14 Earth Day Crafts

Whether you’re planning to celebrate Earth Day (April 22 is right around the corner!), or are simply looking to inspire and educate your kids on going green, below are a few ideas from Disney FamilyFun magazine. Family Fun's green crafts taht are featured in the April issue of the magazine, encourage kids to recycle, and at the same time are clever (and budget-friendly!) treasures they won’t be able to put down. Check out the gardening ideas that bring both city and country kids outside to learn about the earth, and have some fun!

Green Crafts

Jug heads: To liven up the laundry room, mount a menagerie of plastic-jug trophy heads. Our hunting grounds yielded the makings of a pig, a warthog, and an antelope, but your recycling bin may suggest a different animal collective.

Treasure-keeper frog: What tadpole wouldn’t love to fill this case with marbles, coins, or trinkets? We’ve come up with a trick for attaching the zipper in a snap.


Soda-bottle tractor: Thanks to its jumbo rear wheels made from cardboard disks and old CDs, this green machine is surprisingly speedy. A seat cut from the corner of a soap box makes the perfect perch for toy tractor operators.

Tropical bottle fish: These bottlenose beauties make great decors indoors or out. If you plan to hang yours poolside, brush on a coat of Outdoor Mod Podge first.

Cardboard petal picture frame: This fanciful frame gets its flair from snips of painted cardboard tubes. To achieve our free-form look, we cut two petal sizes.

Easy-weave newsprint basket: You won’t be-weave how fast this basket comes together when you work around a form. We used a roll of paper towels for ours. Clear tape keeps the strips secure.

Gardening’s not just for grown-ups! Gardening Craft Projects to Inspire a Young Gardener




The Stepping Stone Path: This stepping-stone path offers a concrete method of preserving your most precious garden harvest: happy memories. 


Create a Gourd Birdhouse: Gourds prove that nature has a sense of humor: their wild markings, eye-popping colors, and space-alien shapes transform the late-summer garden into a natural amusement park. If you've considered growing gourds but wondered what in the world to do with them, this project will answer your question--and please the birds in the process.


Make Your Version of the Very Hungry Caterpillar: This soddy creature makes a fun first-time gardening project while bringing a little bit of spring into your home.

Create a Garden Guardian: With her bean-vine skirt and hair that really grows, our garden guardian is proof that this summer's hot color is definitely green. Plant your seeds at the end of May (or whenever the time is right where you live), and you'll see a full skirt of foliage by mid-July. As if good looks weren't enough, Mrs. Green Beans offers the bonus of a three-month harvest.

Open a "Ladybug Inn": One way for your kids to get acquainted with the industrious ladybug is to gather a few from your garden and put them up indoors for a couple of days in a see-through ladybug inn.

Gardening Projects for Apartment Dwellers:

Create a Door Step Garden: Turn an old boot into a stylish planter. 


Create a Windowsill Garden: Nothing cures a family-wide case of cabin fever--and makes a home more fun to live in--like a little gardening in the great indoors.

Create Plant Pals for the Indoor Gardener: Your indoor gardener may not get your "bad hair day" jokes, but the fun of this grassy-haired friend won't be lost on him. Like a Chia Pet, the project requires just a sprinkling of seeds, a bit of sun, and a few drops of patience.

Additional Tips:

10 Ways to Make Gardening More Fun: By maximizing the magic and minimizing the chores, our readers bring out the green thumb in their kids.

Tips for Creating Your First Garden (with your kids!): Giving your child his or her own miniature flower garden provides the right balance of big dreams and little tasks. A small garden of annual flowers is easy to take care of, and she will learn many skills as she nurtures seedlings and cuts bouquets for the kitchen table.

Find more fun earth day ideas at Family Fun