I toss mine into a large pop corn tin then when it's full I give them all to either the local boy scout troop or during the school year I give them to the local elementary school- those kids/teachers are pretty creative & find great things to do with them- they are always very happy to receive them.

I heard a long time ago about a woman who had a bushel basket of empty spools in her estate sale. I started saving mine, thinking I would never have that many. I have them in several boxes now and I'm sure I have at least that many, maybe the second basket if I had them all together. Some day someone will talk about that eccentric old lady, "what was she thinking?"

I still keep the wooden spools but toss the rest.

I throw them away without a second thought. I've been getting rid of lots of stuff lately. There's a thread in the personal diary section of QB in which many people talk about downsizing and getting rid of stuff that they thought their children would want, but found out they didn't and things they thought they couldn't live without, but realized they didn't actually need.

I had an idea in my mind to make a quilt portrait of "someone" and use the spools for curly hair. It would make it 3D and I thought a fun project. Didn't get around to it yet though, of course. If someone tries it please post it.

Great idea! I used to do stamping, and still have a ton of stuff that I just can't part with. I have it all packed away in bins in case I can't quilt anymore. Who knows what I might want to do when I get"old"! ;-)

I kept mine and the extra long shoe strings that come with new sneakers. Thought my grandson would like stringing them like beads. That lasted all of 2 seconds.

I toss the spools to the cat to play with :D.... until I step on one :mad:... then I throw it away!

Never thought about saving them and passing them one to an organization. Thanks for the idea.

Nan

what an awesome site ! Thank you !

I have a huge plastic jar that is filled with empty wooden spools. My granddaughter played with them and now my grandson loves to spill them out. I keep a few of the different size plastic spools for spool adapters for some of the odd size spools of thread.