Yet another phone book company delivered a book of “friendly” yellow pages to our front door this month — for a total of three giant phone books from three different companies — for our two-person household. I don’t remember the last time I used a phone book (poor l’il archaic thing), but we tend to keep at least one copy handy.
What to do with the other two? After sitting in a pile for several months, they find their way to the recyling center. Or I use a book as a makeshift cutting pad for my X-acto work. Do you do anything creative with your used or unwanted phone books?
[tags]yellow pages, phone book crafts, recycling phone books[/tags]
I dislike that too!!!!!
I use the extra phone books for a few things-first I have one as my ‘glue/paint’ book. You can do all your messy gluing/painting for scrapbooks/art stuff on the phone book, then rip out the dirty pages, while keeping your worksurface clean!
I also use one for pressing flowers. the papers absorb really well, and you can put ALOT of stuff in a phone book.
I like to use the pages for collage crafts or to make small envelopes to mail little notes in.
Let’s say you go to a gas station and the toilet seat is really dirty. Rip a few pages out of the nearest yellow pages. Maybe you chose the Attorney heading. Wrap them around the dirty seat.
Some pets (eg rabbits) like to play with telephone directories. Otherwise I use them sometimes for gluing, painting, I thought about using some of the pages in collage but so far haven’t done that.
Great ideas (um, yes, even the toilet liner idea). Crafty Green Poet, I’ve seen some wallpapering techniques with phone books that make some really interesting patterns. The paper is a far-cry from acid-free scrapbooking-type paper, but I think it would still make a great tissue-like collage paper.
I’ve chased phone book delivery guys down the street telling them to take their phonebooks back. I have a no soliciting sign (no handbills, etc. . .) and these are just books of ads. Really! Each “yellow pages” boils down to ads guaranteed to reach all the residents of any given city. Then a lot of recycling center specify “no phonebooks.” I’m not sure I could say I’ve recycled them in a creative way. My daughter used a stack of them before we broke down and bought a booster seat.
My dh used the ever handy duct tape to cover the phone book and we use it as a booster seat for our son.
phone book pages are newsprint which is very absobent. when i use my deep fryer i put the phone book pages as a base layer, then cover with some paper towel ( i’m sure there are lots of germs on phone books! ) that’s how i drain my french fries. i don’t feel guilty just throwing them out and i save a lot of money not using tons of paper towels. our local phone company always leave a huge stack of them in the main foyer of my apartment building and after a few weeks i take the leftover ones nobody needs so they are relativly clean. happy french fry day!
Opt out! Someone from this group posted this link on my blog: http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/
Not sure if it really works, but something to look into!
I use two phone books as a computer monitor stand, so my neck won’t ache as I’m working on my computer. I also have a phone book under my desk as a foot rest. I’m short and my feet don’t quite touch the ground in my office chair.
I do this at home and sadly at work.
As for germs, I would imagine the phonebook paper to be like the newspaper. If that is the case, if you are pregnant you could always throw one in your car trunk just in case you go into labor while in the car. (Spread the paper out under you, since the ink is sterile.)
Also, continuing with the idea that its like newspaper, you could make a pillow for your pet, and instead of using pillow filling put layers of paper in it instead. (Not only would you save money and recycle the newspaper, but if your pet happens to wet its bed, you can just take the paper out, wash the fabric and not have to worry about it being all lumping after the wash.)
Last, but not least, one time I saw a tutorial where the person took the phonebook, rolled it up so that the pages kind of fanned out ever so slightly. They tied a couple of pretty ribbons around it to hold in place, and then used it on there desk sort of like a roll-a-dex to hold business cards and such. (Just stick the cards in the fanned out pages.)
Wait I thought of something else… When kittens are little you aren’t suppose to give them litter with clay in it just in case they eat it. When we had our kittens I just shredded some of the book pages and used them for their litter boxes.
If you garden, or even if you only have s few house plants, you can use the books for mulch. Remove the glossy pages and tear or shred the remainder. Layer the paper with ‘brown'(potting mix, even coffee grounds or tea leaves) and ‘green'(leaves, trimmings) material, add a little water. If your composting, you’ll need to turn-over the mix every several days. If using in house plans ,occassionally, just use your fingers to loosen the mix.
I just used part of mine to wrap up glass ornaments. Could see it being useful for packaging material. If we assume it’s like newspaper, you could save up a few to use as a weed barrier (search for using newspaper [as opposed to the plastic that doesn’t biodegrade to block weeds for the idea) under your mulch layer. Did this last year with old magazines and it worked surprisingly well. Also wondering if there’s a potential for some modern DIY art here: if you’re listed in the phone book, cut out the page you’re on and frame it in a nice matted frame? Might look good in a frame collage.
I use my old phone books for craft Christmas trees! lots of fun for kids.