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Written by Doresa Banning
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Tuesday, 01 July 2008 |
When you’re about to toss a pair of lace-up shoes, salvage the laces first. You can reuse them in countless ways—essentially in any situation where you’d use string. Wash the shoelaces first in hot water and soap. Use a little bleach for what-were-once-white laces.
With them clean, you’re ready to reuse them. Here are only some of the possibilities:
String a shoelace through nuts, washers, bobbins, beads, or anything else with a center hole, to keep them together. Attach them to attic doors, ceiling fans, and lighting fixtures for use as a pull chain. Use them to tie back curtains, hang ornaments, hold keys, or as replacement drawstrings in sweats, shorts, hoodies, and other clothing.
Use shoelaces in the place of ribbon on packages and to bind books. Secure plants to a stake or hang a small bird feeder from a tree, with them.
Keep a shoelace in your travel first aid kit for a makeshift emergency tourniquet. Store one or more in your outdoor/camping gear for quick fixes to broken tent rope and other on-the-fly repairs.
Let your children use old shoelaces for crafts. For instance, connected together, they make a cool stuffed animal hammock. Turn laces into cat toys.
Roll a few connected laces into a coil, then glue or sew it together securely and use it as a coaster or hot pad. For the more ambitious, transform your old laces into an area rug!
Doresa Banning is a Reno-based freelance writer.
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