Advent Day 20 - Recycled Magazine Wreath

Advent Day 20 - Recycled Magazine Wreath

Another Advent craft we did this week was to make a christmas wreath out of old magazine pages.  It's very easy and fun for kids!  It's also teaching them that recycling (or upcycling as it would technically be) is fun and can be become beautiful art.  It's also good for the environment!

A great talking point as you make this wreath with your child(ren) is to talk about how God "upcycles" each of us into a new creation in Christ.  Just like the magazine pages that become a beautiful wreath -we become more useable and beautiful then our original form without Christ, as well!

Supplies Needed:

• Old magazines (more colorful magazines are prettiest - ones with colorful ads work well)
• Paper plate
• Hot glue gun
• Picks from dollar store or craft store for center
• Twine (optional - to hang)

The first thing and probably the part that kids seem to like best and find the most fun, is to pick their magazine pages, tear them out carefully and then roll them into cones.  Have them roll them fairly loose so that you end up with cones that have openings at least a 1/2" to an inch (otherwise, they will have to roll a LOT of them - OK - that may keep them very busy - roll whatever size works for your crew!).  Also, tell them to look at the pages and pick the side that is most colorful and roll it so that the colorful side is on the outside of their cone, this way it will show when they add them together to make their wreath.  That is what gives it the color and diversity.  

Then take your paper plate and put it upside down and find the center spot of your plate.  I marked mine for Sarah.  Have them glue their cones going around the dot in the center, placing them evenly around the plate.

 Once they have gone around one time, then have them fill in the gaps between and glue down cones going around again.  A trick we used so neither of us would get burned, was to take a pencil and hold down each magazine piece till the hot glue has dried and stuck.  That will keep them or you, from burning hands with the hot glue on this project.

They should have a layered look like below when they are done gluing all their cones.  We put a couple longer magazine pages (cones) intermittently in our wreath to give it the look it has - do whatever you think looks good to you. You don't have to do what we did - it looks good with them all the same length too.

Then take the pick that they choose and stick the pick through the center of the plate and fold over the metal wire to the side.

Then you can turn over the plate and hot glue on the twine or ribbon to give your wreath a hook for hanging it up and your done!  Beautiful and simple!  

Happy creating on Advent Day 20!