Empty tread spools
 

What do you do with them? I just toss them. I've seen Christmas tree ornaments made with them but that's it.

a necklace, a wreath,

My MIL used to have a three tiered 'wot-not' in a corner of the hallway which had the upright posts made from wooden spools. Very ingenious I thought, and very pretty.

I have a pretty large old cardboard pattern box of them. When my niece was little, she used to love to play blocks with them. Honestly it was one of her favorite things to play with while visiting. I have made little pull toys with the spools as the wheels and used them as a handle when one came up missing from a drawer in the garage. I keep them in the garage for what I don't know. LOL!

I save the plastic ones for my neighbor. He makes his own fishing flies and uses them to wrap extra fishing line on them.

I toss them.

The wooden ones I keep, the plastic I toss.

MaryB I've been waiting for someone to say they toss the spools...TYSM!!! lol

I have a jar of old wooden ones but toss the plastic ones. If I ever need plastic spools I'll buy more thread. LOL

There’s a preschool teacher in my Modern Guild. She collects them for the children. They can build with them or use them as wheels for cars & trucks. I’m so glad they get put to good use rather than throwing them away.

A friend of mine used to take them and made toys for her cats. They loved them. Many years ago when they were made of wood, we would put nails on the top and used them to weave long tubes with the crochet thread. We would twist them to make hot pads, or coasters. Now they are plastic and go in the recycle bin.

In my past professional life I was a preschool teacher and director. In an effort to demonstrate to parents and others of my staff ways to save money, I used all kinds recycled items for teaching. I had a bin of spools that the children would use like blocks but also to learned to sort by shape, color size and counting and so on. Eventually parents began to bring me the spools from cash registers and calculators (now that means it was a while ago, right?). Any way, you can donate them to a preschool.

Last January someone on the QB suggested saving spools to track how much thread you used. So, just for fun this year, I have saved all my spools. I dropped them into old green glass canning jars I had sitting out for display. I now have nearly four quarts of spools for 2020. They will go out to recycling in just a few weeks or to a preschool and I will start over. I not only reduced my fabric stash in 2020, I also reduced my odds and ends of thread. Yea!

I covered the center with a pretty fabric. Made a little cushion for the top. Glued piece of ribbon around. Then I bought inexpensive pretty pins, put 3 in each...gave to Ruritans Thrift store ...
Made me feel good to donate, had fun making them! Had about 20!

As a kid my dad would nail 6 small finishing nails in a spool so we could spool knit with them. Now that they are plastic I usually toss them.

I used to save them and I put them in a bag with a long shoe string. My children and grand children loved to “string” them

ummm....I save all my spools in a large plastic jar....that big ones that things like puffed cheese corn come in. Then....when I am thinking I am not getting things done.....I glance over at the jar and go "but look at all the spools I have emptied"

I throw mine. Mine are all plastic
I use the 5000Y poly spools, nothing fancy about them. Sewing pup, I like your idea, seeing something like that would make me smile.😀

Wood ones I store in an old jar sitting in my sewing room. The others I save and give to Daycares as children love to play with them.

So I just decided to start saving my empty thread spools. Why? I have no idea. Just emptied one spool. Will date it and we'll see how long I do this...lol

I string them on ribbon for kitten toys- our kitten Loves playing with them

My empty threads are mostly cones, what does a person do with them? They are plastic.