Upcycle Gallon Water Bottles into Pretty Gift Baskets!

My husband and I buy Crystal Geyser spring water in one gallon plastic jugs; we go through a lot of them and I have been putting the old containers into the recycle bin. After recently watching two informative documentaries about plastics "Bag It" and "Plastic Planet" on NetFlix, I realized that "recycling" plastic may not be the best way to recirculate plastics, many companies do not what to reuse plastic and prefer manufacturing a new, "clean" product, thus many of our plastics get shipped overseas for child labor sweat shops to rummage through and reuse. It takes plastics hundreds of years to disintegrate! Now, I am inspired to UPCYCLE plastics as much as possible and transform them into something functional and beautiful.

In the picture above, it shows the lovely little gift baskets that I made out of recycled Crystal Geyser one gallon water bottles. All you need to make these is: a one gallon plastic bottle (similar to the one I used), a box cutter, some wrapping paper with a pretty design on it, scissors, and packaging tape. Cut the bottle in half with the box cutter creating a cup-like bowl, this will be your basket; then simply wrap the original base of the bottle like you would wrap a gift and secure all paper edges with packaging tape. Vwa La! You have a gorgeous, little gift basket that you can fill with all sorts of goodies for birthdays and holidays!

Stay tuned, I will soon be posting another "how-to" about an upcycling project that you can create with the leftover, funnel-like topper from this water gallon container!

This blog article was contributed by the Team Captain of the Etsy Recyclers Guild Team Jessica of Eco-Friendly Freckles.