Recycle, Reduce, Reuse! These animal themed planters are perfect for an Earth day craft. Teach your kids about recycling and reusing their containers from their favorite snacks. I love these little plastic fruit cups, they make the perfect little flower planters. It is easy to poke a hole in the bottom to allow the soil to drain after watering. Your options are endless with the animals you can create! Ella and Annie chose a crab, lizard and bird for their plastic cup planters.
Wash and dry each empty fruit container. The acrylic paint will stick better to the plastic fruit cups if you prime the first. I used white spray paint to prime the plastic containers. Once the primer dries, choose the acrylic paint colors you would like to use. The bird we painted yellow, the crab was red and the lizard we painted green. Paint each container with 2-3 coats of paint. Let each coat of paint dry before adding the second coat of paint.
To make the crab, grab the red fruit container you painted. Hot glue a medium red pom pom onto the front of the fruit cup. Glue on the googly eyes to the pom pom head. Cut two claws from red foam and glue them onto a red chenille stem. Glue the crab’s claws onto the bottom of the planter. Cut six small pieces from the red chenille stem for the legs and glue three onto each side of the crab’s body.
To make the bird, glue a medium yellow pom pom onto the front of the fruit cup. Glue on the googly eyes. Hot glue colorful feathers to back of the cup. Add two small poms for the birds legs on both sides of the cup with glue.
To make the lizard, cut a red lizard tongue from the red foam. Grab the green painted fruit cup and glue on a medium green pom pom. Add the googly eyes. Glue the red foam lizard tongue to the bottom of the lizard’s head. Using green chenille stems create the lizard’s feet. Hot glue the feet onto the bottom of the fruit cup. Slightly bend the feet.
Now that each planter is complete, fill all three cups with soil. Have each child plant seeds or plant a pretty Spring flower!
Craft created by Shauna of Ella and Annie