Recycled Tea Set

I've seen this adorable idea for tea cups from plastic easter eggs a few times and I finally decided I needed to make some for Chiquita.  It was obvious from our outing to the Treehouse Museum in Ogden that she really loved playing tea.  I wanted to figure out how to make a tea pot as well since I knew just the cups weren't really enough.

I thought and thought about how to make a tea pot and here's what I came up with.

Supplies:

• plastic cup
• empty hotel shampoo or conditioner
• small round plastic container - I used a Crystal Light sachet container
• very sharp scissors or craft blade
• hot glue gun

I love that hot glue doesn't require precision and is easy to redo if something is crooked.  I started by cutting the shampoo bottle at an angle.  I don't think the exact angle matters as much as that it's smooth so it can be glued to the cup.  I just held the cut edge of the bottle to the side of the cup (with the bottom of the cup as the top) and put hot glue around the edge.  It dried too quickly to do it any other way.

I cut a section out of the Crystal Light container for the handle (you don't want to cut through the circle, I tried that and it didn't hot glue well).  I used scissors but I think a craft blade would have worked better, just be careful!  The circle of plastic was easy to hot glue on.  For a "lid" I glued the cap of the shampoo container to the bottom of the cup, which is now the top of the teapot.

Finally I finished it off with a coat of spray paint made for plastics (totally optional, I just had some).  If I was a super crafter it would have a silver nob and handle and little flowers painted all over it.  It needs another coat of paint, but I am not a super crafter and Chiquita couldn't wait any longer to start playing.  Her and I had a tea party, her and daddy had a tea party.  There will be a lot of tea in our house!