What's your favorite re-purposed tool?

kittski

Here are my favorite re-purposed tools I use for my paper crafting. Do you guys have any?

My absolute favorite is my cuticle trimmer. It's so helpful for removing those little cuts that are hanging on by just a little dangling chad/paper bit. I use the point to lift the paper, one little turn and it cuts the paper really cleanly. (I use nail clippers sometimes too.)

I also adore my dough scrapper for lifting and cleaning bigger pieces.

BTW, is there a technical name for that little connector piece I called a dangling "chad"?

cleversomeday

Drywall mesh for picking pieces off the mat and putting them onto the project
http://cleversomeday.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/magic-mesh-as-transfer-film-for-cardstock/

kittski

Drywall mesh looks awesome! I've been trying to do that but could never get transfer tape etc to work. Great solution =D>

CarmenO

It works great for card stock. Just sticky enough to lift it but it doesn't damage the paper. ;;)

JeannetteC

Great idea Kay. I'll have to see if we have some still.

corwins

My sewing ripper. I use it for weeding vinyl. =D>

kittski

Yea Corwins, I think the sewing ripper works like the cuticle trimmer. They work great!

bossie1

My serger tweezers....use them more for paper than fabric and they are big enough not to get lost in the rubble I create while I am working. Valerie

daffeydil

I use my serger tweezers..great for holding tiny pieces to glue. Kitchen spatula for cleaning mat, plastic ice cream tubs that have handles and lids (great for storage and when I get ambitious I might spray them with Krylon paint to decorate them), dental pick for weeding, going to try out my tracing wheel for sewing to see how it does for scoring lines.

Lareia

I'm a bassoon player and in my hay day I made my own reeds. Well, I recently watched youtube videos of bow makers. Hello, my reed holders for when they dry totally works. They are just metal dowels instead of wood. So excited about this.

Sheri_in_TX

My very favorite is my craft table! It was once a commercial door. I rescued it from a thrift store for a whopping $10. I sanded it, filled holes and dents with wood putty, painted it, and it's now a fantastic craft table!

amaslp

Great ideas ladies! Sheri, love your craft table out of the door, and you have a cute craft room too! I always enjoy seeing everyone's craft rooms! Mine started out as a quilting room and now there is major competition from the scrapbooking/cardmaking supplies. (And the beading stuff is in another room! Too many hobbies?!?)

Ann

Dana

Dental floss.. mind you clean dental floss.... I use it to pull fibers and ribbon through my eyelets.

Fawn

wow...great ideas...great thread to refer to...

I have a craft closet in our 4th bedroom/school room/guest room and on one door have a canvas shoe holder with 12 pockets full of goodies ranging from glue gun sticks to vinyl rolls (yes...still chicken, but I can collect supplies...right?).

kittski

I saw one of those the other day at Tuesday Morning and thought it'd make a good organizer. Now I'll have to go get it :-) I hadn't thought of dental floss, great idea!

babykat

my painting trowels they are small but light and all kinds of uses I even have a set for baking to get smaller cookies I work with off he trays.... they come ina variety of shapes and sizes and are pretty versatile.

karriecook

I use the needle nose tweezers I still have from my dissecting kit waaaaaaay back in college. I try not to think about how many dead animals they've been in when I'm using them. LOL!

karen3912

I have not found one tool that works better at cleaning a sticky mat than a credit card. One I do not love.

Rhinestonetemplates

Dental tools for weeding heatpress vinyl and sign vinyl,

ImaCutter

Drywall mesh for picking pieces off the mat and putting them onto the project
http://cleversomeday.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/magic-mesh-as-transfer-film-for-cardstock/

SO i HAD TRY TO THIS! I happened to go to the hardware store today and picked some up. I did a faux Starbucks cup for my daughter friend and it was great to work with. I loved being able to see through it so I could line up the different color layers. I was using contact paper before to transfer my images and I had some residue issues on a few of them. The ones I put on my laptop are kind of splotchy now because of the residue. I'm a big fan of the mesh tape now!! Thanks for sharing your secret tip.

jerzgirl

PURPOSED TOOLS. . . .humm, let see, I have used one of those cutting mats (dollar store) cut up as a scraper, and at one time as a mat for my little cricut. Picks for pulling o rings out of carburetor, as weeding tools. . . . .Not tools, but I have a dinning room table, with shelves on it that are plywood and pvc (from someones porch) for my craft table. A spice rack and jars for eyelets and brads, a display rack (wire) from work, to hold my stamps and baskets of supplies. A kitchen sick shelf on table for my xron.

