In one of my kid’s magazines, there is a contest of what you can make out of a plastic milk jug or jugs.
They show some very clever ideas ( milk jug used as a head for a scare crow , painted as an animal, cut up and the plastic used to make a skirt)
The first thing Mr. Ujest and I thought of was getting a bunch of them and making a raft, which is kinda lame. ( Maybe we should consider an armada of milk jug rafts)
My other idea is to make a votive holder. Get rid of the cap, cut a square on the side of the jug, fill with sand and put a candle inside. Like the grocery bags filled with sand at Xmas to illuminated the way for Santa and or Jesus.
Cut straight down from the top to about half-way down. From there, cut across, remove the cut-out section and use the remainder of the jug as a toilet brush holder.
I’ve always been partial to piggy banks missen. They can be made from any type jug (milk, laundry soap, bleach, etc.), are cheap, practical, easy and loads of fun to make.
Art Attack is a fantastic creative art program here in the UK. Even at my age I love watching it and occasionally making the project of the day. Perhaps you’ll find a few ideas here.
[1] cut out the bottom to make a great funnel with a handle [2] filled with water (and a little blue or green food dye), they make a dramatic target to demonstrate relative power of handgun bullets [3] insert a wooden dowel all the way thru the bottle near the bottom, cut a circular hole just above each end of the dowel, fill the bottom with bird feed and hang outside a window for youngsters to watch all the neat visitors it will attract (hanging it free-standing from the roof will discourage squirrels from raiding your feeder, but be careful, those dang nut-lovers are notorious bird feeder thieves!) [4] build a small terrarium using miniature plants and a tiny rock garden - if you add a little pond and then put the cap back on, you will probably start a micro-ecosystem with its own weather patterns… try laying it on its side for that “ship in a bottle” effect [5] speaking of “ship in a bottle”…
If it’s the kind with a handle, you can simply cut off the bottom and make a great pretend megaphone for the kids. Milk jugs are also great for batting practice. I remember hitting empty milk jugs with those big, fat, plastic bats in elementary school. You can’t miss, and you can really send some of them flying.
Enough with the family suggestions. You can use the jugs to store the blood of your many victims. They would call you the “Milk Jug Mangler” when you send one in to the police with a tantalising clue written in it. You can cut one up into strips of plastic and then reassemble them into the shape of of a gigantic phallus for your bizarre sex practices. Finally, you can make a killer bong.
And yes. You can make a bird feeder. An incredibly tacky birdfeeder.
Warning: involves fireworks
Warning: not enviornmentally responsible
They make small bottle rockets that shoot out three mini roman candle flares at their apex. Tape several just inside the rim of the milk jug, as if it were a vase, with the "head"pointing into the jug.
Make several.
Get camcorder.
Hand out rocket boats, and go to a small pond. Spread out around the pond. Start rolling tape. Light rocket-jugs and place on water… they will jet towards each other in the middle. in a demolition derby fashion.
The first roman candle flares will melt a hole in the jug, allowing other flares to escape and hit the other rocket jugs.
Last boat floating wins… you can even paint them cool Destructo! colors and such… make up teams, etc.
