Jellyfish From Trash Liners

I and the children LOVE these AMAZING trash liner jellyfish.

So simple, and yet such an amazing addition to our OCEAN/SEA theme. 

I have added a Youtube tutorial at the bottom.

 To make these I used two 10 gallon commercial trashcan liners, the ones for small office trash cans, at a cost of about 5 cents and about 10 minutes of time each.

#1 The first liner is opened up, four "corners" [just grab the edge about every 1/4 around] brought together and stapled, then stuffed down into the center of the bag to create a bowl shape.

#2 For the second liner, cut off the sealed edge.

It is accordion folded in fourths. Unfold completely and fold over once to create a square, giving you four layers of plastic.

Cut off the edges and cut into spiral. I did about a 1 - 1 1/4 inch thickness. The wider the strip the shorter the "tentacles." I didn't try to be that accurate or to make a perfect circle. I knew once they were opened out that it wouldn't matter.

You end up with a pretty long strip. I folded it in half and cut it to create two strips of equal length. Since it's actually doubled over double layers, this gives you 8 tentacles total. Spread them all apart. 

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If you try to attach them without separating them first, they will cling to one another and not fall properly to create the tentacle effect. Once separated, join them all together, placing them randomly together in a circle and stapling together. 

Since you have two sets of four of the same cut, this is important that they not sit perfectly together or it won't look right.
  

Stick the tentacle staple up against the inside of the bowl shaped bag and push up with your hand. Collect all layers on the top, along with a string to hang if wanted, and staple. You can't see the staple on the ones I have up. The plastic folds over and hides it.

The layers are:   TENTACLES
                         TOP OF BAG gathered together and folded over 
                          [pic below]
                         BOTTOM CENTER OF BAG
                         STRING FOR HANGING

All are stapled through at once. I can now make them with just one stable through the whole thing, but it is easier to staple the tentacles first, then the top of the bag, then the combined pieces.

These are WONDERFUL!! 
I'm so glad I came across the idea.

I think my process is MUCH easier than the original instructions, which used clear rubber bands. This is an original idea of Casa Haus English that her daughter created for a school assignment. She placed her jellyfish creation on a stick and used it as a movable puppet. Our jellyfish did the same, which is really cool, but with 2 and 3-year-olds, playing with plastic bags just doesn't work. So, ours are hung from the ceiling.

TUTORIAL

I have received several emails about the bringing the "corners" together step, so have created the following tutorial. 

A couple of things to note is that for this one I used smaller liners than the ones in this post, and I folded the first liner in quarters rather than opening it out and folding it in half, so the tentacles came out shorter.

Only the last staple is necessary. If you are making a lot of these, you'll probably get to the point where you can just hold it all together and only use the one staple.

Tags: ocean, sea, theme, unit, preschool, kindergarten, child, care, childcare, daycare, beach, jellyfish, animals, craft, art, decoration, puppet, plastic, bag, trash, can, liner