21 Brilliant Uses for Egg Cartons in Your Home & Garden

A lot of households go through one or two egg cartons a week. These lightweight cardboard containers tend to get thrown in the trash or, at best, recycled. But there are many ways in which you can upcycle or reuse these cartons. As well as using them for craft projects with the kids, they can even be used to make objects ranging from stools to chairs. The small hollows are great for holding jewelry and even fastenings like screws and nails. Below are 21 brilliant uses for egg cartons, other than transporting and storing eggs.

1. Bird Feeders

Remove the lid of the carton and thread string through the corners. You can then fill the cups up to halfway with seed and hang the feeders from trees and other platforms. Be careful not to hang them too close to areas where neighborhood cats reside, though, and check often to ensure that the cartons haven’t gotten too soggy in the rain.

2. Grow Seedlings

Egg cartons are made from biodegradable paper. This means that they are perfectly safe for planting seeds, and once the plants start to grow, you can even transfer the whole thing into a larger pot. The roots will break through the carton, and the paper will eventually rot away as the seeds become plants.

3. Hanging Pots

As the seedlings grow, you can leave them in the individual egg carton cups. Choose trailing plants: ideally, miniature variants and the plant will spill over the sides of the carton and make a pretty addition to any room. The pots may not withstand frequent watering, however, and almost certainly will not cope with ongoing heavy rain. Another alternative is to use the remnants of eggshells and plant small plants in these.

4. Succulent Garden

Because egg cartons cannot withstand frequent watering or rain, they could be better suited to the creation of a succulent garden. Succulents do not require frequent watering, and they should recover from one watering before they need another. Again, you can use half eggshells to further protect the carton from waterlogging.

5. Paint Cups

This really doesn’t take any effort and is ideal for kids that love nothing more than to have as large a range of colors as possible, when painting. Each cup in a tray of 2 x 3 or more can be used for a different color paint.

6. Screw Sorter

The individual cups of the egg carton are small, and they are ideal for holding small items. The fact that the carton is a tray consisting of several of these cups makes them great for sorting and storing small items like screws, nails, and other fastenings.

7. Bead and Crafts Storage

In fact, the size and compartmental nature of the egg cartons mean that they are ideal for storing any small items. Beads and other small craft items are other examples, and you can combine multiple cartons to store even more items.

8. Jewelry Storage Cartons

Any of us that have spent time untangling two or more necklaces, or fishing around the bottom of the drawer to find a favorite ring, will know the benefit of good jewelry storage. Egg cartons not only offer small cups as storage but the center posts can be used to hold rings, too.

9. Christmas Ornament Storage

No matter how many layers of newspaper you use or how well you cover your baubles, there’s always one or two that come out cracked next year. Egg cartons are perfectly shaped to hold the ornaments and, once closed, they protect against crushing and physical damage.

10. Fairy Light Shades

With a cheap set of plain fairy lights, a few egg cartons, and some very basic accessories, you can create a string of pretty and dainty fairy light shades. Easy but surprisingly effective.

11. Fire Starters

Half fill egg carton cups with wood shavings and then pour over enough melted wax to cover the wood. Once the wax dries, you have effective and powerful fire starters that will make getting your fire started a much simpler process.

12. Egg Carton Wreaths

It’s recycled, vibrantly colorful, and it is a great project for you and the kids to make when you’re stuck indoors. It only takes egg cartons, paint, and some glue and you can create a striking egg carton wreath.

13. Flower Mirror Surround

When all is said and done, egg cartons are only made from layers of paper. Choose a basic carton with no branding or logos, or paint over the branding before you start. You can make an impressively effective mirror surround that looks like roses and beautiful small flowers.

14. Egg Carton Chairs

It takes a lot of egg cartons, and we bet it will take more than a few weeks to gather enough, but by simply stacking the cartons and gluing them in place, you can create this very basic chair design. With a little imagination, we’re sure you could create something more elaborate with arms and chair back, too.

15. Laptop Cooler

Most of us know that, despite the name, laptops are not designed to sit on top of a flat surface like a lap for an extended period. It causes the battery to get hot and the laptop to suffer serious problems, especially if your laptop is a few years old. Stack a couple of egg cartons in a honeycomb design and you can create a laptop cooler.

16. Soundproofing

Most of us have heard of this particular idea. The theory is that the honeycomb design of the egg carton means that sound waves bounce around and do not pass through the carton. The reality is not as effective as the myth would have you believe. It will muffle the sound slightly, but will have only minimal effect and should only be considered a short-term or low-cost alternative to proper proofing.

17. Footstools

Egg cartons come in a great variety of colors and designs. Collect hundreds of cartons of the same size, and choose and place your colors carefully, and you can create a surprisingly good-looking and cushioned footstool.

18. House

This is quite an undertaking, but we’re sure the kids, cats, dogs, and a few of the adults in your home will love the result. You can create a full house, albeit quite a small one, using what we assume to be hundreds of egg cartons.

19. Recycled Christmas Tree Decorations

Kids and adults get very excited about Christmas, and egg cartons might not seem like the ideal material to create festive decorations, but they can make attractive and crafty Christmas trees.

20. Recycled Christmas Tree

Alternatively, you can combine your cartons, paint them green, and stack them so that they look like a full Christmas tree. You might not be able to fit many gifts under this version, but with some adaptation, the choice is yours.

21. Mancala Board Game

Mancala is a board game for two people that uses beads, beans, or other small items, and two rows of holes or pits. Use egg cartons as your pits, and you can use beads or any other item to make this deceptive strategy game. It doesn’t even take any crafting, just open the carton and find the beads.

Uses for Egg Cartons In The Home And Garden

The average American consumes 270 eggs each year, which means that a family of four would go through 180 standard 2 x 3 egg cartons per annum, which is enough to complete almost any of the projects above. If you get the extended family to save their cartons for you, you will have enough to soundproof every room and even attempt to replicate a full-size house.

Featured Image Credit: kaigraphick, Pixabay