“What are you doing?”
“I’m putting this away.”
“By why???”
Ok so my little stash of plastic scoops may be a little odd to some people, but to me it makes perfect sense. I’ve been saving the plastic scoops that come with the laundry powder for a long time because they are useful, they are useful for play.
It’s not just plastic scoops that I stash in the cupboard to use one day, I save all kinds of other recyclables to use for art, or play, or learning.
Doesn’t everyone??
If you are new to the idea saving things for play, or you’re wondering what to do with all the stuff you’ve already crammed into your art and craft cupboard, I’ve got you covered. Here’s my ultimate list of 35 things to save for play, and a whole heap of ideas for how to reuse or recycle these items for art, crafts, play and learning.
I’ve shared a couple of ideas for each item, with links to awesome some bloggers with great ideas and information. Of course there are lots more things you can do with all these items, use your imagination or simply give your collection over to your kids and see what they come up with!
Make sure all the recycled items you collect are clean and safe for play. Be especially aware of small parts that may come loose if you are using them with small children who put things in their mouth.
35 Things to Save for Play!
Bottle Caps – Make a colour matching game, or some letter and number caps. Make bottle cap stamps or a cool bottle cap mobile.
Cardboard Tubes – Make a sculpture, or use them for painting and printing. Make a marble run or make a kazoo.
Small Plastic Containers – save small containers for use as storage, for paint pots, to make a shaker or plant some seeds.
Large Plastic Containers – big containers with lids are great for storage, make a posting box for toddlers, or connect four together and use them for sensory or imaginative play.
Plastic and Cardboard Packaging – this often comes in weird and wonderful shapes, use it for imaginative play, for colourful water play or some printing art.
Large Plastic Lids – large plastic lids make great paint palettes, or make some sewing cards, or these funky sun catchers.
Old Markers – even the ones that seem totally dried out can be used to make ‘marker paint’, or you could use the caps to make a skipping rope, or as beads for threading.
Bubble Wrap – use it for printing and painting, or sensory play. Make bubble wrap hop scotch, or just stick it to the floor and jump!
Small and Medium Plastic Bottles – The kind you get from soft drink (soda) or bottled water. Make sensory bottles, or a fun water wall. You can even use them to make a windsock or jewelry.
Large Plastic Bottles – like milk jugs and detergent bottles. Make a simple scoop for sand or water, make a catching game, or save enough and make a cubby house/fort.
Styrofoam Trays – use them for paint (they are the perfect container if you are using a roller), for making prints, or for beginners sewing and embroidery.
Foam Pieces – Use a large flat piece as a base for imaginative play, use various shapes and sizes for construction and sculpture, or grate it up and make homemade floam.
Large Tins or Coffee Cans – Paint or cover them and cans make great storage. Or you could make some stilts or even paint with them
Greeting Cards – the fronts of old cards are great for collage and cutting practice. You can recycle them into gift tags or book marks, or make sewing cards out of them.
CDs and DVDs – These make a great addition to imaginative play or block play. They’re also great for craft – make a wind spinner or use CD cases to make stained glass art.
Corks – You can use these as game counters, or make a cute little cork creature, or some cork bunnies.
Cereal Boxes – cut the sides off and these make the perfect base for collage and lots of other craft projects. They are great for box construction, building and creating, make this cereal box parking garage or a cereal box paper organiser or a window easel.
Old Computers and Other Electronics – Keep your old keyboards for awesome dramatic play, you can also pop the individual keys off to use for loose parts or letter learning, but the best thing to do with old appliances is to have fun taking them apart!
Eye/Medicine Droppers – These are great for fine motor and art activities. Set up an eye dropper activity tray, do some dropper painting, or try this fine motor water drop activity.
Magazines and Junk Mail – They provide a never ending supply of images to cut and paste, or for crafting or try one of these junk mail ideas.
Newspaper – You’ll need lots of newspaper to cover your work surface before anything messy, but you can also paint on it for beautiful results, print with it, or build with it.
Egg Cartons – make a kinda freaky egg carton mask, use them for maths learning, or make a jewelry box!
