Aaaah!! Recycle Monster is your recycle bin coming to life on Halloween. This concept is by a 7 years old cute little genius girl named LaLa. As she put it, "Imagine soda bottles, plastic cups, and cans forming into a scary creature that is hell bent on eating the eyes of humans that do not recycle." ....Wicked, huh?

Before we begin, please understand it’s okay to use any cardboard shape you can find to make your recycle monster. Whether it’s a square, circle, triangle or octagon, the shape of monster is not important. The important thing here is to have fun building with your child or children. I am using 20 inches round cardboard from a local bakery (I found it in the trash). The reason why I suggest cardboard, so the ping pong ball will not destroy teeth and give the monster structure to hold up and to collect the balls. Let’s begin! ;-)

Step 1: Gather the Materials

Ok, to build this monster we will need:

All black plastic cups (20)

Ping pong balls (6)

Big cardboard to use as backboard (at least 2mm thick)

Couple of small cardboards to use as teeth and eyes (at least 2mm thick)

Double sided mounting tape

Scissors

Paint (red, white, black and other colors of your choice to paint inside of monster's mouth)

Paint brush

Step 2: Design Monster Mouth & Tonsil

Determine how big you want Recyclable Monster to be then draw and paint monster’s tongue and tonsil on the big cardboard. (Use picture as reference)

Step 3: Add Plastic Cups to Backboard

Arrange all black plastic cups on backboard as you see fit, keep in mind the cup place on top and bottom of backboard should be upright to apply teeth later on and to keep ball secured in mouth. Use double sided mounting tape to make cups stick to cardboard. (Use picture as reference)

Step 4: Add More Cups on Both Sides

Now add more plastic cups in uneven way on both sides to complete the perimeter of recycle monster. Apply double sided mounting tape to make cups stick to cardboard. (Use picture as reference)

Step 5: Make Teeth and Eyes

Draw small teeth and big teeth on cardboard then cut out teeth. Place small teeth on top and big teeth on bottom. Apply double sided mounting tape to make cardboard stick to cups.

Then draw two eyes and two eyebrows on cardboard then cut them out. Paint eyes and eyebrows. Please note, you need to draw small black eye to fit on big white eye. After you glue the small eye to the big eye, use double sided mounting tape to place the eyes and eyebrows on the cups.(Use picture as reference)

Now it should look like Recycle Monster. Simple, silly and fun arts and crafts with the kids for halloween.

Hang Recycle Monster on a wall, or door as decor until it's feeding time.

Step 6: Make Eyeballs

Now it's time to paint eyeball on ping pong ball. Get creative here, make cat eyes, eye patch on a ball, what you decide to do will be food for recycle monster to eat!

Step 7: It's Play Time!

Recycle Monster can be a game to have fun with kids, and friends. Some essentials is needed here, such as a timer, a pencil and scorecard.

You can have as many players you want. Each player should have 6 balls. Player must stand back 4 feet's from recycle monster, you 6.66 seconds to feed monster as many balls as possible. When the time reach, it's timed up.

Player with the most balls eaten is the winner and the winner's eyes is pardon for another year.