Every home will have at least a few plastic bottles or packaging lying around – put them to good use and make these gorgeous little cacti, with only a few materials! This is a great craft for young kids, and you can really let your imagination fly wild with different shapes and colours. Best of all, you don’t need to remember to water them!

What you need:

2 large plastic bottles 

Scissors and a pen knife

Small pegs

All purpose quick dry glue

Purple and white card 

Green spray paint

Steps:

First, cut out the middle of each bottle – we are after the nice flat bit with no indents or curves. The easiest way is to pierce the bottle with a pen knife then continue to cut with scissors. 

To make the cactus, cut four long shaped ovals with a flat bottom, all the same size. Fold each piece in half, and score with the end of your scissors. Fold back and forth each way a few times. Also cut two smaller arms for the cactus. 

Glue each side together, and secure with small pegs as you go. Remember to slot in your cactus arms.

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For the round cactus, cut 5 x 10cm round circles, with a flat bottom. Repeat the steps by folding each in half, and gluing each side to the next. 

While everything is drying, cut small triangles from the purple and white card, we’ll use these to decorate our cacti.

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Once the glue is completely dry, give each cacti a few coats of green spray paint.

Glue the purple triangles onto the round cactus, attaching a few to the outer rims. Glue white triangles onto the tall cactus, and place in a pot with small white stones.

TIP: If you don’t have any bottles, you could also use flat plastic that you can find on packaging or 2l plastic milk bottles. The plastic can be any colour you like, it just needs to be flexible enough to fold over on itself. 

First created for Create and Craft TV