Art and Crafts

Recycled Piggy Bank

Total Time afternoon or evening

Ages school-age

Turn a 2-liter bottle into the cutest economic recovery package you'll ever see.

What you'll need

• Paintbrush
• Pink acrylic paint
• 2 toilet tissue tubes
• Scissors
• Pink tissue paper
• Clean 2-liter plastic bottle
• Mod Podge, or a mixture of 2 parts tacky glue to 1 part water
• 2 googly eyes (ours are 5/8-inch wide)
• Pink two-holed button (ours is 3/4-inch wide)
• Tacky glue
• Craft knife
• Pink pipe cleaner

How to make it

1. Paint the outside of both tubes pink. Paint half of the inside of one tube pink. Set them aside to dry.

2. Cut the tissue paper into 1 1/4-inch squares. (To save time, stack several sheets and then cut them.) Brush a small section of the bottle with Mod Podge or diluted glue, lay a square on it, and brush Mod Podge on top of the square. Repeat the process until the bottle, including the capped spout, is entirely covered. Let it dry.

3. For the ears, cut two deep U shapes from the tube that's painted pink inside. Cut three 1/4-inch slits in the base of each ear. Bend back the flaps to create gluing tabs. For the legs, cut four 1 1/2-inch-long sections from the tubes. Trim each leg to fit the contour of the bottle. Attach the legs, the ears, the googly eyes, and the button nose with tacky glue. Let them dry.

4. Use the craft knife (a parent's job) to cut a rectangular coin slot in the pig's back. Wind the pipe cleaner around a finger to make a tail shape, then glue it in place.

5. With scissors, trim the legs as shown so that the pig will stand flat. When you're ready for some pork barrel spending, cut a flap in the underside of the bank with the craft knife.

Taken from spoonful.com/crafts