Related Pages: Recycled Kids Crafts, Flower Crafts, Leaf Crafts, Acorn Crafts

Be sure to check out all of our nature crafts on Craft Jr.!

Teen sewing projects are great for adults, too – mostly because of the wonderful easiness and instant gratification they offer. I really love nothing more than to sit down at my sewing machine and have a finished project an hour or two later. Longer projects are fun too, but they frustrate my teen because she easily loses patience when things get tedious. I was the same way back then.

The best part of these easy sewing projects for teens is that almost all of them can be made with less than a yard of fabric – or sometimes even things you already have laying around the house!

Recycled T-Shirt Scarf	Recycled Denim Room Organizer Sewing Project	Easy PJ Pants Free Pattern	Easy Summer Top to Sew
Swimsuit Cover Up Tutorial	Reversible Bag Novice Level Pattern	Easy Drawstring Backpack Pattern	Newsboy Hat Pattern and Tutorial
Jeans Purse Craft	How to Turn Old Jeans Into a Mini Skirt	Cell Phone Case to Sew from Recycled Jeans	Beach Towel Blanket Sewing Project

More Sewing for Teens

These books on Amazon are perfect for teens who really love to sew!

One-Yard Wonders: 101 Sewing Fabric Projects; Look How Much You Can Make with Just One Yard of Fabric!

I own One Yard Wonders and I can’t say enough great things about this book! It’s great for both beginner and intermediate sewers and includes pattern pieces for all the projects in the book. Plus it’s only $15, which is what you would pay for only one full price sewing pattern!

Sew Teen: Make Your Own Cool Clothes

I don’t own this one – I found it while writing this post. Next time I buy books from Amazon, I’m totally buying this!

Until I come up with a cool tissue paper saving system, I figured I should do something with the scraps right away, because, you know, it’s not really the right week to throw things away like that! So I had already set aside my kids’ raisin boxes and Jello boxes, and I needed a craft to post on Space Jr. because I haven’t done any there yet, so making aliens was the logical solution!

You can totally make these cardboard box aliens without tissue paper scraps and without the mess of decoupage. Just use paint instead.

What You Need to Make this Easy Alien Craft for Kids

• Jello, raisin, or other small empty carboard boxes
• Pipe cleaners for the antennae and legs
• Googly eyes
• Tissue paper scraps
• Wire cutters
• Decoupage glue
• Glitter glue (optional)

How to Make this Easy Alien Craft for Kids

First cover the boxes with the glue and tissue paper. Lay down a thin layer of glue with a paint brush, then lay down the tissue paper, then cover it with another layer of glue. The silver alien used scraps of silver tissue paper, which is very opaque compared to regular tissue paper so I only needed one layer of it. With the purple monster, I had to use about 4 layers of purple tissue paper to ensure you couldn’t see the artwork on the food boxes.

I then added some cut circle scraps from this decoupage project for the eyes, and found some other colored triangles or rectangles to make the mouths. These I glued on just like the rest of the tissue paper.

After the decoupage is dry, use a razor blade to cut four tiny x’s into the bottom of the box, and two tiny x’s in the top as shown. This is where you will insert the antennae and legs.

Cut two pieces of pipe cleaner for the antennae, and three to four for the legs. It was a bit easier to make them stand up on their own with more legs.

To make the spiral antennae, wrap the pipe cleaners around a pencil or paint brush, then pull it off.

Make tiny feet by simply bending the pip cleaners into an oval on the ends.

Then simply stick the ends of the pipe cleaners into the tiny slits you cut with the razor blade.

All that’s left to do is glue on your googly eyes. This is optional too, because you could just as easily decoupage or paint on the eyes. I wanted to use glitter glue to make them, well, more alien-y. I also used two different sized eyes, because I thought it was cuter that way!

If you’re really into aliens & monsters, you’d probably also like these robot alien coloring pages and these fuzzy monster coloring pages, too!

