How can I reuse or recycle rubbish pencil erasers?
We’ve had an email from Sophie:
I bought a big bag of rubbers at the start of school but they were hard and rubbish so I turned them into stamps instead! I drew a design on them then cut it out with an art knife and they work great.
I remember doing something similar with them when I was at school – although it was less artistic/planned and more just me being bored with an compass in French. Another at-school reuse was, of course, flinging them across the classroom and watching them bounce off the walls/desks. I, of course, never did that, ahem.
If you buy a pack of mixed ones, there always seems to be a couple of really hard ones that don’t work very well in there. Aside from the stamps and airbourne weaponry, are there any other reuses for erasers that won’t erase?
You can use them to clean- they get rid of sticker residue gunk, they can clean crap off of tile grout and painted walls, permanent marker on most surfaces, crayon marks, probably water marks too. Keep a few in your cleaning supply area. :)
anywhere you need a small piece of rubber e.g. to stop a door slamming into something, between wooden toy box lid and base (quiet finger-saver), etc
They also work great as an emergency earring back. Just pull off a small piece and push the earring through it. Definately helpful when you don’t have another back handy.
Turn it into stamp.
Cut into squares and glue to the furniture legs.
Cut out a silhouette and carry like a kea chain.
Cut a narrow slit at the edge of it and use to hold a nail when hammering to avoid injuring your fingers.
Glue them to the bottom of the furniture if you don’t want it to slide.