Wire hanger craft ideas

Recycling hangers and other plastic packaging has been one of the main features of our environmental policy since we started, and we’ve now collected, and re-used, thousands from our customers.

However, if you don’t want to re-use them for their original purpose there are some amazingly innovative ways to make them into fantastic craft designs. Here are some of the best ones I’ve found:

Paper towel hanger: what about turning your wire hanger into a practical paper towel hanger like the one our friends from Instructables created?

Paper towel hanger via Instructables

Christmas wreaths:  turn our wire hangers into Christmas wreaths for your front door – you can even reuse our pins and plastic packaging! (via Eddie Ross and Ruffled blog)

Christmas wreath eddie rossChristmas wreath1 ruffled

Magazine display: I love keeping good magazine articles, but they always end up in a pile on the coffee table. A Merry Mishap Blog showed us a beautiful way to store your magazines using hangers to display them on the wall!

Stylizimo_workspace magazine display

Accessories holder: another practical way to reuse our wire hanger is as a funky scarf holder like this one(via  Boxwood Clippings), or even to hold your necklaces!

hold scarves

Decoration: If you’re feeling really creative, use hangers to decorate your living room like this one (via Family Chic), or to make these fun animal creatures for your kids (via the Thrifty Crafter)

party-animals-1011 hangersart love hanger

Any more ideas? We’d love to hear them! Drop us a comment 🙂

No sock left behind

I have always thought that washing machines have a black hole inside that abducts socks, leaving behind their soul mates and leaving me with lots of lonely socks. I have been trying to look for handy ways to keep them together in the wash, but I have to admit that sometimes they find a way out!

Safety pins are part of our daily work here at LaundryRepublic: we pin our laundry tags on garment care labels to keep track of the items throughout the cleaning process. So I have applied the same method for my socks. I keep a little box with good quality safety pins near a smaller and separate laundry basket where I put only dirty socks (to avoid losing them before even washing!), and pin each pair of socks together at the ankles. Once they come out from the dryer, I keep them in the drawer with the safety pin, until I put them on again and I just put the safety pins back in the box! Good quality safety pins don’t rust and it’s a very simple and efficient way to not lose any socks.

Instead of safety pins, you could use binder clips or rubber bands, which can be very handy before you separate the pair of socks by colour to identify which socks belongs where. I have also found something called sock rings: little plastic rings with teeth in them to put your socks in and hold them together. However, those are a bit more expensive, and easier to get lost.

Even when you try hard, some couples are simply not meant to be together. So I have pulled together the ideas of some very creative people who have created an orphanage for lonely socks. Check out our new board on Pinterest for these inspiring ideas. They will look great in the laundry room!

http://pinterest.com/laundryrepublic/no-sock-left-behind/