Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 482
Plastic Bottles
Hello Everyone
We all know that drinking too many sugary drinks is bad for us.
We all know that reusing a drinking bottle is good for the environment.
We all know that discarding plastic waste into the environment is bad for the planet.
But we still end up with plastic bottles to recycle.
lt is possible to find other uses for them before passing them on to be reincarnated into crates or drainpipes.
Here are some of my top tips.
Get an adult to help you cut bottles. They have a slippery surface which means blades can slip on them, especially when you start cutting the plastic whether you choose to use a knife or scissors. lf you are not very careful, you could jab your hand.
Use a drawing pin to put tiny holes into plastic.
You can mix PVA glue in with your paint to make it stick to plastic.
A bottle can be filled with sand and used to mark out lines in the garden. These lines can be to show where flowerbeds will be cut away or where blocks of flowers will be planted in a bed.
A washing up liquid bottle can be filled with water for a water fight on a hot day.
A plastic bottle filled with water can be placed in your toilet cistern to save water. lt is better that using a house brick that will crumble over time.
A short bottle can be turned sideways and made into a piggy bank using your artistic skills. Use corks or bottle tops to make its legs and paint the snout pink. Then stick eyes on to finish the effect.
Several bottle bases can be glued together to make a stationery holder for your desk. Make sure there is one tall enough for all you pencils and pens.
A bottle can be hung up and filled with bird food; cutting a hole in the side will give the birds a place to perch. Keep the top on to keep the food as dry as possible.
Bury a bottle in a tub or hanging basket with the top just above the surface will give you a water reservoir to be constantly watering your plants in the summer. Of course, you will need to put lots of tiny holes in it first so that the water has a chance to seep out. These reservoirs are sometimes called ollas.
Bottles can even become mini hanging baskets themselves to grow herbs in.
Cut down, they can be used as dishes to rest flowerpots on. You can paint them and turn them into little characters.
They can be filled with sticks to make a mini bug hotel. You can cut the top off fizzy drinks bottles, fill the bottles with folded corrugated card and hollow canes, put the containers in a crate and turn it on its side. You have made a sturdy bug hotel. Make sure there is plenty of ventilation around the sticks – and keep it in the dry so it doesn’t get wet and go mouldy.
Large milk bottles with handles can be cut to the shape of a scoop to give you a tool for shovelling pet food out of large bags, leaves out of guttering or plant compost into pots.
Keep them whole and put holes in the lid and you have a home-made watering can.
Long bottles can be cut down to make cloches to protect young seedlings. Birds love to pull out tiny plants and can ruin a newly planted flower or vegetable bed in no time.
Coloured bottles can be cut up to make waterproof plant labels.
The bottom of bottles can be made into slug traps when filled with beer.
lf you have bee hives and you find that towards the end of the summer they are being attacked by wasps, you can turn a bottle into a diversion for the wasps to lure them away from the bee hive.
The bees will fight valiantly to save the colony but might still be overpowered.
You might feel the same way if you are plagued by wasps at your barbeques.
Cut around the bottle about a third of the way down. Turn the top upside-down (without the lid on) and jam it into the base of the bottle.
Fill the bottom of the trap in a sugary liquid like cola.
Use the same design to make flowerpots with their own water reservoir to fit underneath; this time cut the bottles in half and turn the top half upside down into the bottom half. The top will be filled with compost and the bottom with water.
You can line the top half with newspaper if you want to protect the plant roots from the light. Put a length of thick yarn between the top and bottom to act as a wick to pull up the water before you put the compost in the pot.
Another use for a long drinks bottle is to make a mini liquid feed maker.
Cut the very bottom of the bottle off to keep it as long as possible.
Turn the bottle upside down and cram it full of nettles or comfrey leaves.
You must wear gloves all the time you are handling stinging nettles and comfrey because otherwise you will get a bad skin irritation.
Spring to mid summer is the best time to pick the nettles. You don’t want to put any woody stems into your bottle.
Prop the bottle up inside a glass jar. You will need to keep the jar lid somewhere safe so that you don’t lose it.
Put a stone onto the top of the nettles to weigh them down, because you want them to rot down not dry out.
After about two weeks a thick dark liquid will start dripping into the glass jar.
This will be quiet smelly but it won’t be as bad as a whole bucket of soaking nettles. Even so, you will want to put it out of the way – like somewhere behind a shed. Make sure the bottle is propped up so that it won’t fall over.
As the nettle mush gets smaller you can top the bottle up with more nettle leaves.
Otherwise, you can put the nettles on the compost heap and start up a fresh bottle.
Your home-made liquid feed will keep for at least a month. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look like you have much – it must be diluted in a can of water before it is given to plants because it is a very powerful food and so what you produce will go quite a long way.
Just put enough liquid feed into the water to see that the water is becoming coloured. Then you can give the feed to your plants.
