Home made recycled WALL-E

Yeah, you knew it. Deep down you knew this pile of recycling was going to be another robot didn't you! The kids still adore robots of all types and WALL-E is the king of robots in thier hearts, because he's not only a hero and an all round lovely guy, but he's been to outer space "for real".

I had a yellow dollar store square plastic bucket with handles that was used for the main part of his body and everything else was hot glued on and painted with either yellow or grey paint. Here's a few pics of him being put together and the kids painting bits...

His eyes were two yoghurt pots with two halfs of a tape dispenser glued on top.

The front of his body was made from half of the plastic container that held Safeway susan cookies. PSA: Never buy safeway susan cookies if you have long term plans to fit in the trousers you own. It's impossible to eat less than, oh I don't know, twelve pounds of them in one sitting.

Wall-e's hands were made from some random odd shaped bits of cardboard packaging and arms were a couple of large craft popsicle sticks and cardboard tubes.

The black thing on his front was the blank tray from a laptop's dvd slot.

His neck joint was the pouring spout from a fabric softener bottle.

His caterpillar tracks were made from some corrugated cardboard from random boxes and round things like empty tape rolls and empty single serving pots of apple sauce and a couple of bottle lids.I cut a square hole in the susan cookie lid, so that I could make his front open up like in the movie and the kids can keep stuff/hide stuff in his body. I'd love to find the time to sew them a little felt boot with a fake plant in it, just like in the movie.

Lastly the buttons and wall-e logo and solar power meter on his front were just drawn onto old styrofoam take away tray material with markers and cut out and glued on.

He's a cutie, and the great thing with this was that because Wall-e is a battered old robot, you don't have to be too careful about how you slap him together. The messier he is, the more like the real Wall-e he will look ;). I have no idea what to do now if they ask for EVE to go with him. I fear that she's a bit too slick to pull off with random junk from the recycling bin. Maybe papier mache?

I heartily recommend saving any bits and bobs of recycling that you think are interesting shapes. I have a stash out in the garage that it's really useful to delve into for projects like this. The kids get a kick out of helping to make toys out of junk and I'm really hoping that as they get older I can let them have more creative free reign with the glue gun. Maybe they will make me a hot tub out of recycling one day!