Frugal Friday - Repurposing Containers

Aren't these cute?  They're leftover liquid creamer bottles that a friend gave to me filled with mocha mix (L) and cocoa mix. It's a little hard to see in the picture, but the mocha is beautifully layered too! The container on the left was decorated with that self-stick ribbon available in craft stores.  The one on the right, curling ribbon and candy canes (for stirring the cocoa of course!).  Her co-workers drink a lot of creamer in the breakroom at work so she saved the containers (with permission of course), brought them home, washed them and filled them with homemade cocoa, mocha and trail mix for Christmas gifts!  Genius!  And let me tell you - so handy!  Just pour and you're ready to stir!

Making myself some cocoa this afternoon (and it's a very snowy, stay-inside kinda afternoon here!), made me think about re-purposing containers.  We seem to do that a lot around here.  Baskets and boxes get moved around as needed.  As do bookshelves.

But it's the 'unconventional' things that are the most special!

*  We cut a pasta box down to make a small "magazine file" style box to hold my son's trading cards.
* Old wipes boxes hold markers and crayons.
* A lemonade mix container holds colored pencils.
* Baby food containers (the plastic kind) are used for mixing tempera paints.
* They're also used for holding beads and sequins
* A glass candle container (with lid) holds all my buttons.
* Metal cookie tins hold sewing supplies.
* A compartmentalized cardboard box from stationary holds my daughters' hair clips.
* Film canisters (from the days of our film cameras) hold picture hooks, screws, and nails.
* TP tubes got painted, cut in half and glued together to make a Bakugan "house"
* A laundry detergent container got cut down to make a bird seed scoop.
* A second one was cut down to make a scoop for the sand box
* The kids use old flower pots to hold weeds when we're weeding (and they don't look so bad if they're left in the middle of the yard either!).
* I use extra plastic shopping bags to organize my deep freeze (like items in each bag)
* Zipper top bags with a hole in them are used as piping bags for icing by snipping off one corner.

Wow!  That's what I can think off the top of my head.  What can you think of?  I'd love to hear!

For more Frugal Friday, see Life As Mom!