Perfectly Practical #100 - Egg Cartons

Wow!  This is the perfectly practical tip #100!  I wonder if I have another 100 in me?...

The most obvious use for used egg cartons is to give them to friends who have chickens so that the cartons may be refilled (and hopefully given back to you) with eggs.

Other than that, you could use them in:

• Painting projects with little ones.  Squirt each paint color in a different hole and let the kids go to town.  When they are finished, throw the carton away. 
• Sorting games for littlies.  This is probably better with the Styrofoam cartons since you can wash them out.  Put beads or beans or bolts in a bowl then let the kids tune up their fine motor skills by picking up the little pieces and sorting them into like categories.
• Craft projects.  What better than upside down egg cartons to give a dinosaur costume a scaly stripe down his back?
• Mancala.  Similarly, you could make a homemade mancala game using a clean egg carton and the bits and bobs you just used with your younger child for sorting.
• Jewelry storage.  If you need a place for your rings or earrings to stay together or your necklaces untangled, why not use a clean egg carton in a drawer.   
• Seed starters.  The individual wells of a cardboard carton are perfect for starting seeds.  Once your plant has gotten a toe hold, you can cut off the well with the seedling in it and plant the whole shebang in the ground.    
• Compost or wormery.  Wormeries and compost heaps both need what they call brown materials to keep the pile healthy.  Cardboard counts as brown material and it is easily broken down my microbes and critters.

Oh, and don't forget to enter the giveaway for a copy of both the DVD & book of "Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life."
This is part of Works for Me Wednesday.