SS Milktastic

Getting Started

Always use your imagination and be creative when building these kids crafts or any others. It's your creation, so be inventive when looking for building supplies — you just may be surprised! When building your project, experiment with new and different ways of putting it together. The most important thing is to have fun!

Find these or similar supplies!

1. Lay out your materials!

2. Get ready to assemble the base!

At this point your ship is ready for assembly, and you can tape all your pieces together and call it a day. I decided to take all my parts and carefully cover them with tape. Most of it took at least two or three layers to completely cover the print on the containers. Try using different colors of tape to dress it up. I used blue masking tape for the beck and to accent around the smoke stacks, bow and stern. I decided later to cover the roofs of my cabins so that my ship was all color-coordinated.

3. Cover the main body in tape!

Now it's time to tape up the main body. I started the first row of tape at the bottom. Add tape all the way around, leaving about an inch of excess tape off of both ends. Add two or three first row layers, until you no longer see through to the carton. Continue adding layers of tape about 1/4 inch up from the bottom of the layer below. I like to add two layers of tape for each taped row, ensuring that you will not see through it, and also making it much stronger. All this work gives the ship a wooden hull look!

4. Trim the tape!

After I covered the main body hull I trimmed the excess tape off of the front and back. Because I left the tape running long, I was able to cut the front at an angle that I thought looked cool. However, after I put everything together I ended up cutting it again, this time straight. You could cut yours at an upward angle if you want.

5. Make doors and windows!

For the doors and windows I tried a few things like drawing them directly on the ship. I ended up cutting them out of some thick paper and colored each one, and then glued them onto my ship, the S.S. Milktastic. Yes...this took me forever.

6. Color your windows!

After I glued all of my doors and windows on, I noticed that they needed to look more like glass, so I carefully colored each window with a light blue marker.

7. Tape the pieces together!

Now you can start to tape or glue all of the pieces together. I glued my front and back cabins in place. I made a few more adjustments to my smoke stacks, and then glued them on. Now its really starting to look like a real ship!

8. Add finishing touches!

The finishing touches, this is were you could keep adding stuff forever. I used some cotton balls for smoke, and added some string for rigging and rails. Then I made a flag and named my ship the S.S. Milktastic. On real ships the S.S. stands for steam ship... just thought i’d share. My son suggested that I add some little life boats and VOILA... a very cool ship built mostly from trash!