Recycled Cardboard Play Food

Raise your hand if you love cake! We sure do! Today we’re sharing a super fun way to upcycle corrugated cardboard and bubble wrap into these cute toy food cakes! If you’re like us and always have tons of recycling, this craft is a great one – save up different sizes and shapes of corrugated cardboard (we lucked out with these really thick pieces) and bubble wrap from online shipments and you’ll have exactly what you need in no time.

It can take a little bit of time to paint all the nooks and crannies of the cardboard, so this craft is a great one to do with kids when you’ve got a little bit of time on your hands. Or, put them aside and work on them over a few days! Customize your cakes with different recycled bits and bobs to make whatever “flavors” you like. Keep reading to see the full instructions!

what you need:

how-to:

Step 1
Start by drawing and cutting out triangles from the corrugated cardboard. You’ll want to do them in matching sets of 2 or 3 so that they stack together nicely later.

Step 2
Cut layers of bubble wrap into triangles to match the cardboard. Depending on your bubble wrap, you might want to layer a couple together to make a thicker layer of icing. We used 2 or 3 layers sandwiched between the cake layers but just one layer for the top.

Step 3
Paint your cardboard and bubble wrap pieces! Let dry.

Step 4
Glue the layers together to form a cake.

Step 5
You may have noticed that the outside edge of the cake is looking a little plain – once you have the layers all glued together, trace this back side onto bubble wrap, cut out and paint to match the icing. Once dry, hot glue in place.

Step 6
For added details, you can paint recycled lids, or cut bubble wrap into strips to look like a piped row of icing! Glue onto the cakes however you like.

Happy crafting!!

This post is sponsored by Plaid Enterprises.