Cardboard Boxes – collect them all, big and small! Use a big one to make a town, or a tunnel. Use a medium sized one for imaginative play, or to make a play kitchen. Use a smaller one to make a tugging box for toddlers or this cool marble maze for older kids.
Fabric Scraps – great for collage, and for imaginative play, or use them for weaving, or make these cute scrap fabric dolls.
Old Pots Pans and Kitchen Utensils – Use these in the sandpit, with play dough, with finger paint, for water play, or paint with them.
Buttons – use them for sorting, counting, or loose parts play, or make a button ring!
Icy-pole/Popsicle Sticks – Use them to make an amazing sculpture, or magnet sticks, or a ‘paintsicle’, or a ‘stixplosion’!
Straws – Use them for threading, make amazing constructions, or blow powered rockets.
Screws, Nuts, Bolts, and Fasteners – perfect for lots of fine motor fun, make magnetic robots, or print with them..
Plastic Bags – great for storage, or covering the work surface, but you can also use them to make a kite, a tutu for dressing up, or make a plastic bag collage.
Plastic Mesh and Mesh Bags – this makes an interesting collage material and leaves great imprints on play dough or clay, or use it to make these simple mesh paint dabbers, or for beginner sewing.
Wood Scraps and Off Cuts – Add wood scraps to play dough, or make glued wood sculptures, or find lots more ideas for creating and using wood here.
Jars – Awesome for storage of course, but you could also make a lantern, a nebular jar, a tornado in a jar, or even butter!]
Plastic Scoops and Spoons – Find them in laundry powder, or powdered drinks. They are great for water play, in the sand pit, for sensory play, especially with sand or seeds, and scooping and transferring activities.
Packing Peanuts – The type that are made from plant starch are great for creating and collage. They are great in a sensory tub or try one of these fun ideas.
What would you add to this list?
What do you stash away in the cupboard because you just know it will be fun or useful one day?
Or perhaps you have some great ideas for how to use some of these recycled items?
Leave me a comment below and let me know what great things you save for play.
Marita says
I have a huge collection of syringes. We get a new one each month for the girls medicine to measure it out.
Also I have so many yogurt containers stashed away I no longer know what to do with them all… perhaps build a fence around our house.
Tracey says
Cardboard rolls (except the toilet rolls)! The possibilities are endless!
Debs says
I also keep shower sponges when they’ve done their dash in the shower. Any little foil dishes (like ones that come on tarts or pies etc) and plastic divided containers and trays (like ones that held mini muffins etc). I save milk bottle lids like they’re going out of fashion.. you should see how many of those colourful little things I have and paper tubes from our cling wrap etc as I prefer to use them over toilet paper rolls. Annnnnd, all the stuff you collect as well! haha I try to limit myself to one (ok…2) large tubs of recycled goods and if they can’t fit in there then it’s time to stop collecting for a little while till we’ve used some more stuff.
oooh, and not for play but just for me, I save Moccona Jars as they are fabulous for storing all your craft supplies and other bits and bobs. Great list and uses. Thanks for sharing :)
Julia Deering says
He he. Yup. I’m one of the collectors too! I was amused by some fantastic air-pocket packaging – perfect for play – that came with something we’d had delivered which had the text ‘THIS IS NOT A TOY’ on it. Errrr – I beg to differ!
Vicki @ Knocked Up & Abroad says
Ah! Loved this! Thanks for sharing as I have a few more collectors ideas now. I keep toilet rolls and milk lids also… cos ya never know when they will be useful for crafting!
Tahlia @ the parenting files says
you are constantly inspiring me kate. thankyou. there is so much fun to have with everyday items! x
Kate@LaughingKidsLearn says
My husband thinks I’m mad with all the things I collect. He is always saying to me, “Now really, what are you going to do with THAT?”. I am pleased to say that I always surprise him because there are so many uses for the things we would ordinarily throw away.
Great post. Thank you.
jackie says
You are not alone! I save everything! Containers, tissue paper, the mesh that produce comes in, inserts from chocolate boxes… you name it. If there is even a remote possibility that I can use it in a future craft or activity, I hang on to it!
lisa says
I save liquid laundry lids, all plastic lids for art, lids to old markers and all little kidmeal toys, vbs toys and other odd items to put into the sensory table. Use the color marker lids for sorting, counting and color identification. Sometimes when the kids need something “more” I toss them around on the playground and the little ones find certain colors and the older kids count.
