This post was brought to you by Care To Recycle^® and The Motherhood. All opinions are my own and I hope you enjoy them.

Around our house, we like to reuse things whenever possible. One room where most people have products they use every single day is the bathroom.  I hate to just toss these in either the garbage or recycling, and some of our daily use product containers get used again and again in our house.   Research has shown that only 1 in 5 families recycle items from their bathroom.  Care To Recycle^® wants to change that by sharing what can be recycled and I want to help by sharing some ideas on how to recycle your everyday bathroom items.

Empty wipe containers from before we used cloth wipes now hold crayons, our cloth wipes, and even some cleaning cloths with our DIY cleaning solution.    Not long ago, we started making some of our own products so we don’t keep buying them.  If we make deodorant, we just reuse the container.  We can use our shampoo and conditioner bottles to store paint for outside.  We also love to make our own hand soap using our empty soap dispensers.  We can be found using our band-aid boxes for crayon holders in the car, or any number of fun things to do with empty kleenex boxes.  Our favorite thing to reuse is probably toilet paper rolls.  While it would be great to switch to family cloth in the bathroom, I don’t really see that happening, at least not for quite awhile.  That means that as a family of 5, we go through plenty of toilet paper tubes so we have come up with fun things to do with toilet paper tubes.  I compiled a list of some of the fun that can be had with toilet paper tubes, but first, I have to share a story from the other day.

Now, when I say that we save our toilet paper rolls, I am not joking.  We keep a bucket of them by the art center.  Somehow, none of those were good enough for Charlie.  I was on the phone with my best friend yesterday and walked into the bathroom only to discover a complete roll of toilet paper laying on the floor.  It took me a second to figure out what happened.  But then it hit me.  Charlie wanted this particular toilet paper roll so he unrolled the entire roll of toilet paper so he could color it.

Okay, onto the list of things to do with empty toilet paper rolls.

1.  Build castles.  It is that simple.  You really need nothing else, however coloring them is fun too.

2.  Color them.

3.  Collect rocks, sticks, etc. and glue them onto the tubes.

4.  Make binoculars.

5.  Make Pillow Boxes for gifts.

6.  Make a crayon holder.

7.  Create owls.

8.  Holiday inspired kaleidoscopes.

9.  Easter Bunny Craft.

10.  Tube Race Cars.

11.  Tin Man or Robot.

12.  Cardboard Critters.

13.  Create a centerpiece.

14.  Slithery Snakes.

15.  DIY Birdfeeders – See how to make these below.

I like to get the kids involved with recycling and reusing.  Teaching them at a young age helps encourage them to do the same as they grow.  We have a few bird feeders outside already, but between the deer and the birds, they quickly get empty.  The kids always get so excited to help fill them that I thought they would love it if I unleashed them to create their own bird feeders from toilet paper tubes.  They are super easy to make and the kids are so proud of them when they see the birds eating from them.

Materials:

~Toilet Paper Tubes

~Peanut Butter

~Knife or spoon to spread Peanut Butter

~Bird Seed

~Optional – yard or fishing line and hole punch to hang it.  We just stick it on a stick on a tree.

Directions:

~Spread peanut butter evenly over entire toilet paper tube.

~Pour some birdseed onto a plate or small pan.

~Roll peanut butter covered tube in birdseed until fully covered.

~Place outside and watch the birds.

Aside from building with tubes, this is our favorite use for them.  How do you use empty toilet paper tubes?  Do you recycle other bathroom products after using them?