Easy Up-cycled Cardboard Crafts For Kids
March 22, 2020 By: Amruta Kshemkalyani

Tribe, nowadays many people prefer online shopping and most of the products are packaged in cardboard boxes. As a result, we end up getting a lot of packaging cardboard boxes at home. I am sure our Tribe must be correctly recycling those cardboard boxes.

But honestly, I don’t think recycling those clean and brand new boxes is very sustainable. Then what can be a solution if there is no way you can return them to use for packaging again? If those boxes are clean then why not reuse them at home by upcycling and repurposing either for organizing or into some kid’s crafts.

For kids crafts, better to collect these cardboard boxes over time and when schools have break you can give these empty boxes to your kids with some craft supplies and let their creativity flow. I am sharing here some simple and budget-friendly cardboard craft ideas, which we tried at our home. These crafts don’t just engage kids at home but also develop their interest in creative reuse, upcycling projects.

1. Paint a box

This is a bit messy but works great with younger kids. Ask your kids to paint the box from inside and outside. They can use hand for painting or brush or roller or some other tools. With older kids, you need to add some games instead of simple coloring. It can be throw ball painting or pendulum painting. Kids love this kind of free painting so you can surely have happy and exhausted kids after this activity.

2. Dollhouse

First thing, dollhouses are not only for girls to play, but even boys also love playing with it. We made this dollhouse with our son and he had so much fun playing with it along with his friends. They used Lego figures and tiny superhero figurines instead of barbies and dolls.

Shoebox Dollhouse

We used a few different kinds of cardboard boxes along with some shoeboxes to make our dollhouse. The furniture inside the dollhouse is also made by us upcycled from smaller contaminant boxes like the Tabasco box. The cushions are made from old socks and the bathroom furnishings from medicines cups. We even added solar panels on the roof so that our dollhouse becomes a NetZero house. Not a surprise when 2 construction sustainability professionals (I and my husband) are building a dollhouse for their client (our son). It took a while for us to build this dollhouse but it was a great family activity for us.

3. Icecream shop

Ruhaan’s Ice Cream shop

This was another favorite activity and cardboard craft over one summer. We built a simple ice cream shop out of a bigger cardboard box. Little decoration to such projects adds some interest and kids play with it longer. We even saved icecream packaging to use at our ice cream shop and made our own currency notes. If kids are older, better to add money maths to make it a fun learning activity.

4. The underwater world in a box

This is a very easy craft activity and you can make it 2 dimensional or 3D. First color the box with blue to make it look like the sea. Then you can either add stickers of underwater creatures, shells and plants or can stick small figures. We did both for this craft and added some real shells. This is a great craft activity and while doing it you can introduce your kids to the underwater world.

Aquarium craft from a box

5. Toilet roll animals and figures

Toilet rolls are great to make any kind of figures, you can make animal figures or even superhero figures. We made this Santa Claus kept next to our alternative Christmas tree. We used toilet paper rolls in our cardboard city like a house.

Toilet paper roll for Christmas decoration

6. Build a city

Build an entire city made of cardboard, if you draw roads properly kids can even play cars and racing in this city. This wind-powered city we made for a school project. We took small boxes of medicine and condiment packaging and even cardboard to make houses and buildings. Ruhaan even converted one building into a mall! We used drawing paper roll for the wind tower.

Cardboard City (wind-powered)

7. Cardboard Castle

On one of his birthday, Ruhaan wanted to have King’s themed birthday party. We have a tradition of celebrating eco-friendly birthday parties so naturally, we made a lot of party decorations, his king’s costume, and the castle by upcycling the waste. The cardboard castle was a big hit at the party.

The King with Cardboard Castle

From my experience, playing with cardboard boxes can actually help kids to develop thinking out of the box! He is another article from I heart arts and crafts about cardboard crafts which can give you some more ideas and inspirations.

So next time before recycling your cardboard boxes don’t forget to upcycle them and have some fun time with your kids. If you want some more fun ideas for kid’s eco-activities, then read our other articles.

Join our Tribe!