3 Creative Ways to Reuse Egg Cartons

If you’ve ever seen a greenhouse full of seedlings at a nursery, you know they were likely separated from each other in small, sectioned containers. To do this at home, simply use a leftover egg carton.

Once the seeds have sprouted, you can transfer the seedlings to their own pots or into the ground, and – voilà! – you’ve got a full-fledged herb garden.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 paper egg carton
• Scissors
• Potting soil
• Seeds
• Water
• Spray bottle

Let’s get started:

• Cut the lid off the egg carton with a pair of scissors and save it to use as a drip tray underneath the rest of the carton. You can leave the entire bottom of the carton (the part with the egg cups) intact or cut it into separate sections.
• Poke the bottom of each cup with scissors to create tiny drainage holes (about 1/8-inch wide) – just enough for water to drip through without the soil falling out.
• Fill each cup about two-thirds of the way with potting soil, and poke two to three seeds in each.
• Cover the seeds with potting soil, referring to the seed packet for exact depth measurements.
• Spritz seeds with water until the soil is slightly moist, being careful not to drench them. If you use too much water, the seeds won’t germinate.
• Place the carton in a warm, sunny place and let the seeds do their work, keeping the soil slightly moist by spritzing every day.

Tip: Reusing your paper egg cartons helps cut down on plastic waste.

Tasseled wall hangings don’t have to be intricate macramé pieces that take years of practice to master. In fact, if you paint the individual cups from a recycleable egg carton, they look like little bell-shaped flowers, and when strung up on twine to a dowel, give the impression of a craft you’d find at an art show.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 paper egg cartons
• Twine
• Scissors
• 2 colors of all-purpose paint
• Paintbrush
• 1 1/4-inch x 30-inch wood dowel

Let’s get started:

• Start by cutting out the individual egg cups from the carton. You will need about 20 (or more, it just depends on how large you want your wall hanging to be).
• Cut small slits into the corners of each cup (there should be 4 slits total) and shape each flat side into a petal by rounding the top off with scissors.
• Using scissors, poke a hole (just big enough to let the twine pass through) on the bottom of each cup.
• You can paint the cups a solid color, or paint them like flowers with a gradient, adding a darker color in the center and at the base of each petal, fading out into the lighter color on the tips. Let them dry separately on paper towels or newspaper.
• Once dry, string the flowers onto a yard of twine, tying a knot about every 5-inches to make sure they don’t slide down onto each other, then trim the excess. We added five flowers on each string of twine, with four total strings of flowers, but you can adjust depending on your preference.
• Tie the strings of flowers onto the wooden dowel at 5-inch intervals and tie a piece of twine at both ends of the dowel to hang it from the wall. It should form a triangle with the dowel when hung on a nail.