And If You've Got to Make Some Trash, Don't Throw it Out: Plastic Bottle Sprinkler

Mom is not a fan of the word "upcycle."  We're not entirely sure why, but she told us to just "put a pin in it" and we'd "talk about it offline." Huh?  In any event, the plastic water bottle sprinkler we've been playing with on our roof deck for the past week is technically upcycled from one of mom's 8 billion sparkling water bottles.  And since it was just Earth Day, and we didn't do much else to celebrate it, we thought we'd share it.  There was nothing complicated about this:  wash plastic bottle, make as many holes in it as you'd like (we did three rows of three holes each), duct tape a garden hose to it (or, in our case, our roof deck hose) and voila.  Sprinkler!

We tried to suspend ours in the air because mom thought it worked best that way -- we rigged up two deck chairs and a broom.  But both Cam and I really wanted to be able to move it about.  I had Batman and all my villains playing with it for several days -- my signature move was to fill several buckets with water and have Batman side kick the villains off the table top into the water.  Cam liked to wash Vegas.  Vegas just wanted to get a drink.  And mom got to sit in the sun for a bit and try to avoid getting splashed with freezing cold water.

cam got bored and went inside to do some yoga.

batman's buckets of doom.

cam finally getting to use "a guy," which I only really gave her because

it was ice bear (mr. freeze's side kick) and not technically "a guy."  

and she knew that and demanded a proper "guy."

So Crack a Bottle: Tissue Paper Bottle Lights

Because one of mommy's friends seriously misremembered a previous juice cleanse experience as "not that bad," mom figured it would be a good way to start of the new year.  One of the only good things to come out of the whole thing was a large quantity of stylish plastic bottles (for what it's worth, that doesn't make the juice taste any better) and we've been coming up with all sorts of fun crafts for them.  We've also been wanting to crack back open the fairly large amount of laundry starch mom bought last summer (which we thus far had only tried to use in a pretty epic slime FAIL).  So we came up with using our bleeding tissue paper to make bottle lanterns.  Mom mixed up a batch of liquid laundry starch while we helped tear the tissue paper into strips.  We then brushed a fair amount onto the plastic bottle, placed a strip of tissue paper, and then lacquered that baby up some more.  I liked layering lots of pieces and Cami went a little more minimal.  Then, for the best part, once they were dry, mom busted out our new Fairy Berry Lights and we each dropped them into the bottle.  Instant night light.  And although I was too scared of them to have them in my room in the dark, I liked watching them in the living room for a while (and I'm pretty sure they helped light my way up to mom and dad's room during my nightly trip to wake them).  The lights only last about 24 hours, but the batteries are replaceable.  And the bottles look pretty all on their own when the sun shines through.

p.s. between my new school schedule, the yucky weather, and cami's afternoon nap, we have been stuck inside A LOT.  so although we usually like to post a mix of "things to do" and "places to see," we're afraid the arts and crafts posts will continue to be a little heavier for a while.