I'm writing an article on crafts parents and toddlers can make with baby bottles and am having a hard time figuring out where to get ideas. I couldn't really find any books for toddlers on Amazon that featured those kinds of crafts. Any ideas on where I might go next? The article is also supposed to talk about how babies might have an easier time giving up their bottles if they are making fun crafts out of them with Mom or Dad, etc. This is for a parenting Web site. Any suggestions are welcome. I'm not a crafty kind of gal so I'm getting stuck here.
Help! Where Can I Get Ideas For Baby Bottle Crafts?
- Thread starter willwrite4food
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A lot of those sites are for making crafts, cutouts or decorations that look like baby bottles (such as for baby showers and whatnot). I'm looking for ideas like making musical instruments, birdfeeders out of baby bottles, etc. It's a little harder to find those kinds of ideas, and I need actual sources to help with those ideas for this article. That's where I'm hoping some crafty parents will chime in!
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Are you looking for a creative way to "recycle" the bottles when the parents/babies are finished with them? Do they have to be practical to being a former bottle, or can it be for pretty much anything?
My first thought is to decorate them with paint, fabrics, beads, or whatever, and use them for storage for small things like craft items (glitter, beads...basically the stuff you'd decorate them with LOL) or in the garage for nails, bolts, and stuff like that. People could either use them whole and have the nipple serve as a lid, or they could cut the tops off and just have it be more like an open cup.
I like the birdfeeder idea, I think that would be a really fun preschool project, and show the kiddos a great way to use their old bottles to feed other creatures. Cute!
I found a small reference to using them as storage for both paint and paint brushes.
Here are links to a few others:
http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/20070706/how-can-i-reuse-or-recycle-babies-bottles
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/13882/soda_bottle_crafts_creative_ways_to.html
http://crafts.kaboose.com/holidays/earth-day/bottles-jars-cans-crafts.html
http://www.craftbits.com/viewProject.do?projectID=2097
http://www.dotcomwomen.com/crafts/valentines/message-bottle.shtml
Some of these are for regular water bottles, but the thing is, I can easily see a baby bottle being used in place of a water bottle. You're right that there aren't a lot of sites out there specifically targeted to using bottles for crafty things, so you might want to look at projects that use baby food jars and water bottles to see how you could modify them for a baby bottle (those things come in so many sizes, the possibilities are endless!).
I've never met a craft I didn't like
but I've also learned that when I don't have everything on hand or when the things they suggest are out of my budget, looking around the house for "found items" makes it even more fun.
My first thought is to decorate them with paint, fabrics, beads, or whatever, and use them for storage for small things like craft items (glitter, beads...basically the stuff you'd decorate them with LOL) or in the garage for nails, bolts, and stuff like that. People could either use them whole and have the nipple serve as a lid, or they could cut the tops off and just have it be more like an open cup.
I like the birdfeeder idea, I think that would be a really fun preschool project, and show the kiddos a great way to use their old bottles to feed other creatures. Cute!
I found a small reference to using them as storage for both paint and paint brushes.
Here are links to a few others:
http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/20070706/how-can-i-reuse-or-recycle-babies-bottles
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/13882/soda_bottle_crafts_creative_ways_to.html
http://crafts.kaboose.com/holidays/earth-day/bottles-jars-cans-crafts.html
http://www.craftbits.com/viewProject.do?projectID=2097
http://www.dotcomwomen.com/crafts/valentines/message-bottle.shtml
Some of these are for regular water bottles, but the thing is, I can easily see a baby bottle being used in place of a water bottle. You're right that there aren't a lot of sites out there specifically targeted to using bottles for crafty things, so you might want to look at projects that use baby food jars and water bottles to see how you could modify them for a baby bottle (those things come in so many sizes, the possibilities are endless!).
I've never met a craft I didn't like
but I've also learned that when I don't have everything on hand or when the things they suggest are out of my budget, looking around the house for "found items" makes it even more fun.
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Ah - gotcha. I didn't really look through any of the links, and I'm not a crafty parent. I like the birdfeeder idea though.
When my kids were small they made "shakers" for a class project during the Thanksgiving Holiday when they did the little class skits kids do, complete with Native Americans, settlers, etc. Fill partially with rice, beans, etc, & decorate the outsides. You'd have to glue the lids on where they couldn't be removed by little bitty kids.
I would suggest going to the forums as Esty.com. You could post your question in Materials and Techniques section and probably get some great ideas. It is a creative site and people very open about helping people come up with new ideas.