5 Fun and Unusual Ways to Reuse Household Items

Sometimes reusing items in the house isn't about saving money or helping the environment: sometimes it's just pure fun. Coming up with new ways to use old things is a creative process that can be a real blast. Especially when it works! You'll have something real that you can touch and use that others would have thrown away.

Here are a few fun and unusual ways to reuse household items.

1. Make Your Own Sprinkler System

Old garden hose. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Don't throw away your old garden hoses, even if they leak! Instead, seal off one end of the garden hose with cement, melted plastic or glue. Then poke holes throughout the rest of the garden hose.

You now have a soaker hose! Thread this hose throughout your garden and turn on the water. Your new soaker hose will spray water throughout your garden while you barely lift a finger.

2. Make Your Own Fridge Magnets

Instead of throwing away your bottle caps, save them up. Go to your local stationary store or eBay and buy a pack of small magnets.

Then grab your bottle caps and glue the magnet to the back. Congratulations! You now have home-made fridge magnets that look really neat!

There are a lot of things you can use besides bottle caps. Your creativity is the only limitation.

3. Make Your Own Drink Coasters

Do you have old CDs lying around that you'll probably never use? Instead of just throwing them away, why not turn them into unique drink coasters?

There are many ways you can do this. You can paint over them then laminate them. You can melt the surface of the CD to create unique textures. You could sand the surface of the CD in uneven shapes to create an interesting effect.

Don't be afraid to experiment - chances are, you've got a lot of these lying around.

"Ball blue" aqua glass home canning Mason jar. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

4. Make Your Own Lamp

Take your used glass bottles and make your own lamp. From your neighborhood shop, just buy a small light that can be inserted into the bottle. Thread it in, then turn it on.

To get even more creative, you can use a light coating of paint on the outside to change the light's colors. You can use several different colors to create a multi-colored light that'll really impress your friends.

5. Turn Your Shoes into a Playground

Did you know that you can send Nike your old shoes and they'll turn them into a playground? They'll literally take your old shoes and melt them down in a safe way, then use the plastic to build playgrounds.

These are a few fun and creative ways you can reuse household items. Unlike buying a lamp or a soaker hose, you'll get to look at these items and know that YOU made them! You get to express your creativity while feeling the pride that comes with making something new, all while doing good things for the planet.

Five Eco-Crafts For the Kids

Christmas may be over (already!), but Christmas break is not. If the cold winter is keeping you all cooped up inside, why not occupy busy little minds and hands with a few fun crafts projects? Savvy parents know you can turn just about anything into a craft project.  With a little paint, paper towel tubes can become swords or caterpillars.  Shoeboxes can become dollhouses or a little red fire engine.  Why not use everyday throwaway items and turn rainy or snowy afternoons into crafty afternoons?  Here are five eco-crafts the kids can have some fun with during the winter break:  

#1.  Jazzed up origami.  Origami, the Japanese art of folding paper, teaches children to have patience and follow directions, and they can make some pretty amazing projects.  A collection of old magazines or used Christmas wrapping paper can become a star mobile or a lantern or mobile they can hang in their bedroom. You can find lots of fun books full of origami projects online or at your local library. This was one of my favorite hobbies as a kid!

Milk carton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

#2.  A milk carton birdhouse.  You’ll need a clean and dry cardboard milk carton, white glue, tempera or other non-toxic paint, twine, and scissors. 

Glue the top of the carton shut.  Paint carton with paint and let dry.  Cut a 2-inch hole about 4 inches up from the bottom of the container.  This is the bird’s entryway. 

Poke a hole through the top of the feeder, string a piece of twine through the hole and hang your feeder on a tree. Place a bit of birdseed inside container to attract birds.

#3.  Use old socks to make neck warmers.  Fill a ski sock or other large sock with buckwheat and dried lavender.  Sew up the end of the sock and you have a neck warmer.  Pop it in the microwave to heat the buckwheat to soothe sore neck muscles and enjoy the aromatherapy.  Pop the sock into the freezer and place on your neck to use during warm days or to place on injuries to reduce swelling.

