3-D Snowy Mountain Winter Craft (out Of Recycled Drink Carrier)

I treated my children with McDonald’s smoothies earlier this week. We purchased them through the drive thru so they gave me a cardboard drink carrier. I took a look at the drink carrier when we got home and this light bulb went on in my head. We had just made our Winter Tree Art with toothbrush splattered snow so recycling the drink carrier to make a 3-D Snowy Mountain was right up our alley!

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Materials you need:

cardboard drink carrier
brown acrylic paint
paint brush
fake snow
green cardstock paper (I used 3 different shades of green)
scissors
toothpicks
tape

Directions:

1. Paint the bottom of drink carrier

Start by painting the bottom of the drink carrier brown.

2. Sprinkle snow flakes all over the drink carrier

While the paint is still wet, I put some fake snow flakes in a bowl and my kids sprinkled it all over the mountains. I waited a couple minutes to let the snow set on the paint and then I dumped any excess off into the trash can.

3. Create different size trees

To make our trees, I cut small triangles out of different colors of green cardstock paper. My kids put a toothpick on the tree and taped it onto the tree. This is awesome fine motor practice. I had to tear the small pieces of tape off for my 3 year old but she was able to line up the toothpicks and put the tape on herself.

Here are all our different trees lined up. I tried to make them different sizes.

4. Once drink carrier is completely dry poke trees through the top

Once the drink carrier is completely dry you can poke the trees through the top to finish making your mountain scene. (NOTE: It is very important that you wait until the drink carrier is completely dry or the cardboard will be too saturated to poke the trees in. We ended up letting ours dry overnight.)

Make sure to mix the colors and different sizes of the tree up throughout the mountains. My 3-year old had a hard time poking the trees through herself so I ended up poking some holes for her with a toothpick and showing her where they were to help her put some of the trees in.

We were sooooo excited with how lovely it turned out! The different crevices of the holder gave the whole scene so much dimension. It’s amazing what fun you can create with recycling different materials!