• Recycle plastic bottles into craft projects both you and your kids will enjoy making. Bird feeders, flowers, mobiles and whirligigs are just a few of the projects you can make with plastic bottles. Decorate your creations with acrylic craft paint or permanent markers to add color and design interest to the projects.
  
  

Bird Feeders

• One way to recycle plastic bottles is to turn them into bird feeders. Paint the outside of the bottles in vibrant colors with acrylic paints to attract the birds before you hang them in the yard. Cut out two to three small openings close to the base of the plastic bottle so the birds can get to the seed and make perches by inserting 1/8-inch-diameter dowels beneath the cutouts. Some of the seed will spill out when you fill it, but many birds enjoy dining off of the ground. A strip of wire through the screw top makes a good hanger for the bird feeder.
  
  

Garden Flowers

• Plastic bottles are easy to cut into shapes, once you remove the paper advertising, the bottom section and cut along one side to flatten them. Trace flower designs onto the flattened plastic, and then cut them out with sharp household shears. Paint the flowers with acrylic paints and attach them to painted dowels to make a bouquet. Stand the plastic flowers in a flower pot as a centerpiece for the patio or write plant names on the petals and place them in the garden.
  
  

Fish Mobile

• Plastic soda bottles with ridges are a good choice for creating fish for a mobile or other project. Remove the advertising and cut away the bottom of the bottle. Flatten the bottle, trace the fish and cut them out. The ridges can resemble fish gills after you paint the plastic bottle. Make several fish to create a mobile; hang them from a craft ring or another painted bottle with fishing line.
  
  

Whirligigs

• It takes four plastic bottles to make a whirligig project, two for the blades and the propeller and two for the center body. You must remove the tops and the advertising from each bottle before you begin the project. The propellers are made by cutting two of the bottles into strips, leaving about an inch along the base of each bottle. When the strips are folded back, the propeller shape takes place. A straightened close hanger works to connect each of the bottles together.