How to Recycle Popsicle Sticks to Make Something Useful

Try to gather all Popsicle sticks that you can find in your own garbage. You can make something very useful out of it. Some people were able to earn money by recycling Popsicle sticks. You can make decorative fan, pen holders, Welcome note in your door, house design model, small jewelry boxes,
airplane model and etc, if you are very artistic and creative. You can dye the sticks to make a colorful designs or you can put some silver dust on it. You will need different kinds of materials aside from Popsicle sticks but these are very simple things that are easy to find. Let's start.

Fan Making

You will need Popsicle sticks 10-12 pieces depending upon how big is your fan. Then you will need used Christmas cards or any other cards to make your fan colorful, scissors, glue, lace, hook and string. when the materials are all ready, start cutting your cards in shape you like. If you want to have a round shape, square, diamond, balloon or parachute shape. Measure the size the way you want it to be. Be sure that the bottom part where you will attach it to the stick has smaller measurement than the upper part. Cut the cards double because you are going to glue the cut cards back to back. After cutting all the cards, put the lace and glue it all around the half of the cut cards. when you are done putting the lace on the half card, glue the other half. This means, the colorful part will be displayed out back to back of your fan. Remember, don't glue the lower part of your cut cards. give space to insert your Popsicle stick. when you are done putting the cards together, insert your stick and finalize locking it with glue. Then, start making little holes at the end part of your Popsicle sticks enough for the hook to pass through. When holes are done, gather all the sticks in one pile and insert your hook to clip the stick all together. Then, use a needle with string to tie your cards carefully one by one so that you can close and open your fan. Do not tie the cards too close together. There must be a 1 inch string allowance in every card to make an easy moving when you close and open your fan. This is a very good decorative material or you can use this during hot summer days to fan your self.

Pen Holders

Prepare your Popsicle sticks, glue, masking tape or fabric strips and card board. You will need 48 Popsicle sticks. Start by Using 2 sticks as your foundation where you will glue the 10 sticks on top of it to form a flat surface. Make 5 sets of this. This will become your bottom and the sides of your holder. Then assemble this to make a box by taping the four corners of it using tape inside and out. Connect the corners using tape and or you can use fabric strips and glue the corners on it. You can put designs on the corners to disguise the tape. If you use an attractive color of fabric strips, that will be good. For the bottom part, use cardboard inside where you can glue and connect the bottom and all the 4 sides of your holder. You can decorate your pen holder anything you like. Put ribbons, drawings or whatever.

Welcome Note

Prepare your Popsicle sticks, strings, glue, cardboard and colored pens. The number of Popsicle sticks depend upon the size of your cardboard and how many letters you are going to put on your welcome note. You have to make an estimate on how wide is the formation of your Welcome note. Start by measuring and cutting your cardboard the size and shape you want. Most common is rectangular shape. Then glue the popsicle sticks onto the cardboard all over either horizontal or vertical. When you are done, use the Popsicle sticks and form the letters of your welcome note and glue it . if you are very creative and artistic, you can design it the way you want. Color your Welcome with colored pens. Then make a hole in the upper corners of your board, tie the strings to hang it at your door.

If you want to make a house design model using the Popsicle sticks.. do the same procedure by putting glue on the Popsicle sticks and create a model design you want. We used this arts and crafts in school with the kids and even grown ups are making money out of this. Recycling popsicle sticks and turned it into something useful is fun to do as a hobby. Some adults who love to do this crafts don't wait for the used Popsicle sticks but they will buy the unused sticks in the market. You cam create your own ideas on how to make use of the Popsicle sticks into something useful.