The Beauty in Blissfulness: Milkjug Igloo

We finally finished our extensive summer project! It took about two/three weeks to collect all of the jugs and construct the igloo.

*I suggest asking for both gallon and half gallon jugs when started your milk jug drive- we didn't use too many half gallons but they were still necessary. Also, save any extra lids.... some jugs were brought to us without the lids and I wanted them to have lids.

We set out to complete this Igloo in the middle of May. Luckily, we go through a LOT of milk at the day care center and have lots of families that were extra helpful and brought in their empty jugs.

With the help of our families and our community we quickly collected the

295 gallon jugs (and 6 half gallon jugs) that were used.

I originally started this project with no idea how large it would be. As much as I would love being able to cram our entire class in there I settled on only making it fit about 4-6 people. So I taped out the area that I wanted and glued the first row together.

I decided to model my igloo off of another I had seen online. (Find their tutorial here. They have a video that may be able to explain the process better than I will).

*Make sure that all of the milk jugs are completely clean!! We learned quickly that spoiled milk turns a funky shade of neon green... (not an experiment that we wanted to learn but interesting nonetheless). Wash them well and then make sure they are dry before putting the lids on.

I decided to use the hot glue to secure the lids onto the milkjugs. We have some sneaksters that would probably end up hiding things in them and it would become impossible to get out... But others may wish to not glue them done. It would be a lot of fun to switch the caps around or make designs inside after the igloo is complete.

This site used hot glue to glue their milkjugs in pairs: two jugs would be glued with the handles inside (together) and the other would have the handles on the outside. Check out the pictures below

(Handles inside)

(Handles outside)

We then alternated the pairs (inside, outside, inside, and so on...) until they made the way around the circle.

Then glue the next layer on top. I tried to get at least one milk jug less than the previous row but did not always succeed (hence the half gallon jugs).

Once I decided that the rows were tall enough for the children to crawl through I began going across the doorway. I was worried there would not be enough support but once it was finished I found it to be very supportive. (Keep in mind I completely COVERED the area with hot glue).