My kids absolutely love drawing, painting, and completing various craft projects. I love that they love these things! They get to be creative, use their imaginations, and practice fine motor skills when completing arts and crafts. However, there is one thing I don’t like about these activities: the waste.
We go through so many pieces of paper, pompoms, googly eyes, and other materials when they make art. I don’t have a problem with them going through some of these items, but they’d go through a ream of paper in a week if I’d let them! I try to raise my kids to be good stewards of the earth we’ve been given, so I want them to understand that their craft supplies are precious—they can’t use unlimited amounts of them because it isn’t good for the environment. However, I still want them to be able to do crafts.
Thankfully, I’ve discovered a number of ways that they can continue to make art while limiting how much paper and other craft supplies they use. Check out these ideas!
Greener arts and crafts for kids
Reuse packaging, bottles, and other items
One of the easiest ways to “go green” with arts and crafts is to reuse materials that you already have. Unless you live a waste-free life, you likely have these all around the house. Here are some examples:
- Cardboard boxes (shipping boxes, cereal boxes, shoe boxes, etc.)
- Used wrapping paper
- Plastic water bottles
- Plastic food tubs (from sour cream, cottage cheese, etc.)
- The blank sides of papers that are only printed on one side
- Old magazines, calendars, and greeting cards
- Oatmeal canisters
- Toilet paper and paper towel tubes
- Egg cartons
Kids can create amazing art from these items that would otherwise be put in the trash or the recycling bin. Some of the items (though not all) can still be recycled after kids are done creating and enjoying their art. If you need some ideas for how to use these items, then check out these pages that are full of ideas:
- 33 Eco-Friendly Crafts for Kids
- 14 Recycled Crafts that Will Help You Go Zero-Waste
- 7 Eco-Friendly DIY Summer Crafts for Creative Adults (and Kids!)
- 10 Eco-Friendly Craft Projects for Kids or Adults
Use erasable and disappearing media
Many times when my kids want to make art, they simply want to draw or color. Instead of using paper and markers or crayons, there are many ways to draw that can be erased and reused. For example, kids can draw on chalk boards, white boards, erasable drawing pads, and magnetic drawing boards.
Like these erasable media, disappearing media allow kids to use the same surfaces over and over again. However, these utilize water instead of markers, chalk, or magnets. The images kids draw disappear as the surfaces dry. We have a couple of these (a large mat and some of the Water Wow! books) and my kids love them!
Use blocks and pegs
Art doesn’t have to involve drawing, coloring, or painting. Kids can make images out of various blocks and pegs so that they can reuse these over and over again. Simple pattern blocks are one of our favorites around here, but there are lots of other fun options available.
Use recycled supplies
When using disposable items such as paper and pencils, we can choose eco-friendly varieties. You might have to search carefully to find these, but there are many varieties available.
Likewise, instead of tossing the stubs of used crayons in the trash and throwing out dried markers, we can recycle these. We can melt down old crayons to make new ones (see instructions here) and participate in a marker recycling program (see details here).
Final thoughts
Some of these approaches, such as using blocks or erasable media, don’t yield pieces of art that you will keep forever. This may frustrate some kids because many kids like to keep their artwork (my kids certainly do). However, I see this as a benefit because we run out of space to keep my kids’ art. They always want to save their drawings and paintings, but we can’t keep them all. They understand that the artworks made from these types of materials don’t last forever. This eliminates the battle that sometimes occurs when we have to thin out my kids’ collections of their artwork.
I’d love to hear your ideas! What eco-friendly approaches do you use when planning art projects for your kids?
Shared at the following:
Farm Fresh Tuesdays, Busy Monday, Over the Moon, and Encouraging Hearts and Home.
Thank you for the good suggestions. My oldest grandson loves to use my recyclables to make robots, monsters, etc. It’s a great way to use his imagination and creativity.
I love how it gives them the opportunity to use their imaginations! It’s amazing what they come up with.
These are great ideas, Shannon! I share your sentiments about not liking the waste of all the craft projects. Since my kids are still on the younger side, they’re only starting to get into artistic crafts, and thankfully they are easily satisfied with simple stuff. We do lots of playing with homemade play dough, which is great because it lasts quite a while. They received a lot of paints for Christmas, and I have found that they don’t mind re-using papers they have already painted or drawn on, they just add more layers or cover up the remaining white spaces! I also used some of their artwork the other week when I needed to write out instructions for a Lenten activity that we can do each year, so now we get to keep the artwork AND I have my instructions on prettily painted paper 🙂
What a neat idea to be able to keep the artwork because it also features instructions for an activity! I really like that.
An excellent lesson for your kids and great choices for items to use over and over again!
Thanks, Allyson!