Sunflower Recycled Art Activity

Creating art at home is best when you can use items you already have! We love to recycle toilet paper and paper towel rolls any chance we get! Jazz up some egg cartons, straws, or cardboard boxes with a little paint and let the fun begin! This 3-D art activity was a hit in our house.

To say goodbye to summer and welcome Fall, my 3 and 6 year old read the book, This is a Sunflower, to learn about their growth process! We believe that coordinating crafts and snacks always make learning more enjoyable. This simple art activity was easy enough for both of my kids to complete “almost” independently. I helped with gluing to make the process a touch faster, with less wait time. Because, well…we’re still working on patience in our house 🙂

Materials

To make the sunflower craft, you’ll need to grab a few things:

Cardboard egg carton
scissors
toilet paper or paper towel roll
yellow and brown paint (acrylic preferred)
paint brush
glue (tacky glue or hot glue gun for faster/better stick – this is the step I did for them)
seeds (we used square pretzels, but raisins or mini m&ms work, too!)

STEP 1: Cut egg carton into cups & paint

This first step is best for an adult to do ahead of time. Grab the egg carton and cut the individual cups apart, as shown in the image above. Then, give your child some brown paint and let cover the inside first and then flip over to paint the rest!

STEP 2: Cut toilet roll into strips & paint

Whether you choose toilet paper or paper towel roll, cut them into strips (1/2 to 1 inch) and paint yellow. My suggestion would be to paint the inside first (we waited to do this until later but would have done this first) and then paint the outer part next! Let the cups and petals dry well before gluing.

STEP 3: Glue Petals to Cups

This is the one part of the art activity where I helped, but the kids were totally capable of doing it. To help save time and frustration (hello standard glue taking forever to dry), I used my hot glue gun to attach the petals to the cup. But, Elmers glue works fine as well, if your child wants to complete this step! A tip I would share is to make sure to glue the petals to the base of the cup so it can sit flat on the paper!

Step 4: Paint inside of petals

This part of the process is a perfect opportunity to teach your kids that art is all about FUN and it’s not meant to be perfect! If paint gets outside of the petals/lines, that’s okay! If they get paint on their fingers, that’s okay! A smaller paintbrush is best to let them get into the corners and such!

Step 5: Add Seeds and Stem

The final few steps are adding the “seeds” and “stem”. For the seeds, we chose to paint waffle style pretzels brown! Once they were dry, we glued them to the top part of the egg carton cup. If you can’t find these pretzels, we also have used raisins, mini m&ms or actual sunflower seeds! For the stem, we use a straw or small dowel and paint it green! Once both of these dried, it was time to glue the flower to a piece of blue construction paper!