(TP) Cores for Curtains

I'm always amazed at the creative ideas you can find for reuse. And when you're feeling blocked, just look to community groups for inspiration. 

Since trying to reduce my waste, when I can't prevent it from entering my home, I've started saving more and more categories of materials for reuse. This includes the cardboard tubes that serve as cores for your TP. While I've reduced some, courtesy of a bidet in one bathroom, I still managed to collect a few dozen throughout the last year or so. (Especially with going out less - thanks, COVID!) 

And despite a few craft projects of my own:

Cat Scratcher

Snowflake and Poinsettia decorations

they were still piling up.

Fortunately, on one of my local groups, someone put out a request for TP rolls! Curious what they were going to do with "at least a dozen", they came back with two responses 

Curtain spacers. If you have this style of curtains, you can slide a roll over the curtain rod between the grommets. This leaves a nice even spacing between the folds of the curtain, rather than leaving them bunched up to one side, and the roll is fully concealed behind the curtain. How clever! I don't have this style of curtains, so it was awesome to hear an idea from someone else who had it as a tried and true solution. 

Fire starters. Do you have a wood burning fireplace or firepit? Stuff a roll with some dryer lint or a little paper recycling, and you have a little perfect bundle to light under your logs. Some folks recommend adding a little leftover candle wax too.

Ultimate lesson here: there's indefinite ways to reuse these, and sometimes your trash is someone else's treasure. And you may just pick up some new tricks from a neighbor. 

Making Lemonade from Garage Scraps

My guess is that many of you can relate to a garage pile like this, am I right? Scraps of wood leftover from various projects, with the thought that some day you'd need a replacement piece, or just in case? (Just in case, what?)

And likely, you also have several cans of paint filling a shelf, left over from interior or exterior projects, just sitting there, separating into solids and liquids? 

Time to put those leftovers to good use!

We were sitting around one holiday weekend this summer, thinking it would be nice to have some outdoor games. Less competitive that cards, and less physical effort than kayaking. :) 

Shopping online, we saw that giant Jenga games started at $45 ($100 for Jenga brand!), supersize Connect 4 started at $70, and cornholes aka beanbag toss also started at $70 but could easily approach $200 depending on design. 

We were hesitant to spend a lot of money, especially if we didn't know how often folks would want to play. 

In comes all the scraps of would and paint just lying around. We decided we could easily make a pair of cornhole boards for free! And if we ended up just playing with them a few times, so big loss. My mom researched patterns for making the boards, and we gathered the fam for a construction project. 

Step 1: Gather your materials. We needed: 

• two 4' x 2' sheets for the faces of the boards
• 24' long of 1"x4" boards for the sides (or similar) 
• ~ 5' of 1"x6" board for the legs
• at least 2 colors of exterior paint, or interior paint and varnish
• ~ 40 screws
• tape measure
• saw (We used a table saw, skilsaw, and reciprocating saw. You could use a handsaw if you have more patience.)
• screwdriver or power drill/driver

Note: If you don't have all the materials, you may have success on Buy Nothing or Freecycle, and for tools, check out your local tool library. 

Step 2: Cut your wood and lay out the sides next to the face, to make sure you've cut everything right, and it all lines up. For the frame pieces, if you make the long sides 4', you need to make the short sides a couple inches shorter than 2' to accommodate for the width of the wood. Ex. if your wood is 1" thick, the short side should be 18" long.

Step 3: Screw the 4 sides of your frame together. It helps if you have a second set of hands for this project. Here, T is holding the wood steady for Uncle B, while Dad "supervises".

 

 

Step 4: Screw the face board to the frame and screw on the legs. Note: I gave approximate measurements for the leg boards because there are many different leg designs. We went with a simple fixed leg, while many designs had fold-flat legs.

 

 

Step 5: Cut a round hole for the bean bags to to be tossed into. This should be 6" in diameter. Turns out a spackle bucket was a perfect size to trace for an easy circle shape!

 

 

Step 6: Paint your boards. We went with white (house trim color) for one, and grey (house main color) for the other, so we would have contrasting boards for competing teams. In a future painting phase, we'll add beach-themed designs, like whales and dolphins, in the opposite color.

Step 7: Let dry, then play!

You do want to plan a few days for this project, depending on the time you have available. Ours will ultimately take 3 sessions on 3 different days. Day 1: wood construction and first paint coat. Day 2: second paint coat. Day 3: accent paint or fun designs.

 

While you're waiting for the paint to dry, don't forget you need bean bags! Since they're small, these can easily be made from fabric scraps from other projects, worn out clothes/sheets/tablecloths, or thrifted fabric.

Now we have a fun outdoor game to play, that was free to make ($70 savings!). Not only that, but it was a fun family activity to build the boards too. 

Here's to the last few weeks of summer!