LOL! Ever thing and anything I can find ,paint, fix, and use for storage or whatever is safe around me.

Maxine

I thought Id revive Alicias thread it has some great tips for some of our newbies. And Im sure everyone can now add ever MORE great ideas

MendyRapaCat

Thought I would add my 2 cents! I took the recollections ribbon holder from Michael's (got it 1/2 price) anywho, I put my vinyl roll on it and turned it upside down so my vinyly would feed straight through my cutter. If you have a large one and 12 inch roll of vinyl, it can be hard to get it in straight and make it feed straight on a loooooong design. It worked awesome and you can easily change out vinyl!

TAMinator

My brain.

:))


Instead of paying more for a cutter spatula, I bought a palette knife/spatula from the art dept. And with a coupon, so it was pretty cheap.

Cheap plastic cutting board for hammering eyelets. (Even the hammer is repurposed. :)) )

I have all kinds of repurposed storage. Tic-tac containers, shampoo/body wash containers from some hotel (they're like mini plastic jars - screw on lids), spice rack, bouillion jars, candle jars, old bookshelf taken apart and scrap wood to make a new shelf unit for my desk which holds small pizza boxes for my wood stamps, old wood utensil tray, nut/bolt chests, coupon keeper, baking cocoa container, oatmeal (or bread crumbs?) container, a heavy cardboard tube, wooden vodka nip box (from a store, silly!), cardboard boxes, small beading tool box, paper bags into envelopes, bathroom shelf thingy, divided stationery box, stampin up clamshells, some plastic thing I have no idea what it was for, spoon rest, plastic storage tote, piece of tempered glass, pencil boxes, shoe shelf....

TAMinator

Alligator clips from the electrical dept for holding little pom poms for chalking.
Makeup sponges after using and washed.
Plastic packaging.

ShrinkingMimsy

My rotary cutter and acrylic rulers (formerly used for quilting). I use them every day. I love my Cougar, but for straight cuts with no waste, I rely on my rotary tools.

Kim

I use my Pampered Chef scrapers for cleaning my mats, especially when using GooGone. Pill Bottles for glass beads, etc...
Some of the other things already mentioned.
My meat fork for making little bows. I really need to wash it and put it back in the kitchen! I have the bow maker that I cut out.

Some things that I buy have the cellophane wrappers and I save them for "windows" in boxes, etc. I just bought a whole bunch of file folders (3 in a package for $1 at Walmart....they are the pretty designer folders) and they are in a nice cellophane wrapper.
I buy stamps online through USPS and the stamps have a little cardboard sheet. I save them for all kinds of things. THey are great for cutting in my machine for smaller stuff or just "testing" a file. They are also great when I need to mail something like a vinyl decal and I don't want it to get bent or even for mailing pictures.

I buy the big ziplock bags and will store "scrapbook pages" to be done. I put the paper, pics, everything that I need for a page in there. I can just grab a few of the bags and take with me on the road to work on. Would be great for crops if I went to any, but it works great for when we spend the weekend at the lake.

I use the little bead containers from Walmart (comes in a clear storage box and has alot of the little round bead containers in there) for mixing paint in. I take the pearlescent acrylic paint and mix alcohol ink and Perfect Pearls to make my own colors to match other things that I make with the alcohol ink and Perfect Pearls, like the misters. The paint mixture I don't use, I just store in there until I need it again. Before it dries out (which takes a while) I just rinse out and re-use the container.

Helen

@kim, those pampered chef scrapers are the BEST thing for so many uses. I've had my two scrappers for over 10 years now, still afraid I might lose them somehow because they are small. I guard them with my life!

YorkieMom21

One of my very favs...............plain old round wooden toothpicks! Also old toothbrushes...for cleaning my rubber stamps!!!

