YOU CAN upcycle and craft: Be amazing with this inspiring guide (Collins YOU CAN)

The media could not be loaded.  One of my grandchildren is crafting mad, in fact anything to do with art, he’ll dive head first into it.This book will be right up his street, it contains many ideas on how to turn items of rubbish, like plastic milk 🥛 bottles 🍼 , egg boxes 📦 and pop🥤 bottles into useful items, I have already pinch one idea, making little green houses out of large pop or water bottles, to keep the slugs and snails 🐌 off my baby greens 🥬.Now some of the ideas I have seen before, but that’s not to say many kids will not have seen them.All of the projects, in my opinion, are easy to make, and will take very little effort for the child, or adult 👀 to make them. And little or no extra items needed, other than glue, scissors ✂️ and paint 🎨, pencils ✏️ , pens 🖊 etc.The book is a paperback, it has 96 pages, and they are full from edge to edge of brightly coloured pictures with good sized text. (See photos)This is a great book, to start children up-cycling, I’ll certainly try out a few more myself. I thoroughly recommend this book 📚.

What a fantastic book! I love the concept of crafting by reusing bits around the home and this book inspires such projects.This is a reasonably priced book considering there are so many projects. There are a lot of other books in this series too which I think would appeal to a wide range of hobbies and interests.The book starts with a clear contents page, projects including: tin can nightlight; cloth chicken juggling ball; t-shirt tote bag; sock bunny door stop.The introduction directs children to projects based on key materials available. I think this is a great idea and saves flicking through the book to find a suitable project.The tools and tips section covers safety – cutting plastic, making a hole in metal etc. I think this makes the book best suited for 8 years plus because of these skills. For younger children, adult supervision is definitely required.Each activity has a clear list of things required and there are step by step instructions and helpful supporting images. The emphasis is on eco-friendly crafting which covers different skills. Although some tasks are more simpler than others, I think it would have been helpful if there was a difficulty rating or an indication of how long it takes. However, I assume this would depend on age and skill level in the first place.This book is a great idea and provides many ideas – more than my Pinterest board! It will helpfully fill a rainy afternoon and generally most materials are found around the house. This is a great book to have in the house when you have crafty kids but necessarily the ideas to go with it.

One in a new series from COLLINS, and measuring around 14.75 cm x 21 cm, this title has a selection of ideas of varying difficulty to busily utilise 'rubbish'.The ‘LOOK INSIDE’ facility + current stock images above together give an idea of the content.ooOooThe colourful card cover opens to 96 numbered, matte finish pages as per the CONTENTS at the front.Mainly over 2-page spreads, some more complex items extend to 4, e.g. the fox face ‘PAPIER-MACHÉ MASK’, which runs from pages 88-91, or the ‘LOO-ROLL PUPPY PUPPET’, just before.A handful are single page, such as the very basic ‘EGG BOX JEWELLERY HOLDER’, on page 31…a good place for the littlest one to get started in the arty-crafty world, IMO.Page 5 has a general core list of things for ‘your upcycling toolkit’, along with a handy sub-index of tasks relevant to the material you might have to hand, that is:~ CARDBOARD~ PLASTIC~ TEXTILES~ METALS~ PAPEREach crafty activity has a list of things required at the start, followed by step-by-step instructions, which are clear even when the text is white on a dark background, in my experience so far.From the back cover:🖌️ ‘The how-to book for kids who love eco-friendly crafts.It’s easy to understand and tells you exactly what you need to know step-by-step.~ Easy-peasy tips on how to make cool stuff out of rubbish~ Packed with fun things to do~ Guaranteed to get you rummaging in the recycling bin!’Handy TIPS are dotted around, including ‘safety notes’ with ‘TOOL TIPS’ handily included at the beginning of the book.The main crafts start on page 16 with a double page opening spread just before.[18 images attached © WasteBuster/Shutterstock & Collins/2021]

This generation are going to think that they are the first to have used old bits of rubbish in their crafts. It has been going on for years and I remember the show Why Don't You suggesting some of the things within 'You Can Upcycle and Craft'. The entire set of 'You Can' books have that hyper jolly sense of excitement you get in kids TV that tries to get your children to actually do something.This upcycle works best with a child that is already interested in crafts. It has loads of ideas for using old milk bottles or cardboard. If you find that your child is already making stuff out of old Amazon boxes you may as well use this book to point them in the direction of something they can use. The book is for children who have some reading ability and don't mind following instructions. The book is not dry, but it does have quite a lot of information at times. Most pages are coloured and have some images. It is an earnest book that will appeal to a more earnest child.