How to make a boat from juice carton

One of PDs favourite DVDs is a Day of Songs, which features the singing of Sophie Ellis-Bextor no less. The songs are grouped into themes and whilst we were sitting watching it recently, PD announced that she wanted a boat. We went on a scavenger hunt around the house and found a blue blanket, a laundry basket, a spade and a tea-towel, and before we knew it, we were rowing the boat wherever she wanted to go.

Whilst we had a theme going, I found a couple of juice cartons and made some boats for The Girls to play with in the bath tub. They were surprisingly simple to make and the girls had so much fun with them. If you want to know how to make a boat from a juice carton, you’ll need:

an empty juice carton, with straw

leftover wrapping paper

coloured duct tape

a lump of blu-tack

Unstick the corners of the juice box and flatten it a bit. Make sure that if you used the straw hole that this is on the top end of your boat (ie: the bit you cut, not the bit that will go in the water.) Turn the juicebox sideways so that the long edge will form the length of your boat. cut from the corner down at an angle, across the length and up the other side.

Take your straw, fold into a triangle shape

and use the short end as a guide to cut a rectangle of wrapping paper, then fold the wrapping paper into a triangle, stick the straw to the paper with sellotape

and fold over the wrapping paper then secure with sellotape. This is your sail. You can use the coloured duct tape to make a smaller flag by cutting a rectangle, folding over the short edge to create a triangle, then use the excess to stick the tape flag to the top of your sail. You can stick the sail to the inside of your boat with Blu-tack. Enjoy the fun.

And if you don’t have a juice carton, you can also use a milk carton: cut the end from a carton and cover the sharp edges with tape, then use the same straw techniques to make your sail. You can also use coloured duct tape to cut out an initial for your sail.

I recently did a Google Hangout with a bunch of crafty bloggers who had some fantastic ideas for making boats, and all from things that are easy to come by, making boat-floating a perfect summer craft.