As you can tell, this week I’ve been on a recycled crafts kick for Earth Day. But what’s really happening is that I’m relapsing into my terrible pack rat ways as suddenly I am having a hard time throwing anything out at all! I suppose the earth shall thank me someday for this, but my husband isn’t thanking me. *grin*

And is anyone else appreciating the irony of making a nightlight out of a Crystal Light container? I know, I should have quit while I was ahead.

Recycled Nightlight Craft

What You Need to Make a Recycled Night Light Craft

Recycled Night Light craft Materials

• An empty Crystal Light container
• A night light from your local Dollar Store (the real cheap kind shown below)
• A plastic covered large paper clip
• Mod Podge or other glue for decoupage
• Paper or fabric to decoupage the plastic Crystal Light container
• A paint brush for the glue
• Ribbon trim (about 30″ inches)
• Wire cutters
• Razor blade to cut the container
• A small ruler or other straight edge
• A medium sized nail and a hammer to poke two holes in the plastic
• Glue gun

How to Make This Night Light Recycled Craft

Cut the Crystal Light Container with a Razor Blade

First you need to cut up your Crystal Light (or Wyler’s Light, to be PC about it all) container. In this photo, I was using the tall Wyler’s Light container, or this would also be the same size as the extra large Crystal Light packages (with 6 tubs, not 4).

First I held the ruler straight edge to the side of the container and carefully scored the plastic to slice the container open from top to bottom. I then was able to cut through the container easily (but carefully, because it’s easy to slip on a curved surface). I repeated this step so that I cut out about a one-inch piece from the side of the container. Then I was able to lay the plastic flat on a carboard surface and cut the container into two even pieces, as shown above. If I messed up at all, it was easy to clean up my edges with sturdy kitchen scissors.

Poke Holes in the Plastic with a Nail

Next I poked two small holes into the bottom corners of the plastic with a hammer and nail. I recommend using a larger nail than the one shown above, because I ended up needing to find a screw to twist into the holes to make them a little larger. You need them to be large enough to stick the end of the paper clip through them.

Decoupage with Recycled Tissue Paper

After you have poked the holes into the corners, now is the time to decoupage the plastic however you like. I used tissue paper circles to coordinate with the ribbon in my example at the top. My daughter took the leftover tissue packing paper we get at the dollar store when we buy fragile items, and we used a circle hole puncher to cut out and decoupage her night light.

You probably don’t want to use paper from a book or magazine, unless you are happy with the reverse side showing through. Because when the night light is turned on, it really glows through the paper.

Quick decorating tip - you can also use fabric that coordinates with your child’s room decor!

Now you want to unbend a paperclip and wrap it around the base of the night light. Be sure you’re doing this with plastic wrapped wire and around the groove of the night light at the base (made for sliding the plastic cover onto the light). Higher end night lights aren’t nearly as easy to use, as they don’t have this handy groove to hold your wire.

Twist the paper clip around the base with your fingers or with the wire cutters, and then use the wire cutters to make two “L” shaped bends in the paper clip as shown in the second photo. Slip the ends of the paper clip through your holes.

Lastly, you will need to lay a line of glue from your hot glue gun underneath the wires and glue the ends of the paper clip to the back side of the decoupaged container. If you don’t do this, the cover will flop all over the place.

Now you want to cover the edges of your plastic cover with ribbon to hide the wire and make the edges look polished. Start at the back and cover the back two ends with ribbon first, and add enough glue from the hot glue gun around the paper clip to cover it up too.

To put ribbon across the top and bottm, fold over the edge just a bit and glue it in place to give the corners a clean look (like in the inset in the second image above). Then simply glue the ribbon onto the top and bottom edges with the glue gun.

And viola! You  are done! Start to finish the craft takes about 30-45 minutes, not including drying time for the decoupage.

Be sure to check out the rest of our recycled crafts and all of our Earth Day activities and printables!

