Beautiful baskets

Activity

Make a useful basket out of a plastic milk bottle to store labels, pens or seeds.

  • Estimated time: 30 minutes
  • Location: Outdoors & Indoors
  • School term: All year round
  • Level of experience: No experience needed
  • Subject(s): Art&DT

Learning objectives

  • Learn how to recycle plastic in the garden

Preparation

Wash out milk bottles thoroughly and dry well.

Equipment

  • Plastic milk bottles – 1 pint or 4 pints
  • Permanent pens
  • Sharp pencils
  • Scissors
  • Brass fasteners
  • Old gardening magazines, seed catalogues or stickers
  • PVA glue

Step by step

  1. Use a pen to draw a line just below the handle, all the way around the bottle.
  2. Use a sharp pencil to puncture a hole into the bottle on the cutting line. This hole is the starting point for scissors to cut carefully along the line to make the basket.
  3. Make the handle by cutting a 2cm wide strip of plastic from the remaining top section. A looping handle is achieved by cutting three quarters of the way around the milk bottle.
  4. Use a sharp pencil to make the holes in the plastic basket and handle for the fasteners to go through.
  5. Attach the handle to the basket using the brass fasteners. Place these on opposite sides of the basket.
  6. Decorate the basket using permanent pens, stickers or use PVA to stick on pictures cut from old gardening magazines.

Hints & tips

  • 4 pint milk bottles will hold paper pots with young plants, or make holes in the basket and use plug plants - a good enterprise project.
  • Make plant labels with the left over plastic. These can be cut into 10-15cm strips, 2cm wide with a pointed end.
  • Use this activity as part of Grow Your Own Lunch, Supermarket Sweep and Flower Power class growing topics
  • Safety tip: Be careful when handling cut plastic, gloves can be worn if helpful.