Milk Carton Houses

Make milk carton houses! This is an easy but fun project for which you need minimal materials and perfect to entertain the kids on a lazy afternoon.

You will need:

• Milk cartons
• A flat piece of cardboard, (large enough for your houses to stand on.)
• An empty toilet roll
• Craft paint – Dala Liquid tempera is an excellent choice for younger kids as it is nontoxic.
• Black Marker pen and crayons

What to do:

Wash the milk cartons and cut in half. Do not cut exactly on the halfway mark, you want some of the houses to be a bit smaller than others.

Paint the outside of the carton with a white base coat first.

Cut the flat piece of cardboard to size and paint the top part green and the bottom part black. The green part will be the gardens where you will place the houses and the black part will be the road in front of the houses. Let the kids draw the stripes on the road with a white wax crayon.

The undercoat on the houses should be dry by the time you are done with the base. Use a pencil and help the kids to outline windows and doors.

Let the kids choose colours and let them paint the houses. They can use any colours and as many colours as they like.

Cut a piece of the toilet roll and also cut lengthwise. Roll it up again to fit in the opening of the milk carton to form a chimney. Secure with masking tape and paint the same color as the roof.

Let the kids outline the windows, doors and details on the roofs with a black marker pen. Use crayons to add more details to the houses.

Place the houses on the cardboard sheet, cars on the roads a few green pompoms for trees and cotton wool in the chimneys.

You can keep this as an ongoing project and eventually build a whole neighborhood. Glue sand in some areas of the gardens- make flowers out of toothpicks and colored cardboard, trees out of dried branches, and fences out of craft sticks. You can also take photos of your own house and replicate it.

Such a fun recycled craft, milk carton houses!