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Choose to Thrive

A place to share my Rock-What-Ya-Got approach to living and crafting without spending a dime.

What Not To Toss Weekend: Busted Calculators & Remotes

April 13, 2012 By Nike@ChooseToThrive

How many of you have wound up with one of those freakishly large calculators or remotes from the dollar store? Kid #2 proudly came home with the calculator version and it lasted all of a day before it cracked in half on the first drop. 100_7929 Time to toss that bad boy, huh? Wait! Don’t toss that! The outer shell may be toast, but the buttons can live on. 100_7931 A few left-over peel-n-stick magnet strips and scissors later … DSC03470 … we wound up with some fun, practically free frig magnets. DSC03474 And man have the kids had fun doing math problems on the frig this week. DSC03505 And while petty and childish, I’ll admit that it was fun last night to skunk my snarky nine-year-old who declared that he “pretty much knows everything about math, mom” with a simple problem using negative numbers. DSC03500 Um, Kid … –25 + 54 does not equal 1, nor is the square root of anything involved. And so that no one’s left out, anyone without a freakishly large calculator could just buy a new one for $1 and cannibalize it to make their own, cheap magnets. A small screw driver is all you need to open it up to get the numbers out, unless of course you’d like to just drop kick it a few times instead. Anywho … Overly Large Gimmicky Calculator or Remote? April 2012 BLOG1 It’s What Not To Toss This Weekend! nike And hey, what else could you do with calculator, remote or even keyboard keys? Make push pins? Embellish cards? Art? Let me know.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Kids, Recycle, Upcycle, What Not To Toss Weekend

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Betsy says

    April 13, 2012 at 11:01 pm

    Great idea! So glad to see you posting!

  2. Cass says

    April 14, 2012 at 2:10 am

    Best use for these ever! Welcome back to blogging awesome things.

  3. cutekittypunk says

    April 16, 2012 at 10:02 am

    cool… usually i just let the kids play with it – you know my 18 month old, holds the remote to her ear like it's a telephone.

  4. Kim says

    April 17, 2012 at 2:50 pm

    Whta a great way to reuse that!

  5. bonniegetchell says

    April 18, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    I absolutely love this idea– so very creative! 🙂

    -Bonnie @ Revolutionaries
    http://www.revolutionariesblog.com

  6. Rosebriars says

    May 3, 2012 at 9:01 pm

    There's got to be a way to make them into clothing buttons. Weird, and probably ugly, but it's the first thing that came to mind.

  7. bluechillies says

    August 6, 2012 at 7:05 pm

    This is an awesome ideal. I would head to the dollar tree and buy a cake pan and just plop them in it and use for math practice. I love the button ideal!

  8. Chantal Farmer says

    April 13, 2014 at 4:50 am

    awesome love the idea thank you!

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I’m Nike — that’s “Neeka” — a SAHM of six kids, age ten and under determined to THRIVE in spite of a layoff, bad economy and our household budget being slashed by half. I refuse to accept that creativity must be a casualty of financial hardship.

I created THRIVE to share my Rock-What-Ya-Got approach to living and crafting without spending a dime. No money. No shopping. No problem.

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