#4.  Collect small metal items - cans, bottle caps, bobby pins, buttons, and square spice or other food containers and have your children make their own robots!  You can also use mismatched silverware for their arms.  Plastic lids work well for heads.  You’ll need a good craft glue that can bind metal to metal and plastic to metal.  Old screws, bolts, electrical wire and nuts will add to your child’s imagination.

A glue gun. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

#5.  Old jeans also make a variety of fun projects including a book bag or a notebook cover.  Adults can do the large sewing jobs or for smaller projects, children can sew by hand.  A notebook cover needs to be measured for size, making sure to leave enough overlap that the cover can be closed, cut and hemmed on all sides.  A button fastener can be attached to keep the cover closed. 

Book bags can be made by cutting the seat of the jeans off mid-thigh, cutting through the place where the legs join and then sewing front and back together.  A handle can be created to carry the bag or a zipper can be sewn in the waistband. 

There are literally a thousand craft options to make good use of things you  have lying around the house, or were planning to throw away.  These are just a few ideas to get you started.  Get creative, and have some fun with it!

Making Your Own Bathtub Toys - Thrifty & Fun!

If you are looking for entertaining bath toys for your kids, look no further than your own home. You can make inexpensive bathtub toys easily from everyday objects - with a bit of creativity, you can save some money by reusing or recycling these common objects into fun toys for bath time. Here are a few ideas - some require some craftiness on your part, but many other objects can provide a source of endless fun just as they are!

1. Sailboats

(Photo credit: Uriel 1998)

Here's another way to make use of those plastic water and soda bottles that seem to be everywhere these days. To make a sailboat, here is what you will need:

* Empty plastic water bottle
* Rectangular sponge
* Rubber band
* Scissors
* Drinking straw
* Craft foam or cloth
* Glue

Using the rubber band, attach the sponge to the outside of the bottle. When the bottle is laid on its side in the water, the sponge will absorb enough water to stabilize the boat and keep it from rolling over and over. On the side of the bottle opposite the sponge, poke a hole with scissors. Insert the drinking straw. Then, cut the craft foam or cloth into a triangle. Fold one edge of it around the straw and glue.

2. Funnels
Funnels of all shapes and sizes make wonderful bath toys as they are. Raid your kitchen cabinets.

3. Colanders

Let your kids play with the kitchen colander in the bath. Little ones love to see the water run through the holes.

4. Medicine droppers
Kids love to play with these. They look like syringes without needles. Squirting water out of them is a lot of fun - but be prepared to get wet! The same is true for bulb-shaped nasal aspirators. Make sure it's clean, and then let your child suck up and squirt water in and out of the bulb syringe.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

5. Measuring cups and spoons
These are always popular with kids, especially babies and toddlers. Held together by a ring, measuring spoons can be played with in the tub. So can measuring cups.

6. Plastic dish soap bottles

Your dishwashing liquid bottle can make a great tub toy when it's empty. It's big and easy to squeeze - fill it with bath water and let your kids squirt away.

7. Empty bottles

Big two-liter bottles or smaller ones can be used as is. Babies and toddlers love to watch the water chug and glug as they pour it out.

8. Ice cube trays

Pour "water fountains" up out of the small square compartments of ice cube trays (just pour water into the cubes from a height of a foot or more, and it will spray up like a "fountain"). And the trays are just fun to play with in the tub.

9. Plastic containers

Margarine, whipped topping, yogurt, and other foods come in wonderfully reusable containers of various sizes. Save them and use them in the bath tub - and at the beach they're great for making sand castles!

Video - Eco-Friendly Craft Project - Cereal Box Picture Frames

Here is a fun little craft project for a rainy summer day when the kids are home from school. This one's also good for you scrap-bookers and other crafty types! Turn old cereal boxes and used wrapping paper or old newspapers into unique works of art, and then put pictures in them. It's pretty simple, and you or your kids can embellish the frames with all kinds of neat objects - feathers, leaves, dried flowers, or ribbons and charms as shown in the video.  Get out all your old pictures you've been meaning to frame someday, and have some fun with this one....

Cereal Box Picture Frames: Eco-Friendly Crafts
stylewithasmile.tv I love eco-friendly crafts where I get to upcycle things that would normally go in the trash. Here I transform old cereal boxes into beautiful picture frames.