Juanita Hunt says
I save all kinds of bottle tops and lids. They are great for sorting, making mosaics by putting glue in the caps then beads. I use them for painting too. We made planet paintings this year when we studied outer space. You can also glue things on the top and use them for stamping or playdoh. I love the laundry detergent or fabric softener ones. You can use them for paint cups.
I also collect ribbon, fabric, yarn, pinecones, rocks, newspaper (great for making hats, painting on, finding letters or words, covering the art table). You name and I collect it. My co-teacher calls me a hoarder.
MONIQUE says
So good to know I am not alone……..enough said I collect some of all the mentioned in your post and in the comments and I don’t even have a preschooler anymore (but some of those things have come in handy for other projects and will in the future as well) so preschooler or not we all tend to collect “odd” crafting supplies?
diane says
The thinner sides of cereal boxes are useful, too. I find them good for scissor cutting practice since the stiff cardboard is easier for little hands to manipulate and they are narrow so are cut through in only a few snips.
I also save plastic Chinese food take out containers to store cardboard puzzles in once their flimsy boxes fall apart.
Frozen dinner dishes are perfect for paints, holding crayons and other supplies for individual children. Yogurt cups can be used as paint cups at the easel, tiny planters, temporary vases for posies picked on the playground…I agree with what’s been said before: the uses are limitless, bound only by one’s imagination!
Denise says
I save powder stain remover tubs with lids. Covered with contact paper they are great for storing small manipulatives or playdough. Individual applesauce cups and any other similar size plastic cups are great for glue or paint or for putting small amounts of items for collages. Plastic fruit baskets, plastic jars with lids, baby food jars, plastic lids of all sizes, the list goes on and on…
Anna says
I adore to bring paper stuff from cafes such as cups and dishes, sticks from ice cream and other things. Paper cups are my favourite, we like to play like angrybirds with them. I have them in different colours and sizes. Thank you for posting and pinterest for sharing
Niamh Bevan says
Tracy is right, the possibilities are endless. The Kitchen mostly but all other rooms of the house included, the amount of used up household goods that can still find a use as play items is boundless. The more we look the more we find which I find consoling in some ways because it means that nothing is really disposable.
Cazzie Peacock says
Thanks for the great ideas – I also collect things that you can make rainmakers. Pisatchio nut hulls are my favourite at the moment :)
Mary Catherine says
Oh yes, I am a saver too! ;) Between my son and my preschool students, everything I save gets used one way or the other. Right now, we’re saving those pouch caps because my students have them in their lunches often!
Lacey says
I have a question about all of this … I see oodles of potential for saving these things, but I invariably throw them out because I don’t know how or where to store it without it becoming an enormous clutter, mess and “I can’t deal with this” issue. Suggestions? I am not a neat freak and not a naturally tidy person, so my response has always been to throw as much out as possible, to help keep on top of my already untidy tendencies.
katepickle says
You know I think it’s really a good idea to chuck stuff away if it is stressing you. I have a a big plastic box with a lid where I store stuff like this and when that gets full it’s time to either stop saving, use something, or chuck stuff out! But I also think you could save for a particular reasons – rather than just saving everything on this list, think of an activity you really want to do and just save stuff for that. Then you have a reason for having the junk, and it’s for a shorter time – once you’d done the activity it’s gone.
Andrea P says
So so glad I’m not the only person that saves all this stuff! My daughter and I make some sort of arts and crafts project almost daily and I find endless ways to use the things up. My husband hates that I “hoard” it all and says it’s my schizophrenia setting in. Thanks for all the amazing ideas I hadn’t thought of yet!
Cindy says
Toilet Paper rolls!!! I am an aide in a special ed. preschool. Cutting needs to be fun and have a purpose. First we let them cut it all they wanted. Next time we only cut part way to make hair and then we made faces on them. Now we make them into monsters – hair cut, face, pipe cleaners, whatever else.
Every time we talk about how we can cut the hair on the toilet paper roll, but not our own. Saved one mother for an unwated hair cut, but toilet paper all over the bathroom.