As I ate lunch from the freezer last week, I was left with a little black plastic tray that I would normally toss in the trash. But I had a feeling I could turn it into something cool, so I washed it out and held onto it until inspiration hit me – and it did when I saw my grandmother’s pillbox hat:

Since it’s Earth Day this week, this is the first in a series of recycled crafts. Woot!

Check out all Woo! Jr. Network Earth Day crafts, printables and coloring pages here.

What You Need to Make this Pillbox Hat Recycled Craft

Here’s my rather simple materials list  (not everything is pictured above)

• A black single serving microwave dinner tray (washed!)
• Green ribbon (I bought this green ribbon from the scrap heap at my local craft store for less than $1). I prefer wired ribbon for this project so that the bow (pictured below) holds its shape.
• A 14″ inch square of black tulle (you could get uber-recyclely geeky and use the netting from a produce bag instead, but I didn’t have any in black)
• A thin and stretchy elastic hair headband (for the full head, not a pony tail holder)
• A safety pin
• Tissue paper and pipe cleaners to make your tissue paper flowers
• Wire cutters
• Glue gun

How to Make this Pillbox Hat Recycled Craft

First you need to make your flowers (tissue paper flowers instructions here). I made mostly small flowers with some larger flowers as accent pieces. As pictured in the materials section, I made:

• 8 mini pink flowers from 1 inch squares of tissue paper
• 7 small yellow flowers from 1 1/2 inch squares of tissue paper
• 3 small accent flowers from darker colored multi-colored tissue paper (and the brown pipe cleaner centers on these made them look really striking!)
• 2 medium multi-colored flowers using yellow and white tissue paper, varying from 1 inch to three inches
• 1 large ‘centerpiece’ flower using 4 inch pieces of tissue paper. I spent a bit more time and creativity on this flower, using extra ribbon as additional leaves and cutting more intricate petals out of the tissue paper

Your microwave dinner tray may vary in size from mine, so you may need more or less flowers than this.

Also, make your accent bow with about 15 inches of ribbon and one of the small accent flowers. Simply tie the bow like you would tie your shoes, make it symmetrical and pretty, and then snip off the ends with a diagonal cut. Then I just used the pipe cleaner end of the flower to wrap it around the center of the bow and secure it into place.

Make the Hat Veil 2

Make the Hat Veil 3

Tissue Paper Flower Arrangement

To make the veil, grab the left corner of the square of tulle and bring it up to the top corner. Do the same with the right corner, and then you’ll have two ‘flaps’ (seen on the far left of the first photo) sticking out. Bring those two flaps in to the top corner so that all the visible corners of the tulle square are together (see picture two). Safety pin the corners together. Now, cut off the last corner in a rounded fashion like in the last photo.

At this point I highly recommend doing a ‘trial run’ and arranging your flowers on top of the hat to determine where you want them before you glue them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done some craft ‘on the fly’ and then wished I hadn’t glued everything in place.

Once you know where you want your flowers, you can rev up your glue gun and start gluing! Glue down a layer of ribbon to act as a base for the flowers. It looks prettier and helps to add interest while covering up the top of the plastic tray.

Add your flowers to the outside rim first, then add the second inner circle of flowers next. Try to strategically cover up the pipe cleaner stems as you glue down the second circle.

Leave the center open so that we can add the veil and the centerpiece flower.

In the center spot, glue the veil in place. Make sure that it covers the part that you want to be the front of the hat. Now glue your large centerpiece flower on top of the veil to cover up the rest of the open space and top of the veil.

At this point you can attach the accent bow to the back of the hat (seen peeking out above). And lastly, put a big glob of glue on the center of the inside tray and attach elastic headband. It’s done! My daughter went *crazy* over it! Especially because she isn’t allowed to touch my grandmother’s hat, much to her dismay. Now she has one of her own.

Now that’s both creative crafting and smart parenting, eh??

If you liked this craft, you might also like this tissue paper flower topiary, too!