Back in October, John started collecting our used matches in a little dish and I encouraged it because it meant I wasn’t the only person in the house that collected random and strange things for some currently unimagined crafty reuse.

To be fair to John, he did have a plan at the outset – those matches, completely whole just with blackened heads, were going to become stubble on his Jack O Lantern but in the end went for a clean-shaven look and the matches keep accumulating.

They can, of course, be used as kindling for a fire but me being me, I wonder what else can be done with them.

Any crafty ideas? Or practical uses? I’ve seen people using matchsticks as tile spacers – so they could be used for that – but anything else that takes advantage of the burned bit?

(Oh, and if you’re wondering, we covered matchboxes ages ago.)

(Photo by allysonh)

On a random old post, Kinna asked:

how can I use old crayons?

On another random old post, I mentioned a great tutorial I found to melt down old stubs of crayons into fun shapes and someone else mentioned using wax crayons along with old candles to do encaustic painting.

If the crayons are still like new, just, say, an undesirable colour, you could follow in the footsteps of Herb Williams and use them for sculptures: I linked to his work on Things To Do Today a couple of months ago – very cool stuff.

Any other ideas for crayons and the annoying stubs of nearly used-up crayons?

(Photo by itshears)

Travis left a comment on the ‘Suggest An Item‘ page asking:

What can I do with baby food jars?

We’ve featured bigger jars and littler jars in the past but not specifically baby food jars.

Any reuse suggestions then? In particular, any suggestions that will use them en masse (since some families could be getting through a few a day) or baby-related reuses?

Some ideas to get us started: baby food jar candles; very cute baby food jar pincushion-topped sewing kits; and this month’s craft craze, terrariums in jars (mine, when I get around to making it, will star some little dinosaurs).

• How can I reuse or recycle other baby related stuff?

Aside from always useful tshirts or bags, we try to avoid as many promotional items as possible when attending conferences or the like because it’s invariably wasteful junk – but even still, we seem to have ended up with loads of those promotional bottle opener things.

And it’s not just conferences, the last two we got were quietly slipped into our food bag when we were picking up some late night chips – grrr.

We don’t open that many bottles – and a corkscrew or can opener is always closer to hand than a single-use tool – so the little advertisements are just about useless for their intended purpose.

The one in the photo is quite basic so if nothing else, could be thrown in the metal recycling but we’ve got some unnecessarily complex plastic-and-metal ones so not as easily recyclable.

Are they good for anything else other than opening bottles?

We’ve had an email from Flannery, saying:

i would like to suggest : pointe shoes.
i have ten trillion old ones and they’re just hanging around

We’ve already covered shoes in general, Crocs and high-heeled shoes – so there maybe some suggests that’ll apply to these shoes too.

Flannery’s “ten trillion” of them suggests they’ve been worn as much as they can/should be so giving them to, say, beginners or other dancers might not be an option. I suspect like with high-heels and other “pretty” shoes though, they might lend themselves to crafts, especially if they’re “shabby chic” slightly scruffy rather than completely trashed. A display like the one in the picture might be a wonderful decoration for a dancer, former dancer or ballet-fan’s house.

Any particular suggestions or other ideas?

(Photo by crisderaud)