hile we’ve all been home for the past several weeks, I’ve been obsessed with two things: my houseplants and making art out of objects and things I can find around my house. I’ve been trying to stay home as much as possible, and have tried very hard to use the things available to me at home and not go out to the shops. Spring is also the time I like to stock up on new houseplants; but I’m staying home, not out shopping…
For this final week’s project, I decided to make myself some new “plants” with only the things I had on hand. This is how I came to make cardboard roll houseplants!
I’ve been saving the cardboard from paper towels, toilet paper, and anything else that comes on a roll as long as I can remember – they just come in SO HANDY for such a wide variety of uses. So while I was crying and whining about how I wanted new plants, I was adding a new cardboard roll to my collection and the idea formed in coincidence.
So I made myself some plants – and you can too – just gather up your cardboard tubes, a pencil, some markers and some scissors.
I started out by drawing little plants in pots on the cardboard tubes with pencil:
Then I outlined my drawing with Sharpie then filled in my drawing with marker. After that, I went to work cutting out my little plant statue – I learned a few things. Paper towel rolls are thinner than toilet paper rolls and MUCH easier to cut. Also, use the smallest scissors you have – smaller scissors fit down inside the cardboard tube to cut, my big scissors just got in their own way. Last, but most important is that you have to leave a solid ring at the bottom of your tube to act as a base so your statue doesn’t fall over.
Quite honestly, you don’t need to do exactly what I did, you can do your own thing! Do you love superheroes? You could draw your favorite heroes on the tubes and make statues of those. Or maybe you want to make animal statues? Go ahead! I just wanted to share one last way to make fun art out of simple items easily found around the house.
This is not an assignment; but I’d love to see any projects you’d like to share. You can email photos to me at mdailey@sacredheartgradeschool.org
Have a great summer!