pom poms may just stay for Tu B'Shevat and then Purim!

How To Make Multi-Colored Plastic Bag Yarn Or "Plarn"

Hopefully wherever you may live plastic bags are not something that are so easy to find, but if you are like me, and live somewhere where plastic bags are still plentiful, unfortunately, well the best thing is to craft with them! First of all, there are a few ways to make "plarn" but I'm going to show you the method I use, as it's fairly quick to make and quite honestly becomes a bit of an addiction. Heavy plastic bags are great for fusing projects like I've taught you here, but the light weight bags (mine are from the grocery store and the vegetable store) used for food, and even light weight garbage bags will do the trick as well, and are in fact the best, since you can get quite a bit of "plarn" out of one bag. 

Check out all my plastic bag crafts right here, and then collect those bags and start using them to make yarn! To keep it from getting tedious, start a ball of yarn, and then simply add to it each time a plastic bag comes into your life! In the past I made balls of plastic bag yarn in solid colors, but this week I decided to make multicolor plastic bag yarn as it is perfect for the plastic bag pom poms I'll share with you shortly! Okay, lets get to it!

Woven Plastic Bottle Baskets Are Fun, Practical And Waterproof!

I am reposting this original craft idea that I posted four years ago, as it just seems like the perfect craft right about now, especially if you've followed my advice and started to make some plastic bag yarn! Okay, enjoy!

I am so excited to share with you this recycled craft that is made entirely of recycled materials, with the exception of hot glue! Let me introduce a fun craft project for all ages: woven plastic bottle baskets using plastic bags. These little baskets are perfect for Purim or any of your spring celebrations, and so much fun to make! I used 1.5 liter soda bottles as that is what we have on hand, but certainly one can make much larger baskets using much larger bottles. So gather up those plastic bags, and those recycled bottles and lets get started! Oh, and just by the way, I also made some 'grass" by cutting up plastic bags into tiny pieces!

Woven Recycled Bottle Basket Craft

I am so excited to share with you this recycled craft that is made entirely of recycled materials, with the exception of hot glue! Let me introduce a fun craft project for all ages: woven plastic bottle baskets using plastic bags. These little baskets are perfect for Purim or any of your spring celebrations, and so much fun to make! I used 1.5 liter soda bottles as that is what we have on hand, but certainly one can make much larger baskets using much larger bottles. So gather up those plastic bags, and those recycled bottles and lets get started! Oh, and just by the way, I also made some 'grass" by cutting up plastic bags into tiny pieces!

Four Stranded Braids Made With Plastic Bags

Braiding with plastic bags is a great way to make trim for some of your recycled crafting projects, and a great way to keep those plastic bags out of the trash! At least when you braid them, if they do end up in the trash, they'll do a lot less damage as they're already broken down somewhat. And if you ever find yourself on that island of plastic bottles and bags located somewhere out in the Pacific ocean, well, you'll be able to keep yourself busy. Sadly enough.

I am in the middle of making some fun recycled crafts using plastic bottles and plarn (plastic bag yarn) and I needed some trim, so after a few attempts that were way too time consuming, here is my suggestion for making flat trim from plastic bags! You can use this braided trim as handles for baskets, as ties to close something, just to name a few possibilities. Maybe kids could make them as summer camp bracelets as well? Enough brainstorming, first things first, lets learn how to make them!

Make Yarn From Plastic Bags To Use For Holiday Crafting!

Imagine my delight when my local grocery store temporarily switched from yellow plastic grocery bags to purple plastic grocery bags.......pure heaven as it were for a dedicated recycling crafter like me, right? I was actually swooning I believe, or maybe that was on account of the mesh potato sacks that instead of their standard white became orange, right around the same time!

DIY Upcycled Plastic Bag Pom Poms!

Pom poms made from plastic bags are so very festive and they look so great its very hard to believe that they're made from plastic bags! So start saving those plastic bags, and put them to great use the next time you need an artistic gift wrapping solution, or some great party decorations. And as for the size of your pom poms, well you decide, since plastic bags work well for large pom poms as well as fairly small ones. In order to share the positive message about the idea of recycling, why not create some custom stickers with a message about environmental protection to use together with these fun pom poms, whether on gift boxes or cards!

While one certailny can make plastic bag pom poms from strips of plastic bags, I recommend making plarn, (seen above) namely plastic bag yarn, from your hoard of bags, and using that to make pom poms as you would with regular yarn. So lets get started!

You'll Need:

• plastic bags, the light weight/partly translucent kind used generally by grocery stores
• sharp scissors
• string
• cardboard scraps

How To Make Plastic Bag Pom Poms:

Step 1: Collect your bags and make balls of "plarn" like in the photo above. Instructions for making plarn can be found here. Pom poms can of course be made from just one color, but they're even more stunning when made from a mix of colors.

Step 2: Decide how large you'd like to make your pom poms, and then cut a piece of cardboard whose width measures roughly the size of the desired pom pom. You can always make the pom poms smaller if they end up being bigger than needed. For the small medium and large pom poms I made, I cut pieces of cardboard that are 6", 4" and 2" respectively, and my finished pom poms measured 7", 4.5" and 3" after their haircuts.

 Step 3: Wrap plarn around your piece of cardboard around 20 times, combining the colors of your choice.

Step 4: Remove the plarn from your piece of cardboard, and tightly tie a piece of string around the exact middle of the plarn, as seen above. For small pom poms, you will need to tie the string around the plarn before you remove it from the cardboard. You can do this by simply laying a piece of string on the cardboard before you wrap the plarn around it. In this way you will only be securing one side of the hank of plarn, but that is sufficient to hold it together.

Step 5: Cut through the loops of plarn using scissors, if it becomes difficult, just cut off the ends in order to open the loops. Fluff up the pom pom and then trim it to make it as round as possible.

That is it, welcome to the wonderful new world of plastic bag pom poms, you'll be making them for years to come, I'm quite sure!

 

Gift Topper Pom Poms From Plastic Grocery Bags!

Aren't these plastic grocery bag gift topper pom poms gorgeous? If you told me they were exotic sea urchins I'd probably find that more believable than plastic grocery bags, really? Yes dear readers, and while I will admit that photographing them on a white table cloth in the low afternoon sun did make them look a bit more tissue paper delicate than they are, they really are fantastic. So if you're looking for a good recycling craft, this is it, well for the moment!

I must run to take care of some family business, but I'll be back shortly to explain how we made these, and to share another fabulous chanukah gift wrapping idea. See you soon!

In the meantime, you can check out my plastic bag gift toppers post from years ago, that has instructions for making something similar, that is certainly one way to go, and much quicker, however as you can see the results aren't nearly as fabulous. Collect your bags, large and small, but all lightweight and stay tuned.

 

Recycled Plastic Bottle Lanterns...Glossy And Gorgeous!

Recycled plastic bottle lanterns are so simple to make and the results are gorgeous. I posted this idea a few days ago, here, but I have an important revision to make, listening? The lanterns are so much more beautiful when one decoupages the tissue paper to the inside of the bottle, which is easy to do if you choose to make lanterns that are open on the top and bottom. 

Got it? And yes it's true the tissue paper colors do run when you're using glue, or decoupage medium, but that makes the whole thing look even more like glass, or translucent water color creations of some kind. 

Enjoy! And by the way, if you make recycled soda bottle flowers, then you'll have this portion of the bottle left over, so why not make some lanterns as well?