Welcome to another Wacky Workshops project – making permanent sand castles out of plastic bottles.

This craft is fun, cheap, and awesome for the environment (anything that keeps plastic out of landfill and oceans is).

But be warned, it gets a bit messy.

PERMANENT SANDCASTLES

MATERIALS

• Plastic bottles – assorted sizes
• Hot glue gun
• PVA glue
• Paper towel
• Sand
• Cardboard
• Craft foam – optional
• Glitter – optional
• Scissors
• Stapler

METHOD

• Arrange the bottles together. It looks best if the tallest and widest are at the back.

• Note where the bottles touch (the different shapes may mean they don’t sit flush together) and place hot glue in those places to stick together.
• Cover the whole thing in PVA glue and then paper towel. This gives a good surface to glue the sand to and adds some lovely texture.

THE MESSY PART

• Cover the whole thing in glue again and sprinkle sand all over, repeating as necessary until the whole castle is covered. NOTE: You can mix the sand and glue together first, but I find this often results in large chunks of gluey sand detaching itself from the castle.
• While this is drying, make little, coned roofs by cutting cardboard into circles and then cutting a slit from the edge of the circle to the centre. Push the edges together until a peak forms and attach with a stapler.

• At this point, I chose to add more glue to the castle and then some glitter. If you want a more authentic looking sandcastle you can skip this step.
• You can choose to cover your rooftops in glue and sand, to stay with the theme, or get wacky like me and cover them in colourful craft foam strips.
• If you choose the wacky version, cut the foam into strips and then cut a fringe along one side. Wrap this around the roof edge.

• Add new strips, overlapping the last one until your roof is covered.
• When the roofs are finished, use the hot glue gun to attach them to the tops of the bottles.
• Cut arch shapes out of cardboard, or foam is you’re going wacky, and glue them to the front of your castle to represent windows and doors.

I hope you enjoyed this project. Please be sure to share if you did.

Check out my Grand Recycling Crafts on Pinterest for more fun recycling ideas.

Did you read my post, How to Make Fantastic Castles and Wands, Fit for a Fairy?

Happy crafting and have a gleeful week, Tamuria.