Make Your Own Zoo: 35 Projects for Kids Using Everyday Cardboard Packaging. Turn Your Recycling into a Zoo!

Roll up to the zoo and make a colorful menagerie of charming cardboard animals, a great way to make good use of all the cardboard and egg cartons you have in your recycling!

First, take yourself on Safari and make a whole pride of lions from cardboard tubes, a pretty zebra, a giraffe, a rhino, and a delightfully jaunty flamingo. Move on to the Jungle, where there is a grinning crocodile, and a chimpanzee and an orangutan swinging through the trees. In the Snow there is a delightful family of penguins made of egg cartons, a seal, a walrus, and a smiling polar bear. You can hear the Aviary a long way away, with chattering parrots, lovebirds, and even a bald eagle perching on a rock. Finally, spot the elusive manta and stingrays in the Aquarium, where they are joined by a jolly dolphin, a jellyfish, an octopus, and many other interesting sea creatures. In the last chapter, you will learn how to make all the enclosures and scenery so your cardboard critters have a home. There are also instructions for making trees, rocks, icebergs, grass, and flowers, so you can really set the scene. Using materials that you might otherwise discard, clear step-by-step instructions, and a handy hints and tips section, you will soon have your very own cardboard zoo!

A love of craft has always weaved in and out of Tracey Radford’s life: throughout her childhood in Northern Ireland, her career as a BBC journalist, and now, as a busy mum of three. When her husband was posted to Afghanistan for a year in 2011, she started writing a blog to let off steam. It quickly became a space to explore and share new craft ideas. A keen recycler and upcycler, the crafting house rule is: ‘only what’s to hand is allowed’, which usually means whatever’s in the recycling pile! Tracey started making cardboard animals with her daughter, and that’s how their zoo adventure began. Their clever creatures are now a hugely popular part of her blog. Make Your Own Zoo brings together all of Tracey’s original creations with many new ones, and there are more waiting in the wings... Visit Tracey’s blog at patchworkparent.blogspot.co.uk.