We’ve had an email from Cathy:

Please give me ideas about how to recycle a bird cage. I don’t have childen though I think it could be used to store stuffed animals? Now it is holding old video tapes. Thank you for your help.

I saw a pretty ornate one going cheap (unintentional bird pun, sorry) in a charity shop last year and was tempted to buy it to use as a “hanging basket” type thing for my growing collection of spider plants. I thought it would look nice in our turquoise bathroom – the white of the cage, the green of the plant and the plantlet shoots hanging down. I didn’t buy it in the end but I still think it would have been cute.

If it had been a bigger, less ornate one, I might have been tempted to buy it for the garden for, say, sweet peas or beans or the like. A clear plastic sheet over it would make an impromptu greenhouse to start with and when the plants had got big enough, take that off then the plants can use the wire sides for support as grow.

Any other ideas?

(Photo by bradimarte)

We’ve had an email from Renee, saying:

I use a lot of glue runner, and I want to know how I can reuse the cartridges/tape.

I’m more of a textile-based crafter than a paper one so I didn’t know what “glue runner” is – but after looking at the picture Renee sent over and a little of investigation around the web, I think it’s double-sided sticky tape on a cartridge for easy use (because double-sided tape is usually a right pain to work with) — please correct me if I’m wrong.

(I also wonder if this is what Jen was asking about back in February…)

So any suggestions?

Over the last week or so, we’ve had just about a bazillion (ok, about 130) brilliant comments and suggestions from Gulia (thanks Gulia!) and if that wasn’t enough, she’s also sent a clever idea over too for something we haven’t featured yet:

I take hanging file folder and straighten it . Then I glue on it a poster, picture , interesting fabric or a group of photographs.

Finally, I knock two nails into a wall, and hang my creation with plastic edges that stick out.

My last-but-one place of work used to have loads of suspension files, well, hanging about which wouldn’t be used again because they were the wrong size for all our filing cabinets – and I’m sure they’re is far from unique, so this is a great idea to use them up. Sticking in the office environment, you could glue/staple large corner mounts on it and use it as a pin-free noticeboard.

Any other suggestions of things to do with them?

Nigel, who uses old audio tapes for community health projects, has put this request on the audio cassette tape page and I thought it was worth featuring more prominently:

Hi everyone, I am now after any old 8mm film reel or any old and unwanted home movie footage on video or film.

Also any old photo slides as we need them for a film project we are doing but it has to be your images such as old family stuff as we cannot use any copy written stuff.

Doesn’t matter what of and from where as we will use bits if you know what I mean.

Send to me at ACT,West House, Lombard Street West, West Bromwich, West Midlands B70 8EG.

So if you’ve got some stuff hanging around, send it over ;)

(Photo by bop)

We’ve had an email from Iain Porter in which he tells us about the wonder of banana boxes from supermarkets for moving houses:

Supermarkets appear to be more than happy to give away boxes. I made a trip each morning of our packing and got about 20 Banana Boxes – big enough without becoming too heavy, rectangular for neat storage, with optional lids – perfect.

Indeed they are – last time I moved house (about eight years ago now, cor! that’s ages!) I used them and we used another load when helping a friend move earlier this year. With the lids, they’re really quite strong so ideal when the movees are booklovers like we are or when they need to be stacked for storage during transit.

But when, about two years after moving in, I finally finished unpacking all my books, I didn’t really know how to reuse the boxes so just recycled the cardboard – but Iain has an idea for that too:

Rather than buy stylish new boxes from Ikea for storing jumpers etc., we covered the banana boxes with nice recycled paper for cheaper, friendlier, and even nicer results!

(And because there are ventilation holes in the side, the clothes etc. shouldn’t get as musty or moldy as they would in a more sealed box.)

I’d tempted to get some for use on top of our wardrobes for our out-of-season clothes and might decorate them with the same wallpaper and paint as the bedroom for camouflage-a-go-go.

Any more ideas for ways to reuse them?