5 Odd Items You Can Repurpose

We all accumulate odd items and wonder how to reuse or recycle them. After all, it seems like a waste to throw away a perfectly good item if it can be repurposed into something useful.

Here are five ways to repurpose odd items that you might not have even considered reusing:

1. Film canisters: Digital cameras are great, but I have a soft spot for old-fashioned film cameras. The film canisters are useful for storing small objects like coins, buttons, medications, or bobby pins. I always have a film canister full of quarters in my car for parking meters or toll roads.
2. Coffee cans: Coffee cans make great pencil holders—just cover them with contact paper or spray paint first. If you fill one up with some inexpensive pencils or pens, it also makes a creative gift for teachers.
3. Candles: Save old candles and melt down the wax to create new candles (you just need a mold and a wick). My grandfather went through a phase where he collected everyone’s old candles for this purpose.
4. Pie tins: My mom is a teacher and uses old pie tins to mix paint for art projects. Pie tins are inexpensive, sturdy, and can be cleaned off and reused.
5. Socks: There are a few ways to reuse old socks. You can use them for an art project, for cleaning, etc. My mom uses them as whiteboard/chalkboard erasers in her classroom.

How do you repurpose odd items?