holiday gift boxes diy

not only is it green, but it’s totally original and your very own, not to mention: kids had tons of fun making’em, and no need to spend money…

the first photo is of my own two gift boxes, cordially filled w/goodies and given to the kids’ karate teachers (they deserve the best):

got milk? make a gift box

how?  EZ:

so here’s the deal: once more we’ll save those milk/juice cartons and redesign them.

milk carton, cut

milk carton, painted

and here are some awesome gift boxes made by my Trash2Art club kids:

made from shipping box

orange juice box

chinese illustration? dreidle?

bow tie gift box

box with yarn; with cool little buttons

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land of milk and money diy

milk carton coin purse

So the recent buzz in green fashion is to jiggle your coins in a recycled container made into wallet.

See it on Etsi, or here, or in this new start-up that while they’re pledging to donate 1% of all sales in favor of the environment, their coin purses still cost $10 a piece.

There are so many tutorials out there, why not make one yourself?

Wait, don’t throw that milk or juice carton.

Here are the very basic steps I used for making the purse:

clean, dry milk carton

• When milk is all but done, rinse your carton, let it dry a whole day, and cut it open on the top and bottom.

press the front flat onto the bottom

*fold the sides

leave about 2" for a closing flap to the purse

• Right after you fold the whole thing into two, glue the two sections inside, fold the flap over your purse, and attach a Velcro patch, you’ll find a cool-de-small-sac (aka a cool purse)  🙂 .
• * tip: you can gently score the sides with a kitchen knife to help with the accordion folds. Also, once folded, let it rest under heavy weight for a while.

fold into two, glue inside sections, add Velcro

close coin purse

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weave it whimsy diy

recycle plastic bags and milk cartons into baskets

So… what shall we start with?

Well, I am celebrating Shavuot, which is known to be one of the oldest holidays in Judaism. On this holiday, harvest of the first grains is being celebrated with songs and dances, remembering the old times when the people went up to Jerusalem, to the Temple, bringing with them gifts and offerings of the first fruits, veggies and flowers. Today, among other customs, we fill nice little baskets with goodies, and decorate both the baskets and the kids that carry them.

My little league dived happily into our little basket project while maintaining the opportunity of keeping green.

Wait, don’t throw:

• those milk cartons, or plastic jugs, or those cubic tissue boxes;
• grocery plastic bags that come in all those cool colors.

After the containers are empty, clean and well dry, cut their top, and then cut all four side panels into strips, going all the way down to the base, only make sure that eventually, you have an odd number of strips.

Cut your colorful plastic bags into many long, thin strips, about 1 inch wide.

Knot string to string in a way that eventually produces one long, multi-colored “thread” for your weaving.

Now you can start weaving from the bottom of the container and up.

weaving those plastic bags

Start by knotting the “thread” around one of the carton stripes at the bottom, and then around the carton, weaving the thread in a consistent manner, first under the carton strip, and then over the next strip, under the next one, and over the next one, producing a pattern of warp and woof.

You can tie a knot at the end just around one of the strips. For one of the baskets (shown above), the ends of the strips are folded outwards. For another basket, we embedded plastic beads to make it even more happier.

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