Crafting with Coca Cola bottles

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I’m a Diet Coke addict and have been since I was pregnant. I dread to think how many cans and bottles I have drunk my way through and placed in the recycling bin over the last few years. Which is why I was really interested to read about the new PlantBottle plastic on the Coca Cola website which contains 22.5 per cent plant materials (renewable resources that will grow again) and combined with up to 25 per cent recycled plastic. They were launched in the Great Britain in 2011 and are 100% recyclable.

It’s great to hear about these kinds of initiatives. I thought it would be fun to take it one step further and see how we could recycle Coca Cola bottles too. I’ve been looking for inspiration on potential crafts to do with my two preschoolers and found ways to recycle Coca Cola cans, plastic and glass bottles. I made a short list of a bird feeder, wind sock, herb planter and terrariums, all fun spring time crafts as the weather is getting warmer! I’ve pinned the ideas in case you want to take a look here.

Last week I popped into my local ASDA to buy some bottles to craft with. They had a huge selection just as you walked inside the shop which was really convenient. I bought bottles of Diet Coke for me and full fat Coke for my husband, I even picked up both the small and large bottles as I had never realised they sold different sizes before.

After we had enjoyed our drinks I washed the bottles and removed the labels. As this was a recycled craft I really wanted to re-use materials we already had so as we decided to make a wind sock I looked through my ribbon stash too.

First of all I used a scalpel to carefully cut the bottle in three parts.

I set the top and bottom to one side, just using the central plastic ring.

I used a bradawl to make two small holes on opposite sides of the ring at the top. My 4 year old carefully threaded a piece of plastic wire through and I knotted them at each end, this was to hang the wind sock. Next we went through our ribbons, my son chose his favourite colours and we cut them to different lengths, between 20-30cm each. I showed him how to fold them in half, thread one end through the plastic ring and then pull the tail through the loop. He did this with about 10 pieces of ribbon until the plastic ring was covered and we had a really colourful wind sock. We hung it outside and it’s been blowing in the wind ever since.

It was a really fun craft and my son enjoyed discovering a bit more about recycling and crafting with Coca Cola bottles. We’re planning on making a bell from the top of the bottle and a tiny terrarium with the bottom. If you have any suggestions about things to make from a bottle I’d love to hear them!