Recycling Tips

Aluminum Foil

• Save, cut into tiny pieces (using a paper cutter), and use for whenever you need glitter.
• Flatten, wash and store used foil. Reuse at a later time.

Archery Arrows

• Use to tie up plants for support.
• Replace plastic "feathers" and arrow tips if the arrow is still useable.

Automotive Floor Mats

• Use as a floor mat for leaky containers in the garage or basement.
• Use as a boot tray for inside your house.
• Place clean mats next to a kitty litter box to keep the litter from being tracked all over the house.
• Put a carpeted floor mat in a pet cage (like a cat-carrying case) as a durable and soft place for your pet to nap.
• Spread across the tailgate of your truck to protect it while your dogs are getting into and out of the truck.
• Put them on top of the carpeting inside your vehicle to protect it from wet and muddy dogs.
• Take with you when you go on a picnic.
• Put them on a picnic table bench if it's wet from rain or dew or on the ground if no benches are around.
• Place plastic mats under pet water/food dishes to catch spills.

Balls

• Using a long string, hang a ball from the garage ceiling indicating where a new driver should stop the car. (Hitting it won't do any damage to the car and it will prevent the driver from hitting something else.)
• Give soccer balls, footballs, tennis balls, etc. to dogs for chew toys.

Carpet

• Place in the back of an enclosed truck or van.
• Cut into small squares or circles and place under the feet of heavy furniture.
• Place carpet remnants at doors to catch mud and water.
• Use as summer floor mats in cars.
• Take with you when cabin camping to keep the dirt/snow out of your home.
• Cut into strips wide enough to fit between the rows in your garden.
• This will minimize weeds and create real indoor/outdoor carpeting.

Chalkboard

• Use for leaving messages to family members.
• Donate to a children's shelter.

Christmas Lights

• String around your child's room and use as a nightlight.
• Make into a decoration by removing the burned out miniature bulbs from the plastic encasement and twisting the wires of several bulbs together with the bulbs forming a circle. If done right, this can look like a colorful star or snowflake.
• Remove the miniature bulbs from the plastic encasements. Let children string the plastic pieces together with thread to make jewelry.
• Remove the plastic coating on the wire and use the wire for twisties.

Clocks

• Remove some of the gizmo's from inside and mount onto a pin back with a hot glue gun. Wear it as jewelry.
• Use a cuckoo clock as a birdfeeder.
• Use clocks with hands for teaching kids how to tell time.
• Take off the hands (and anything else that sticks out) and use as a picture frame by cutting a picture to the correct shape and size, and slipping it between the glass and the clock face.
• If it is a clock with a picture built into it, leave it up for decoration.

Clothes Hangers

• Make wire hangers into seasonal wreaths by bending it into a circle and then glueing on seasonal items, such as leaves in the fall.
• Use for storing the plastic eggs that you hang on the tree.
• Use for making a child's mobile.
• Return clothes hangers to the dry cleaners so they can reuse them. Some companies will provide cardboard storage containers.
• Bend a wire clothes hanger until the ends touch downwards. Tie strips of fabric all around the hanger and use as a duster. Leave the handle bare or wrap with scraps of yarn.

Compact Discs

• If they can still be used, give them to friends or sell them back to stores who deal in used CD's.
• If they are scratched and can no longer be used, hang them from your wall. They make for funky interior decorating.
• Use as reflectors.
• Use as coasters.
• Place a watch in the center and hang it on the wall for a funky clock.
• Tie mono filimant fishing line to a CD and hang it in your fruit tree. It will keep the birds from eating all of the fruit.

Cookie Cutters

• Give to the kids and let them use when playing with playdoh.
• Hang on kitchen walls for decorations.
• Hang Christmas cookie cutters from the Christmas tree.
• Give to kids as templates for tracing on paper.
• Children can dip in paint and then press onto paper to make art.
• Hang from a clothes hanger to make a child's mobile.
• Hang outside from a coffee can to make a windchime.

Cotton From Aspirin Bottles

• Use for "snow" in train sets.
• Use as the center for your custom-made bows.

Curtains

• If they are in good condition, donate to a local charity.
• Heavy curtains can be used as a drop cloth when painting.
• Larger curtains can be used to cover a pool table, excercise equipment, etc.
• Heavy curtains can be used for lining the trunk of your car when transporting dirty stuff.