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I think I’ve mentioned before about the beautiful wooden storage shelves my husband built for my son. They normally house his collection of small plastic toys but over the weekend my son took them all down so he could display his toy cars. I thought it would be fun to incorporate some of them into our Christmas decorations so, with my son’s permission, I recycled them. Let me tell you how.

First of all we went through his toys and took out any duplicates. I knew he wouldn’t want them back by the time I had finished  so made sure I only took spares. Then I went off to Hobbycraft to buy supplies.

To make Recycled toy Christmas decorations you will need:
An assortment of plastic toys
PlastiKote Fast Dry Project Enamel in Silver Glitter
Silver Glitter
PVA glue
Florists galvanised wire

How to make Recycled toy Christmas decorations:

Fortunately the weather was beautiful over the weekend so I was able to spray paint the figures outside. I placed each figure on a sheet of cardboard, held down with strong double-sided tape, this meant they stayed upright when spray-painted.

They received two coats of paint and I left them outside to dry properly. The spray paint was a little patchy so next time I do this I will use a primer first.

I wanted to use these as place settings over Christmas. We’re having lots of guests and I wanted people to know where to sit. To make the place setting holder I drilled a small hole in the top of each toy using a pin vice and twisted a short piece of florists wire around a pencil using pliers. I made sure to twist the ends of the wire together before pushing them into the top of the toy. If any were loose I added a small dot of PVA glue to keep them in place.

I wanted to give them a little extra sparkle – you can never have enough sparkle at Christmas, right? So I dipped each figures toes in a solution of PVA glue and water.

Then I sprinkled silver glitter over them.

Then I hung them until they were dry.

I’m going to use vintage letter cards for our place settings but silly photos or names written by your child would also be super cute for guests. I can’t wait to see what our guests think on Christmas Day. What do you think?