Just because your restaurant leftovers are gone after you devoured them last night at midnight, doesn’t mean the container your leftovers came in needs to be thrown away. You don’t have to be a restaurant owner to find a use for food packaging. Surprisingly enough, regular people have several uses for the common take out box you are given to take home your leftovers in, and anymore they are well-designed and durable so they don’t look like obvious eyesores. By reusing the plastic take-out containers you’re also doing the planet a favor. Five great ways to use leftover food storage containers include:

Replace the Tupperware

Plastic food storage containers typically used to deliver take-out or package up leftovers were specifically designed to protect and store food. So why not use them for the same reason after you eat your restaurant leftovers? Simply wash the containers out and use it to package your kids’ school lunches or even your own. You can even use them to store your own homemade leftovers, and many are microwave safe which makes reserving the leftovers a breeze.

Small Storage

Paper clips, push pins and rubberbands can easily create a mess in any desk drawer, and you guessed it, placing a small food storage container in a drawer can easily organize these items. Most plastic take out containers even have compartments in them allowing you to separate all your desk items.

Art Projects

Not only can the left over food packaging be used to create jewelry boxes or faux treasure chests, but they can also be used to facilitate the creative process by serving as mixing dishes and water bowls. After consuming your leftovers, simply wash out the containers and keep a small stack of them with your children’s art supplies so that they may easily be grabbed when your kid sits down to create.

On-the-Go Watering Bowls

If you and your canine companion frequent the local trails or dog parks, you know the importance of keeping your dog well hydrated, and letting your dog drink out of your water bottle isn’t always an easy or sanitary task. However, with a cleaned take-out container, you can easily provide your dog with a water bowl without having to haul the big one around.

Water Saucer for Flower Pot

Have a flower pot that drains all over the floor? Well, why spend an extra $2 for a water saucer when you can just use a left over take out box? Both the top and bottom pieces of a plastic take out box make great water saucers, and they’re free with the purchase of your restaurant meal.

If you already have a house full of plastic take-out containers being re-used, remember to recycle the new ones you have brought home. While re-using is one great green way to live, so is recycling so don’t be afraid to toss your take-out containers in the appropriate recycling containers if you can’t find a use for them.

Using storage can be helpful for families with limited space and resources, and people don’t realize the variety of ways storage can work for them. Traditionally, users look at storage as a way to house items that wouldn’t fit in a living space, or as a resource for people who are moving and looking to store their possessions in short-term. Here’s a list of some alternative ways in which people use storage units.

Wine Cellars:

Americans are becoming more familiar with wine, and it’s no longer viewed as a luxury of the rich. As the average consumer’s interest in wine increases, so does their knowledge and taste for it. It’s becoming a part of social demand, and Hub Pages released an article that discussed the growing popularity of wine clubs and other wine-related events popping up all over the country. If someone is interested in investing in a wine collection but they don’t necessarily have the space for it, public storage is an excellent way to build a stock, while keeping your home free from clutter. It’s easy, affordable, safe, and climate-controlled environments are often available to those who want to keep their precious collection at the optimum temperature.

Small Business:

If you own a small business and rent an office, you already know how expensive square footage can be. Having offices, desks, employees, and other various space demands does not leave room for many other items, and if you are currently renting an office and paying a premium for your facilities, you might want to look into self-storage for business purposes. Consider the costs of expanding, then you might want to consider taking some of your filing systems and other materials to an off location storage facility in a storage unit. Most businesses have large portions of the office taken up by shelves and drawers of files and other documents that will merely for record. You can keep most of these non-essential materials and potentially save yourself a lot in rental space.

Band Practice:

This isn’t exactly a new idea, and the self-storage industry has been used for a long time by bands that don’t have the space to practice at home. There’s actually an industry term attributed to this kind of practice called Storage Music. Squidoo.com talks about this trend and refers to musical selection that’s been played and recorded in similar places. It actually is a great way for bands to play and record their work more cost effectively. Recording studios are incredibly expensive and finding the right space to use can take a lot of work. If there’s a self-storage facility nearby, speak with a representative or manager about renting an affordable space to your band for practice. They may require you to rent a larger space, but the benefits will outweigh the cons.

There are many reasons that people would find self-storage useful and not just for the reasons listed above. They can also be used as food pantry cellars or surplus storage for restaurants. Whatever your reason, contact one of these facilities and speak to their staff to see if self-storage is something that you’d find useful. They’re all over the place and chances are there’s one just around the corner.

I prefer to fly; my husband prefers to drive. He may be taking a trip to Phoenix to do some work and he refuses to fly there. It’s going to be one very long drive but he feels more comfortable taking his own truck.

Even though it’s a crew cab and has a full size 8-foot bed, he’s still considering adding truck racks to carry more of his tools. I think he’ll be fine without any extras but I think this is just his chance to add more fancy to his ride. Men are like that, you know.

Nick and Brit are getting close to having their apartment ready. The only rooms not completed are the kitchen and bathroom. Their cabinets are ready to be installed and their shower is waiting for tile.

They have a nice sectional sofa and are looking at Bush furniture for a compact desk solution. They have only so much room so they’ll need to put their computer in the main living area.

For the record, if they’d done the entry way how I told them, they’d have a place for the computer. But no one listens to me.

My kids give me the most interesting gifts. Today while cleaning, I was digging through a closet searching for an extra vacuum cleaner bag. That’s when I found the neat gifts 2 of my son gave to their father for Christmas: two First Aid Kits. Yes, great minds think alike.

But really, for small, affordable kits, they’re really quite nice. Everything you could need in a moderate emergency is there. As a matter of fact I’m going to claim one kit as my own and put it in my car. It’s always best to be prepared.

I’m seriously considering a new website for my husband. He’s enjoying traveling to other places for work and I love seeing new places, too. Trouble is, how to let people in, say, Utah or New Mexico know that he’s available?

The answer, of course, is a website.

My husband, though, isn’t very technology minded. So whatever I do on a website, I have to do on paper, too. He has to be able to carry his portfolio with him and right now I’m trying to organize everything. I’m looking at customized presentation folder printing to give him a professional look. I think he’ll be pleased with that.

So stay tuned for a new website. I’d tell you the domain we’re considering but I don’t want someone who happens by here to swipe it from us.

Have you heard of the hipster PDA? It’s inexpensive, cusotmizable and never loses power.

I know, we’ve all moved past the paper PDA and onto Blackberries and whatever else is out there now. My HP iPaq is still running fine. I like that I can carry it around the house easier than my laptop. But really, it’s so much easie to use a pen and paper to jot down notes and make lists.

The best version of the hipster PDA has got to be the one posted at Full Contact Geek. This guy definitely takes his hipster seriously. I particularly like his docking station.

I think I’ll throw a hipster together for the husband to take to Hawaii. He’ll thank me.