Our cat was bored being cooped up in the house when it was twenty below zero for a week or so. We built him a play house out of cardboard boxes in which he can tunnel through from one box to another.
We attached the boxes together with packing tape and left some openings in the top for light to shine through and for the cat to enter from above as well as through the side. Boxes can also be stacked on top of one another for a two-story house.
Cats often like to claw on cardboard boxes so the boxes also deter them from clawing furniture.
By Judy S. from Valley City, ND
This page contains the following solutions.
Recycle your kitchen cardboard into fashion decorator alpha accents or decorative lidded origami boxes using pretty paper napkins to cover them!
A friend left a large gift box with a top and bottom and I reinforced it inside with cardboard cut to fit the sides, on both boxes.I stapled the cardboard at top and bottom to strengthen. Now I use it to fold and store bedding. That's the beginning of the story.
If you are storing long-term, do not use cardboard boxes. Anything can happen to them, be it roof leakage or bugs or mice.
I have another use for cardboard, if you have a sick dog that throws up in the house or a person who does not make it to the bathroom, cardboard is a a good scraper. I take a piece of cardboard, tear it in half so that I have two pieces, then scrape.
My kids like to save cardboard pieces from boxes that are shipped to our home. Cardboard is sturdy enough for the kids to glue or use hot glue without the cardboard bending - like with paper.
We have seen the amount of paper and cardboard a family receives in the shopping of food and other things, so we decided one day; "Let's see how we can use this for good things in the everyday life."
Here are the questions asked by community members. Read on to see the answers provided by the ThriftyFun community.
Does anyone have a use for the heavy cardboard backs from kid's puzzles? Our dog chewed up a bunch of pieces from my son's puzzles, but it seems like there could be another use for the backs of them. Any ideas?
By Liz from Charleston, SC
Maybe your son could draw or color a page out of a coloring book and you could make a new puzzle using the back of the old one. Some are brightly colored; maybe a type of frame your his artwork.
If you got some peel and stick cork and cut to fit, you could make a small bulletin board. I would even try painting the center with blackboard paint(a couple of coats, letting dry in in between) to make a slate size chalkboard.
They can be glued onto a cheap frame or made into a frame and then spray painted. Make great Christmas decorations with child's photo inside. Use several layers to add depth.
You could also, take another piece of cardboard, around the same size, or even a little larger, as long as the second piece "over-lapses" the puzzle frame. Then, have an adult cut the edges, of this second piece, with something like a "Stanley or razor knife", so it fits snugly into the puzzle frame. Invite your child and/or grandchild to draw an original picture.
Check out these photos.
I use cardboard squares, which I cut out of cartons, etc., to put in the corner of the guinea pig cage and also in the ferret cage. These animals usually pick a couple of places to go and go there all the time, making this idea work.
Recycling your cardboard boxes is a great practice, but don't forget that many of them can be reused in your own home. This is a page about uses for cardboard boxes.
ThriftyFun is one of the longest running frugal living communities on the Internet. These are archives of older discussions.
Get unlimited cardboard from fast food places. You can put some in your pet carrier under papers.
