recycled airplane

M and I raided the recycling bin this morning to find pieces to make an airplane.  I've been meaning to buy some real toy airplanes (like these) to hang from M's ceiling in his room but haven't gotten around to it yet.  This morning we made one of our own completely from recycled stuff.

M had fun looking through the cardboard pieces in the bin, pulling them out, and putting them back in. We ended up taking out a paper towel roll, a toilet paper roll, and a piece of cardboard that used to be part of a box.  We also used a Dixie cup but we took a new one :)

I put the plane together first.  This is my best explanation of what I did....
The toilet paper roll is the main body of the plane.  I cut the Dixie cup down so that only about 1/4 of the bottom was left and stuck it into one end of the roll.  I stuffed some paper into the other end of the roll to hold the cup in place but I only used a little because of the way the wings are placed.  The wings are one long strip of cardboard going through cuts in the middle of the plane.  The tail and the top piece are also cut from cardboard and stuck into cuts in the plane.  The only part that is glued are the propellers on the front.

Then M got to painting (red, of course).  I helped a bit.  It would have been 100% easier to paint each separate piece then put them back together once they were dry but M wouldn't have been as excited to paint his plane if it was in pieces so we did it the hard way...

Here's our finished plane, almost dry and ready to be hung....