There’s really no denying that cooking from scratch is better for you, the environment, and your budget ~ but once in a while, we all break down and buy some microwaveable meals for those dinner emergencies. Up until a few months ago, microwaveable dinner trays weren’t even recyclable in our community and people were dumping them in the trash. I always thought this was a real shame because plastic dinner trays are really handy little containers. Read on to learn some of the innovative uses for this practical plastic:
Mixing up craft paints
Divided trays, such as the type that come with Kids Cuisine meals are great for mixing up batches of paint for crafts and watercoloring. They can also be used to hold tempura paints for posters and paper mache projects, or finger paints for little tots. For stenciling or sponging a piece of furniture, a dinner tray is the perfect palette for these types of decorating projects.
Whimsical shadow box
Does your child have a collection of tiny objects to organize? Have her make a shadow box from a plastic dinner tray that has been sprayed with paint. A little dab of hot glue will keep the items nestled in place.
Use as an organizer
Whenever my husband has a home fix it project, he uses a divided plastic tray to collect the screws and nuts that come from the item he’s repairing. This keeps the screws from rolling off the counter and disappearing. I use them to keep sewing notions near at hand; things like pins, buttons, and extra bobbins. They are also terrific for keeping model parts together.
Holding a beading party? Use trays to measure out beads, string, and clasps for each child. Trays can also hold crayons, markers, stickers & more for craft parties.
Use to clean small objects
Dinner trays are a handy way to clean small objects such as jewelry, bolts & nuts, beads, and pocket combs.
Repack for single serve meals
Cook an extra portion or two of food at dinner, and make your own TV dinners to be eaten at a later time. Safely freeze these meals by wrapping the top of the tray with foil and slipping the tray into a large ziploc freezer bag. Large freezer bags can hold up to 4 trays at a time, and can be used many times over.
Homemade TV dinners are also great for shut-ins, college students, and seniors.
For crafting
Last summer, my daughter used an assortment of green and blue trays to create plastic “dog tags”. She first cut 1/2″ x 3″ strips of plastic from the different color trays, and then punched a hole in the end with a hole punch. Next, she searched through old magazines to find headlines describing her personality. The text was cut out and carefully glued to her dog tags using white glue. When dry, the dog tags were strung on a small piece of beading twine for a one-of-a-kind personalized necklace.
