When you’re pregnant, you want to buy every pretty thing you see in the shops for your new baby, but once the baby’s born and begins to grow, you realize how quickly he outgrows all those items you bought with so much care.
Some Mothers think nothing of reusing baby jars, puzzles, shoe boxes, etc, but others find crafters or bloggers with ways to re-purposing them. If you too would like to repurpose your baby’s things into useful household items, why not check out this list:
Crafters to Upcycle Baby Stuff
Piggy Bank or Pencil Holder
As a new mother, you’re sure to have umpteen formula cans. If you still have them, you can make piggy banks or vases or pencil holders out of them. All you need to do is to wrap the jars in attractive and brightly colored paper, give it a trimming of ribbon and make a slit in the lid for coins.
Votive Candles
Yet another use for baby food jars. You can make votive candles out of baby food jars and gift them as party favors. To create this wonder, cut small squares of red, white and blue tissue paper. Make a thin-ish glue by mixing one part of thick glue with an equal part of water. Brush a layer of this glue on the inside of the jar. Lay a sheet of tissue paper along the inside wall of the jar and your votive candle is ready.
Desk Organizer
Keeping your kids’ craft supplies is never easy, so it helps to have color-coded spaces for markers, pencils and crayons. To make a desk organizer from a series of baby food jars, place the jars in a pan and mask them. Instead of painting them, stick them with glue. Spray paint them to cover the pan. Now, choose the colors you want for the inside of the jars. Since these will take very long to dry, invert them so they stand on their heads and wipe off all excess paint with a paper towel.
Now, turn them on their sides. Now, keep rotating them every few hours so that the excess paint, if any, gets distributed inside the jar. When fully dry, remove the masking from the bottom of the pan and stick the jars to the bottom of the pan.
Play Wagon
How do you convert an old baby’s crib into a wagon for kids? Having one would be extremely useful for a picnic or to take your older kids to the park in. By adding a swinging door with a latch, your tot won’t fall out while you have fun in the outdoors and be stress-free too.
Bug-Catching Jars
Use construction paper, some pipe cleaners and googly eyes to transform your baby food jars into bug catching jars. Not only are they bug catching jars but they are also eye-catching.
Hanging bed swing
All you need to convert your baby’s crib into a hanging bed swing is the crib’s bed frame and some strong chains to keep it locked to a ceiling joist for a hanging bed swing.
Home office desk
This is an incredibly easy item of furniture to make from a baby’s crib. All it needs is a robust glass top and transform one of the railings of the crib to serve as a shelf for a smart and elegant desk.
Home Spa Gifts
You can make homemade spa treatments for close friends by re-purposing baby food jars. Use them to package the treatments you want to gift and see just how perfect they look, particularly if you add a label and a brightly-colored lid.
To make the jars, remove the lids and spray paint them and on the sides and allow them to dry. Then, print your labels for each jar. Now, make your spa treatment and fill it up in each jar. And, now, wrap a pipe cleaner on the outside of each jar. Alternatively, you can tie each jar with a pretty coloured ribbon. Lastly, label each jar and your gifts are ready.
Spring Memo Board
A crib can also be re-purposed by making a spring memo board which can be used to put up necessary lists, messages, photos, etc. To make this memo board, create a wood frame and wrap it with fabric. Use pins to secure photos since the crib spring is made of metal. So, you can stick magnet sheets behind each photo to keep them securely in place.
Conclusion
With a little imagination and the use of everyday supplies at home, you can transform old items into useful pieces of furniture for the rest of the family.