TAMinator

Yes - I use old toothbrushes, too, for cleaning stamps. As well as an old paint pad for a stamp scrubber.

daffeydil

My homemade weeding tool has replaced the dental pick as my favorite weeding tool. Got the idea for this here on the forum. It is a large needle glued into a hole drilled into a piece of a wood dowel. The dowel is wrapped with my favorite duck tape to make it easier to hold. Works great!

elliott37

This isn't actually a "tool," but I use it (them) as one. I use dryer sheets as "glitter magnets." I'm too cheap to buy the real "glitter magnet sheets." I use them before embossing, too, to keep stray embossing powder from the cardstock.

daffeydil

Good idea for the dryer sheets, @elliott37. I can place a box of them right next to my container of baby wipes that I use to clean the glue, paint, etc. off my hands when I'm crafting.

TAMinator

I have never found the dryer sheet to work when embossing - whether new or used.

Sassycutter

Coffee filters are great too. They are lint free, they will catch and pour embossing powder or glitters back into their containers. Coffee filters clean up paint, glue, etc. from tables/fingers. Filters can be cut and made into flowers or other things. They can be used to make ruffles on projects. Lastly, they are cheap!!

happy2bscrappin

Dental floss.. mind you clean dental floss.... I use it to pull fibers and ribbon through my eyelets.

Great idea I was having such a hard time the other day and couldn't find anything to pull them through with. Now I know what to use :)

Kim

@Helen, I know what you mean. I have had mine for about 15 years and I was so paranoid about losing them that I ordered a pack a few months ago. So now I have a few extra!!! I might even use one for its intended use...in the kitchen!

I have one of the PC ones, but I really like the Pampered Chef a lot more and it is so much cheaper than having to buy the whole kit from PC.

There really are so many things that I grab from all over the house to use in my craft room. I was trying to think up some way of taking things like the Flower Fluff and Perfect Pearls, etc and get them out of the drawers and up where I could see them and think to use them. I have searched and searched and came up with putting them up on a magnet board. I looked at Lowes and got several things to try and make my own, but finally ended up getting one from Walmart (it's silver with no edges so looks nice and clean) and getting some of the magnet buttons. I stuck the magnets on the bottom of each container and now have all my Flower Fluff and PearlEx/Perfect Pearls on the board where I can see them.

Vnsshbrt

i have some record holders from the bottom of old metal stereo stands. the stands themselves were too rickity to be used as tables so i removed the record racks and now use them as drying racks. just pop spray painted pieces of paper into one of the slots when its a little dry and then you can set aside the whole batch to dry out of the way. not spread out al over your table making you wait.

BarbaraPSD

I use a paper nail file for cleaning up edges and giving a distressed look, but I am going to find some dry wall mesh and use that for transfering stuff! That looks just awesome!! Thank you for sharing!

Barbara

rjstone

I just got my Zing yesterday so I haven't been through enough to improvise too much yet, but here's a pen holder method I came up with that works with the Zing and might work with some others too:

http://homecnc.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/using-pens-and-pen-like-tools-with-the-knk-zing/

JaimieM

I got dry wall mesh at Home Depot and some dental tools from the dollar store today. So many tips... I don't even have my Sil SD yet!! It should arrive any day now. lol

tnoehl

I have the old Pampered Chef pastry roller. The old one is wood where as the new ones are plastic. I use it to roll over the vinyl when using a mat. The longer end is flat and the smaller end is curved. Holds the vinyl to the mat really well. Also use it for paper. This is one item that will never go back to the kitchen.

Rhoda Jayne

Wow, that's neat!

rjstone said:

I just got my Zing yesterday so I haven't been through enough to improvise too much yet, but here's a pen holder method I came up with that works with the Zing and might work with some others too:

http://homecnc.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/using-pens-and-pen-like-tools-with-the-knk-zing/

PowerCut

Not so much a tool maybe more organisation really but I use the ikea pot lid organiser stuck onto the side of my unit as a ribbon holder. I also got a double tiered revolving spicejar holder for free that I keep brads in.
I use toothpicks to apply glue to tiny gems

Thanks for the tip about the drywall mesh will defnitely try this.

BarbaraPSD

When we are talking about organisation I have to mention my new organiser. It is a large peg board. It holds everything. And just the way I want it too. I can also see everything!

Barbara