Stinging nettles and borage produce a feed that is high in nitrogen which is good for producing good leaf growth.
Comfrey is high in potassium. This is good food to produce flowers and fruit.
Comfrey has a very deep tap root which can go deeper than most plants so it can access nutrients that other plants just can’t reach and then bring them up into its leaves.
There are many vegetables that like lots of food to grow well.
They are tomatoes, pumpkins, courgettes, potatoes, aubergines and peppers.
Feed your vegetables twice a week.
Feed your flowers twice a month.
Lettuces and herbs do not like to be fed but roses and clematis do.
lf you don’t want to make liquid feed, you can tear the comfrey leaves up and leave them around your plants but be careful because comfrey leaves have tiny hairs on them which will irritate, so wear gloves whilst your are handling them.
Of course, using nettles and comfrey is an organic way to feed your garden.
The leaves are a natural source of food for your plants.
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Thank you!
And see you again next Fun Friday!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bob: l have a question for you.
Bill: What’s that?
Bob: Do you think that NASA ever recycles old space ships to make into washing up bottles?
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
Of course, bottle tops can be used in lots of ways in craft projects. Some people collect them and make them into mosaics. They are weatherproof so people can use them for garden projects and even to decorate the walls of their houses.
In third world countries, people are very good at upcycling discarded objects into really useful stuff. They are usually free building materials for them to use. They can even cement bottles together to build walls.
If they are plastic they fill them first to make them rigid.
If the bottles are coloured glass they look a little like stained glass windows – but they are walls. It is not only a clever way of building, it looks lovely too.
Glass bottles
Plastic bottles
And to finish with, here is a puzzle for you to solve.
On a shelf there are a number of water bottles.
One fifth of the bottles are pink.
One third of the bottles are white.
There are 15 dozen green bottles and 30 orange bottles.
How many pink bottles are there and how many white bottles are there?
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Hobby Time
How to make seedling pots from cardboard rolls
- Squash into half
- Squash into half the other way to create a square shaped-tube
- Cut a slit 1½cm/5/8 inch along the bottom of each fold
- Fold the flaps you have created in
- Sit your pots into a plastic tray to catch water
You could also put several cardboard tubes inside each other
and put them into the compost heap to create air pockets
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A BATHROOM ACCESSORY SET FOR A 12” DOLL
There are some accessories her for you to make, but you can also use bottle and tube tops to make bins, holders and cups.
A solid bobble can make a sponge and a fluffy one can be a powder puff.
If you made the make up tray in brown, it would look as though it was made from sea grass.
HAND TOWEL
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 15 stitches
Knit 2 rows of garter stitch
Knit 1 row
Knit 2, purl 11, knit 2
Repeat the last 2 rows 12 times
Knit 1 row
Knit 1 row
Cast off purl-wise
BATH TOWEL
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 30 stitches
Knit 2 rows of garter stitch
Knit 1 row
Knit 2, purl 26, knit 2
Repeat the last 2 rows 24 times
Knit 1 row
Knit 1 row
Cast off purl-wise
BATH MAT
Using 4mm knitting needles and pink dk yarn cast on 16 stitches
Knit 42 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
TOILET ROLL BASKET/STORAGE BASKET SIDES (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and brown dk yarn cast on 24 stitches
Knit 12 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
TOILET ROLL BASKET/STORAGE BASKET BASE (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and brown dk yarn cast on 30 stitches
Cast off
TOILET ROLL BASKET/STORAGE BASKET HANDLES (MAKE TWO)
Crochet 10 chains into a length of brown yarn – twice
TO MAKE UP
- Using over-sew stitching sew up side seam with right sides together
- Curl the strip of knitting for the base round and sew across it many times until it becomes a solid disc
- Sew it into the base of the basket using over-sew stitching
- Tie the ends of the handles into the sides of the basket
- Neaten all ends
SPONGE BAG (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 10 stitches
Knit 14 rows of stocking stitch
Knit 4 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
TO MAKE UP
- Using over-sew stitching sew up bottom and side seams with right sides together
- Turn the bag the right way out
- Thread a length of white yarn about 25cm long through the top of the bag and tie into a bow then trim the ends if desired
MAKE UP TRAY BASE (KNIT ONE)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 10 stitches
Knit 14 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
MAKE UP TRAY SIDES (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 3 stitches
Knit 16 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
MAKE UP TRAY SIDES (KNIT TWO)
Using 4mm knitting needles and white dk yarn cast on 3 stitches
Knit 20 rows of garter stitch
Cast off
TO MAKE UP
Using over-sew stitching sew bottom of sides to base and then along the corners – with wrong sides together
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Answers to the News Desk Quiz
How many pink bottles are there and how many white bottles are there?
90 pink = 3/15
150 white = 5/15
180 green + 30 orange = 210 = 7/15
Reusable bottle to carry drink to school
