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I’m back with another post in the 60 Day #junkplay Challenge. This time around we’re looking at fun things to do with junk mail. 
This is one of those projects that could go a million different ways and once you start playing with it you’re sure to develop different ideas for what you want to do and what shapes you want to use. 
I stared by cutting strips out of colorful junk mail and magazines — making them somewhat uniform in size but not too perfect — and then gluing the strips to a piece of construction paper. If the kids want to join in on this, theirs may not be as full-coverage as my junk mail collage, but that’s totally fine. 
I wanted to make something for spring so once I had a page covered with strips, I used cookie cutters to cut out shapes: a couple of flowers, a rabbit and a butterfly.
I drew a leaf and covered it with green papers. I grabbed some pens and embellished: a bow on the bunny, dots on the butterfly, glitter on one flower and petals on another.
I came up with a lot of potential uses for these, but I really like the idea of using them as table decorations, either as a placemat (on another piece of construction paper and covered with contact paper), napkin rings (loop a piece of construction paper across the back) or standing on toothpicks or skewers among spring flowers or other tabletop decor.
They could be magnets, used on scrapbooking pages or cards, added to a spring garland or bunting, the list goes on.
Of course the other way to go is to cut shapes out of another piece of paper and have the strips show through. I took the scraps of my strip piece and made a bookmark, which is super simple to do.
Just cut a piece of construction paper to size, use a decorative punch to make some holes (I used a small heart and alternated the direction it was facing) and glue it to the page with the strips. Cover with contact paper if desired for more durability.
Have you ever made crafts with strips of paper? I want to weave my leftovers and may have another project of that sort for you soon.
In the meantime you can find all sorts of #junkplay inspiration over at Best Toys 4 Toddlers, where there’s a roundup of ideas for each material being used in the challenge. And this is only day 25, so keep checking back for more great ideas!
