Perfectly Practical #7 - Coffee Filters

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The lowly coffee filter has so many uses (and one really really important one) that I thought it definitely deserved a moment of pause. 

Besides the blazing obvious filtering of my precious er, um coffee, and all of the numerous children's crafts that can be made with them (so I am told, crafting breaks me out in hives) coffee filters have multitudes of possibilities. 

For instance:

• Photographers can use them to diffuse light for a nicer picture. 
• They make excellent strainers for the crumbles when filtering your grease into a jar, the same goes for filtering out lavender buds when making syrup, cork from a bottle of wine, soil from a potted plant, or solids from soup stock. 
• Use them as compostable dishes, as a cover in the microwave, a container for chopped foods to be weighed, or for dry goods in baking, taco holders, or a spoon rest. 
• How about using coffee filters in the bathroom as strips for eyebrow waxing, to stop a nick from bleeding, or to remove fingernail polish. 
• In other parts of the house, coffee filters can be dish separators, lint free window cleaners, shoe polishers, sewing backing, odor absorber (when used with baking soda in shoes), ornament storage wrappers, blotting paper, or to sprout seeds in the fridge when placed in a plastic baggie.   
• They are great for protecting cast iron from rust; just place the filter in the skillet to absorb moisture.  
• Have little people who like popsicles?  Poke a hole through a coffee filter with the stick and let it soak up the drippy sticky goo. 
• You can even use them as doilies in a pinch. 

What an inexpensive and useful product - truly perfectly practical.   

Part of Works for Me.