UPCYCLED MAGAZINE TREE COLLAGE

The best way to celebrate trees is to protect them — not just on Tu B’Shevat, but every day! Honor the Jewish values of SHOMREI ADAMAH (guardians of the earth), BAL TASHCHIT (do not destroy), and L’DOR V’DOR (from generation to generation) by having your kiddos use upcycled materials for this beautiful art project — cardboard from a box as the canvas and magazine scraps to create the tree collage. They’ll have so much fun, all while learning important lessons in being kind to trees and the planet! Sounds like the perfect birthday party for trees!

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED:

-A piece of cardboard (preferrably from a box you may have otherwise recycled) cut to whatever size you like for your canvas
-One or more magazines
-Scissors
-Liquid glue (you may want to use one that is designated “non-wrinkle” because the magazine scraps are very thin and tend to wrinkle from the glue)

HERE’S WHAT YOU DO:

(1) Decide what colors you’ll include in your collage. I chose brown for the trunk, green for the leaves, and blue for the sky; however, you’re the artist and can choose whatever colors you like! (2) Search the magazines for your colors, and, when you find them, cut little pieces and set them aside. Gauge how many scraps of each color you’ll need based on the size of your canvas and the design you envision. (3) Once you have enough scraps, you can start gluing. Similar to putting together a puzzle, it helps to set up all the edge pieces and some of the background, in this case the sky, first. Once that is in place, start creating the trunk and leaves by adding those scraps — in some cases they will overlap on top of the “sky” pieces. (4) Keep gluing scraps until your entire canvas is covered, and don’t be afraid to overlap the scraps!