As you can imagine, with four kids and eight pets, we're up to our ears in dirty laundry. A few times a year, we get caught up and we'll have a nice little stack of empty laundry baskets and my heart just does a cheery happy dance inside. I try to keep up the momentum, washing everything in sight, but eventually the laundry gods call my number and I'm faced with waist-high piles again. Sometimes, the laundry gods will take pity on me and toss a few coins my way for encouragement. The other day, they really surprised me when I cleared the lint screen. I had just dried a bunch of new beach towels and when I pulled out the lint screen, it was covered in bright turquoise lint! Lucky me! (What can I say.... I'm easy to please) A quick google search revealed there's several things you can do with lint: make home-made paper, make lint clay, use it as a fire starter, put it out for nesting materials for birds and use it for snugglies for your little animals. Aha! We have one of those! So, I gave it to our little guinea pig, Tin Tin, and he was visibly thrilled as you can see.
Cool idea! Our piggies would love that lint, never even thought of giving it to them...mind you we never have pretty blue lint like that lol. The bag with lint for the birds is a great idea!
Posted by: Carol | August 07, 2007 at 03:19 PM
Hi there. I've been reading your blog for a while now and I really enjoy it! Just thought I'd stop by and say hello :)
Oh ~ and I love the lint idea! Neat!
Posted by: Penelope | August 01, 2007 at 05:26 PM
We once filled plastic mesh bags (like the kind tomatoes sometimes come in?) with lint and hung them from a tree branch outside. Birds pull the lint out through the little holes and use it for nest making! If I were a mother robin I'd choose your turquoise lint to camoflauge my eggs.
Posted by: Nina | August 01, 2007 at 12:40 PM
This post made me laugh out loud at work!! I think it's so funny how the turquoise lint gave you a thrill - I would be just as amused. And what a cutie Tin Tin is - he looks as happy as a pig in lint! ;)
Posted by: Mary | July 31, 2007 at 07:39 PM
Great idea! I am going to save this post for when we do our unit on recycling.
Posted by: Jenny | July 31, 2007 at 05:18 PM
What cute pictures of TinTin! The turquoise is a very flattering color for him too ;)
Posted by: Cassi | July 31, 2007 at 04:18 PM
No Way! We have lots of little rodent-type critters at our house too, and I never would have thought to reuse the dryer lint for bedding. Holy cow. As much laundry as we wash around here, I may never have to buy bedding again. That's a great idea!
Posted by: Heather | July 31, 2007 at 03:09 PM