As Earth Day approaches, we’re all looking for small actions we can take to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Today, I’m sharing a simple project to inspire you to reuse packaging or products you no longer need. Sometimes referred to as upcycling, finding creative new uses for old things can be easy and fun for the whole family. Below is a new use I found for an icing bucket I picked up at my local Food City bakery. Follow along step by step and make one of your own.

Step 1: Gather Your Supplies

Stop by your local Food City and pick up your ingredients and some tissue to line the bucket. Mix up your traditional s’mores by substituting new chocolate like Reese’s or marshmallow like Peeps. You can stop by your Food City bakery to ask if they’ve got an icing bucket to spare or head out to the garage and find something you already own.

Step 2: Prepare Your Bucket

Take a minute to remove any labels or residue from your bucket. Then, give it a quick wash and dry.

Step 3: Insert Your Liner

We’ve chosen a red foil tissue to mimic the flames of a fire.

Step 4: Start Packing`

One by one, arrange your supplies in the bucket. We started with the Graham Crackers and then layered around. You might notice, the orange of the Reese’s and yellow of the Peeps help to create the resemblance of a fire with our red foil liner.

 

Step 5: Get Outside and Enjoy

You’re bucket is complete. Now, take your s’mores bucket outside and enjoy with your family this Earth Day.

 

A few years ago, a couple of my nearest and dearest girlfriends were engaged…during football season. Trying to pick a free Saturday in the fall for an engagement party was like trying to find a yellow-colored needle in haystack—it just wasn’t going to happen! So, we decided to spruce up our tailgate one home game and have a joint engagement party right before we headed into the stadium! We had the menu down to a T. (Pun very much intended.) The challenge? What décor could we possibly make for this little shindig that would (a) look cute and (b) be easy to carry to and set up at the tailgate?

The solution? Cute homemade banners! They were super easy to make, and even easier to carry to the tailgate. Once we were there, we just tied up each end to opposite sides of our tent and had the perfect accent to celebrate our school-spirited brides-to-be!

What you’ll need:

Sheets of cardstock, whatever pattern/color you want!
X-acto knife and cutting mat (or sharp scissors and a steady hand!)
Ruler
Pencil
Hand punch (single hole punch)
Tulle (again, whatever color you like!)
Markers or stencils and paint

Different sizes of cardstock will make different-shaped triangles for your banner—I tend to go with the larger, square sheets of cardstock, but you can use whatever size you like! Take a sheet of cardstock and place it face-down on the rubber mat. Using the pencil and the ruler, make a small dot in the very center of the bottom of the paper. Line the ruler from the top left corner down to the bottom center dot and either cut with the X-acto knife or make a line with the pencil. Repeat from the top right corner down to the center, and you’ve got your triangle! Repeat with the other sheets of cardstock, and using the hand punch, punch 2 holes near the top of the triangle, a few inches apart. Once you have all the holes punched you can then stencil or draw any letters or numbers you want on each triangle before threading the tulle through. When pulling the tulle through, make sure to leave at least 2 feet of tulle on each end of the banner—that way you have plenty left to tie the banner up. You can fold it up neatly until you’re ready to use it!

I have made these for tailgates, birthday parties and baby showers—mix up the colors to go with any them for any event, and you can definitely save and use them more than once!

What personalized party decorations have you used recently? Share your ideas with us!