DIY tin can robot faces

Today’s craft is all about recycling and repurposing tin cans! I’ve been keeping aside our tin cans and bottle tops especially for these DIY tin can robot faces and we’re so excited with how these have turned out.

Before we started crafting, the boys and I had a detailed discussion about recycling.  We talked about the meaning of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” to eliminate waste and protect our environment.  We discussed the different types of recyclable materials such as cans, cardboard, glass, magazines and newspaper.  The boys could easily relate to this recycling concept as our family already uses a green bin for plant waste, yellow bin for recycle waste and a red bin for other household waste.  We talked about the different ways to collect waste, the garbage truck that comes to collect our bins, the drop off station for batteries and light bulbs at our local library and the bigger drop off centres for white goods and bulk green waste.

We looked up the universal recycling symbol of the triangle made of three chasing arrows and what it meant.  We learnt that this symbol is called the “Moebius loop” and indicates that the material is recyclable. The boys then looked at the materials we had around our home to see if they had any recycling symbols on them.  There are many other recycling symbols that you can explore based on the ages of your captive audience.

These tin can robot faces bring hours of joy once made.  This craft encourages creativity and creative thought as just about any crafting material can be used to decorate these tin can robot faces.  Little ones will really enjoy the simplicity of this craft and how using different materials give the faces very different (and funny) expressions.  Painting the tin cans provides an optional extra fine motor skill workout.

We hope that you enjoy making these faces as much as we did.  They are loads of fun and are guaranteed to bring hours of imaginative play.  They’re also great for identifying different parts of the face whilst having some crafting fun!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED FOR THE DIY TIN CAN ROBOT FACES:

• Tin cans (assorted sizes)
• Paints or coloured paper to wrap around the cans (optional)
• Glue
• Bottle caps (assorted colours and sizes)
• Coloured pipe cleaners
• Coloured pom poms (optional)
• Coloured yarn (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DIY TIN CAN ROBOT FACES:

• Peel the labels from tin can and paint as preferred using acrylic paint.
• For the eyes, glue on bottle caps using a glue gun.
• For the nose, glue on smaller bottle caps or pom pom using a glue gun. We used painted toothpaste caps and pom poms.
• For the mouth, glue on pipe cleaners or bottle cap.
• For the hair, glue on pipe cleaners or coloured yarn.

* This post and all associated images have been supplied by the lovely Rossa from Curious Little People.  Follow her on Instagram for more creative inspirations!