You don’t have to spend wads of cash on green summer toys. You can, in fact make a whole slew of eco-friendly toys all on your own, with low-cost materials. Following are ten eco-fun, summer toy projects you can make for the kiddos – in some cases they can help!
- Make a recycled Cardboard Playhouse like the one shown above from Make Baby Stuff, then break out the non-toxic art supplies and let your little one decorate to her heart’s content.
- Kool-Aid dyed play silks – kids love play silks. You can toss them up, use them as doll clothing, use them for dress up fun, or fly around the yard with them swooshing behind you. You can find cheap silks at thrift stores OR silk material which takes a little more work because you’ll have to cut the material and mend them, but no big. If you don’t want to use Kool-aid try dying the silks with some homemade juice dye (made from plants).
- Homemade Organic Paint Soap for Kids – not freakishly bright, but non-toxic subtly colored paints you can make with the kids.
- Remember all those lame toilet paper tubes? Grab some glue and paste a million of them together to build a log cabin – if you start saving cardboard tubes now, you’ll have plenty by mid summer to build a big ol’ cabin.
- Build a Bubble-Powered Rocket – with recycled paper and film canisters. This rocket actually lifts off.
- Awesome collection of old-fashioned, handmade toys from Mother Earth News.
- And my favorite homemade eco-recycled toy of all time – the amazing Perfect Summer Recycled Dollhouse Project.
[...] Hugging Family enlightens us with 7 green summer toys you can make yourself! A bubble powered rocket? We’re [...]