Eco-friendly New Years Crackers

I have been brainstorming ways to recycle our wrapping paper and ribbons, and came up with these eco-friendly crackers for New Years Eve! Each cracker is woodland themed and contains eco-friendly confetti, a little woodland gnome, hand-cut felt stars, a cinnamon stick, and a little personalized note. For the woodland illustrations on top of the crackers, I made color copies of images from one of my very own children’s books (“Wie ist es im Wald?” by Wolfgang de Haën).

Materials:

• Toilet paper rolls

• Left-over wrapping paper (the THINNER the BETTER)

• Left-over ribbons

• Cracker strips/ snaps

• Glue Stick

• Small trinkets to fill the crackers with (eco-friendly confetti, gnomes, felt stars, and a cinnamon stick, note, and golden bells)

• Animal/ plant cut-outs (could be from a book or magazine, etc.)

Directions:

Part 1:

1. OPTIONAL: Use a star-shaped hole puncher to create eco-friendly confetti from dry leaves. The more colorful the leaves, the more beautiful and diverse the confetti.

2. OPTIONAL: Make color copies of your favorite animal/plants/fungi pictures and cut them out using scissors. The images could come from a book, a magazine, post cards, or the internet. I used images from one of my own children's books called "Wie ist es im Wald" by Wolfgang de Haën.

Part 2:

1. Obtain a set of toilet paper rolls.

2. Cut out pieces of left-over wrapping paper (the THINNER the BETTER). The wrapping paper should be VERY thin - this will make opening up the cracker easier (especially if you have kids). Place a cracker strip/snap at the top end of each piece of wrapping paper and attach the cracker strip by adding small amounts of glue to each of the cardboard sides of the strip.

3. Roll the wrapping paper including the cracker strip around the toilet paper roll and secure the paper with a drop of school glue.

4. Once the toilet paper roll is covered in wrapping paper, tie off one of the ends of the roll using left-over ribbon. I also added a little golden bell to make the crackers sound more interesting. Be sure to tightly tie the ribbon - you don't want the goodies inside the cracker to fall out.

Part 3:

1. Fill the open end of the cracker with little woodland trinkets. I made little woodland gnomes for each of the crackers and also stuffed them with the eco-friendly confetti, a personalized note, a cinnamon stick, little hand-cut felt stars, and little golden bells.

2. Tie off the other end using more ribbon.

3. Once tied off, use the glue stick to glue on the animal/plant/fungi cut-outs you prepared in step 1.

4. When popping the crackers open, be sure to tightly grab each side of the cracker making sure that each of your hands gets ahold of one of the ends of the cracker strip/snap. The thinner the wrapping paper, the better your cracker will pull apart.

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