Wondering what to do with the cookie tins that are cluttering your corners?

Here are a few fun ideas:

Cookie Tin Organizer

Organized Cookie Tin

Cookie Tin Banjo

Click here for a Banjo how-to.

Cookie Tin Lamp

Cookie Tin Lamps

Find these lamps and more at Crystal Lake Emporium

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You may have a junk drawer full of them or you may have one in nearly every drawer of your house. Old key chains and key fobs from hobby collecting, trade shows, promotions, etc. eventually tend to create clutter. Here are a few create ideas on what to do with them:

1. Attach one that you can write on (those rubbery kind are good) to your camera or smart phone case with your contact information just in case you lose it.
2. Attach to zippers on bags, tents, children’s jackets, etc. as decorative zipper pulls
3. Attach to your child’s soft sided lunch bag to set it apart from similar.
4. Link together or just add to the end of a pull chain for lights, ceiling fans, etc.
5. Hook one to your suitcase to distinguish it from the others … making baggage claim a bit easier. How cool would you be with the Wolverine key chain below on your bag?
6. If appropriate, remove the chain and the ring and use a children’s toy … possibly a dollhouse miniature.
7. For businesses, hook your company’s promo key fob to laptop, projector cases, trade show banner cases, etc. to ID these items when in transport or at show staging areas.

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ForrestConcepts is making the best notbooks by reusing old books.  You can buy them for their store at Etsy.com for prices ranging from $15 to $20.  Every notebook is different, which makes them even better.  As already stated they are available to purchase on line but if you’re the creative type you could probably make your own notebooks from some old books you have sitting around the house.  It looks like you would have to cut the binding off of the book and then add the spiral notebook binding.

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If you’re constantly fighting with all of those computer and ipod cords that are always falling behind your desk and wrapping around your feet RecycleChicken has your solution.

Just take a few of the numerous black clips you have lying around your office and clip them to the back of your desk.  You can not thread each one of those cords hanging around through that metal loops used to pinch the clip open and you have a handy cord keeper.  The best thing is that it is easy to remove the cords and the wires slide easily back and forth when you need to plug your ipod in.

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Turn pretty pie-filling cans into a piece of folk art that doubles as a cooking utensil holder. Bolt three eye-catching blueberry cans to a wooden cutting board with a frame hanger on the back. Display your clever work on the wall near the stove.

No matter how hard you try to keep drawers from collecting junk, they seem to be the vortex of miscellany. Get control over the odds and ends by cleaning a dozen tuna cans and nestling them into a drawer. Each little compartment can store thumbtacks, rubber bands, clips or twist ties. Junk drawer no more!

Corral the clutter in the kids’ room with magnetic tin cans. Hot-glue heavy-duty magnets to 10 soup cans and stick them to a steel cookie sheet. Hang it within kids’ reach using a plate hanger. Use the cups to hold crayons, chalk, markers and even small toys. Label the cans for easy clean-up.

Organize your accessories with a scarf display made of sleek silver cans. Arrange seven soup cans to create a tight circle with one can in the center. Tightly wrap a long sash around the bundle of cans, secure it with a knot at the top, then hang your new organizer on the wall. Each cubby stores a colorful scarf and adds stylish organization to your closet.

Keep the weeds out of the seeds by organizing your potting bench with bright vegetable cans. Choose a brand with gorgeous graphics of tomatoes, corn and green beans, or whatever you plan to plant. A clean-edge can opener creates nicely fitting lids, too, so your seeds will stay high and dry.

Thanks for the great ideas HGTV

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The Green Baby Guide has several suggestions on how to reuse empty baby food jars to create great little gifts as well as ways that you can use the jars around the house to keep yourself and your household a little more organized.  Some of these crafts can be done on a larger scale as well by using larger glass food jars such as salsa, mustard, or jam jars.

• You can make a chair from baby food jars, but it looks pretty complicated.
• The larger jars are the just the right size for homemade jam or jelly.

• If you’re trying to fit healthy eating into your busy holiday schedule this year, use baby food jars for toddler snacks on the go or salad dressing in packed lunches.

• For the project person in your life, baby food lids can be screwed onto a board, equal distance apart, to create a nifty storage system.  It works for the garage, a craft room, or for desk supplies.  For directions, go here.

• They are a great way to package up homemade finger paints or powdered tempera paints as simple stocking stuffers for your tots.

• You can dry herbs from your garden, seal them in the tiny jars, decorate the lids and and use them as gifts.
• If garden grown herbs aren’t readily available, you can make a handy little spice selection for a friend by buying spices in bulk and packaging them up in decorated baby food jars.
• Create a purse-sized sewing kit for busy moms by filling a jar with buttons, safety pins, and a small piece of cardboard wrapped with thread and loaded up with a few needles.
• This site offers an extensive list of crafts that can be done with baby food jars, including tiny gardens, candles, and homemade berry ink.

Thanks Green Baby Guide for the suggestions.

