We’ve had an email from Sue:

I have a pile of old placemats and coasters, some with a cork backing and some felt-backed and I just don’t know what to do with them.

I have used a few for my kids to paint and stick on but I’d love some more ideas.

We’ve got a placemat underneath the cats’ food dishes in the kitchen (to stop food spillages/flickages from going all over the floor) but all the other ideas I can come up with – using as drip trays under paint cans or plants – need them to be more tray-like instead of being flat.

So any suggestions?

Last week this little lady –> arrived in my email inbox.

She (I’m presuming she’s a she, from the eyelashes and pink scarf) is the work of Dutch artist Carolien Adriaansche.

Carolien makes all sorts of wonderfully cute creatures out of old rubbish – like our friend here, who has a bleach bottle body as well as her lightbulb head, and the three guys below, who are just so full of personality that it hurts :)

Carolien also uses other plastic bottles – like those thin ones that all purpose cleaner comes in – to make headless beasts.

Using the handles for their ever-quite-gormless mouths, they have drink bottle caps for eyes and ears/horns made out of rubber gloves, plastic coathangers and even toe separators. Very cute.

See more of Carolien’s work on her website – click her name, then anywhere on the pink & blue guys, then her name again and on the big “C” for the galleries.

We’ve had an email from Jacqui:

Any idea what to do with old karate belts? They are around 2m long, very strong and in all different colours. Thanks for any suggestions.

Using them as straps for homemade casual bags springs instantly to mind – but probably only because I was looking for something to serve that purpose last night.

Any other ideas?

(Photo by Sucker)

We’ve had an email from Natalie:

I’ve got a few plastic pots that I don’t know what to do with. They had herbs and ground pepper in so they have shaker tops or one side shaker, one side pour. Any ideas?

We use lots of spices so bulk buy them in bags and refill tubs like that for culinary convenience – so that’s one option.

On a slightly bigger scale, we’ve got a (very clearly marked) old table salt bottle filled with bicarbonate of soda – the bicarb comes in cardboard boxes to start with and the pour function makes it easier to, well, pour and the plastic bottle protects it better from moisture.

Any other suggestions?

Some related posts:

• How can I reuse or recycle old spices?
• How can I made spice jars out of shot glasses?

We’ve had an email from Melanie:

I’ve got a bag of sea shells, whole and broken, I collected from a vacation in Mexico. The shells were interesting at the time, but not any more. I’m looking to give them to somebody who would use them for crafts. I’m already reusing a large shell to hold small miscellaneous items on my desk and being crafty with shells doesn’t appeal to me at this point in time.

I’ve attached a photo of the extra shells I have and a photo of my large “dish” shell (below).

If you specifically want to give them away to be reused, Freecycle might be the best way to go – someone in your local area might love them. Any suggestions on what that crafty person might do with them?

As for other more practical reuses, I suspect we’ll have some overlap with the mussel shells post but anything else Melanie could do with them?

(Heh, I put this in the “packaging” category – because they were sea creature packaging once ;) )