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Preparation

Assuming you’ve already collected a drawer full of empty pill bottles; you’ll need to do a couple of things to prepare them for recycling projects.

• Remove the labels. Nobody needs to know what medications you have been taking.  A citrus based cleaner, some vinegar or a good soapy soaking will usually remove any residue adhesive from those pesky labels.

• Thoroughly wash and dry the pill bottles.

• Sort them by size, color, clarity (but only if you’re really compulsive)

Pill Bottle Uses

1. Pill Cups. Why clutter the dinner table with your pill bottles when you can place your evening dose in a pill cup instead? Pill cups also sit nicely on the breakfast tray. With a trusted set of PVC pipe cutters, you can quickly turn a pill bottle into two easy to use, semi-disposable pill cups. The trick to cutting the bottles in half without shattering them is to apply pressure with the pipe cutters, slowly turn the bottle scoring it until a cut begins, then rachetting down on the cutter to complete the cut.
2. Coin Holders. Tired of rummaging through the ash tray in the car for coins to feed the parking meter? Do you have that “special place” in the bedroom/bathroom that coins pile up when you empty your pockets? Various sized pill bottles will quickly tidy up your coin collection and make it useful! Quarters, nickels, dimes, even pennies sort neatly into most bottles. The larger wide mouth bottles are great for dumping handfuls of change.
3. Rubber bands. Make recycling your rubber bands even easier by cleaning out that kitchen drawer and putting them into a pill bottle. Then, next time you need one, it will be easy to find! This works pretty well for hair bands in the bathroom too.
4. Tackle Box. You could become the uber-recycler and create your own fishing floats from the empty bottles by devising some clever way to attach your line to the bottle. Be careful poking holes in the bottle though because they’ll fill up with water and maybe sink. Of course, if you figured out the clever way to attach the line and then filled them with sand, they’d be weights great for bottom fishing (and lead free!). Less engineering is necessary, however, to use the pill bottles to hold sinkers, swivels, loose hooks, small lures, fishing flies, and the like. Pretty much anything in the tackle box that originally came in a flimsy plastic bag can be repacked and neatly labled in a pill bottle. A large, wide-mouth pill bottle can be recycled into pocket tackle boxes with a little planning. Extra fishing line can be wrapped around a cut-down popcycle stick or wrapped around the outside of the pill bottle
5. Toothpick dispensers. Tired of that half-empty toothpick box spilling it’s contents all over the cabinet every time you pick it up? Take a pill bottle long enough to hold the toothpicks with the cap on. Carefully drill a hole in the cap to shake a toothpick out when you need it.
6. Toolbox Organizers. Washers, small screws, extra drill or screwdriver bits all seem to get misplaced when you really need them. Pop them into a pill bottle and they can’t escape.
7. Arts & Craft Organizers. Sort beads,glitter, sequins, googly eyes, dangles and doodads to keep them organized and handy. The rule of thumb is that if it comes in a plastic bag, it’s going to get lost. Pill bottles are geenrally clear enough to see through so you might not even need to label them.
8. Arts & Crafts Projects. Schools, youth groups and kids with proper parental supervision can reuse empty pill bottles (and film canisters) in a variety of arts and crafts projects. A quick search of the World Wide Web yields a variety of plans and ideas. Key Word Search: film canister and pill bottle crafts
9. Pocket Sewing Kit. Pins, safety pins, needles, and a few buttons easily fit into a small pill bottle and can be slipped into your pocket, purse, glove box or backpack. Various color threads can be wrapped around a piece of popcycle stick.
10. Recycle Them! “Wait!” you say, “They’re not made out of the right plastic to dump them in my blue recyling bin.” Sadly, most municipal recycling programs can’t or won’t recycle pill bottles (number 5 plastics). But all is not lost! RecycleChicken has several listings of recycling programs in Michigan that take #5 plastics as well as pill bottles specifically.  Local charitable service organizations may collect the empty pill bottles for medical missions to poorer countries where they are acceptable. Finally, ask your pharmicist if they participate in an empty pill bottle program of any type.

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The Mode All-in-One Recycling Center is your solution to cluttered bins around your kitchen or garage. It is about the same size as a trash can, looks sleek and stylish, and holds up to 17 gallons of recyclable material.  RecycleChicken loves this product because it makes it easy for the whole family to recycle and stay organized while doing so.  It takes up very little space but has a large enough capacity that you can empty it once a week. With two separate compartments for bottles and cans along with a drawer for paper, keeping your recycling organized has never been easier.  The Recycling Center can be purchased at select Williams-Sonoma, Bloomingdales, and Bed, Bath and Beyond as well as Amazon and Mode Products; according to GreenPress.com.

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Here is a collection of storage containers produced by IKEA that are both attractive and handy for storing all of those recyclable household items.  There are many different options available for storing all things recyclable, while still keeping your home clean and organized. Organization being key for those of us in small apartments and homes with limited space.  Get creative with your home recycling center today and make recycling an easier task every day.

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