New prizes added! Woohoo! It's gonna be awesome. No one make a tofu container bra - I've got dibs on that. OK fine you can make one, too.

i have way too much time on my hands (i teach 4th grade, and have the summer off)

a few ideas that came to mind:

1. for sprouting seedlings before you can transplant outside in the spring.  hey you could even put them outside with a second tofu container inverted, with holes poked in the top, like a mini- greenhouse.

2. line your sock drawer with tofu containers so you have one of those compartmentalized thingies (this one is a bit of a stretch)

3. i'm bringing my famous peach-mango salsa to a barbeque today, and i'll put it in a tofu container so i don't have to worry about washing a serving bowl after a few glasses of wine (i always lose my stuff when i'm wining)...

okay, so this is super-simple (sorry i don't have any pictures).

i use leftover tofu containers (the plastic tubs like nasoya) as small planters. they fit perfectly along windowsills, the back of my sink, etc. what do i plant in them??? everything a vegan culinary genius should plant! basil, chamomile, lemon balm, sprouts, parsley, and catgrass (because the kitty -- the lovable mochi scout -- loves her fresh munchies too). its the perfect amount of herbs... just enough for a single girl and one small cat in a teeny apartment (although if you do have cats, make sure you only allow them near herbs that are safe for them -- my cat's catgrass is on her favorite windowsill and the rest is out of her reach).

just poke a few holes in the bottom of the tub and plant a few seeds per the packets instructions. take another tofu container (with no holes in it) and put a layer of about an inch of pebbles inside. put the first dirt-filled container inside this intact one, and you've got your own planter with tray to help drain excess water without it overflowing on your windowsills. empty these lower trays every few waterings. tada! you're an urban gardener!

you can also place some strategic containers of ivy over doorways for an olde english look to your place as well. make these planters super-fun and crafty by painting or stenciling the name of the contents on the container, or decorating it in someway that is completely unrelated to the herbs (stickers, photos, etc.). its your garden, make it pretty. i like to paint the outer trays with non-herb-specific designs so that i can reuse them even when i plant new herbs or mix and match them at my whim.

and while i don't have a photo of the planters, i do offer this photo of their biggest fan:

sorry, i should have put this in the same post... forgetful me.

my kitty (see the black fluffball above) is extremely curious, and has a particular penchant for wandering at night and playing with electrical sockets. i hear that toddlers do the same, except at daytime or anytime. in addition, the only sport i'm good at is an elaborate game of tag with my furniture, in which the furniture stays stationary and i run into it shins-first in the middle of the night. so, to solve both problems i came up with tofu nightlights.

this is again, supereasy. i have no idea at what point i found out that the tofu tubs i had fit over my electrical outlets, but i'm glad i did. use wax paper to make designs on them, stencil something pretty on them, or (like me) cut photos out from magazines and put on the outside of the tub. i've got a few of these around the apartment and each features a different pin-up girl. if you're doing this because you've got kids, maybe a penguin or something else with less sex appeal. you can have a lot of fun with these: sheer paints, colored wax paper, rickrack, sequins, and pom poms are all valid. you can even punch holes in them "connect-the-dots" style and run yarn or ribbon through the holes to make a design. a friend of mine did that in a snowflake pattern. its all up to you.

you can use these to cover outlets alone, or put a nightlight in the outlet under them for a beautiful glowing light. if you can do it without damaging the wall, surround the outlet faceplate with 4 thin strips of strong velcro and do the same with the edges of your tofu container. that way, you can put them on and take them off at will and avoid the duct tape look (unless you're into that). some good "permanent" places to put them are around phone jack boxes (mine is in the middle of the wall!) with a notch cut out for the telephone wire to run through.

p.s. i'll try to get some photos of this stuff over the weekend.

I use them for mixing paint, holding paint water, holding paint... also you could use them to sort out makeup and eyeshadows and such.

<3
khristian

shiitake, l.a.i.n. just took my tofu container idea.  All those xacto knife injuries for nuthin.  Maybe I'll convert them into party lanterns...

ahh! i drove all the way out of state to my parents' house to use the digital camera -- and my mom's out of town with it for another week! in the meantime, i took some good old film images, and i'll just develop and scan those.

Sorry about that... been writing in HTML the whole day

Yeah... I have a cheap 10$ computer camera/video thing so I could talk with my boyfriend when he spent a semester in another state- now it's my only camera. Might look better at a smaller size- the thing has pretty bad resolution.

cool! first entry. is the photo printed on vellum or something so its see through?  or is that just the camera playing tricks on me?

okay, so my picture's aren't going to be developed on time (damn you, walgreens!). they sent out the film and now i can't get it back to take elsewhere (apparently, their inhouse developer was "being cleaned", but they didn't feel it was necessary to tell me that until after my film had been mailed). so, i'm going to get creative and try to draw it on the computer. maybe even scan the actual tofu package for effect... i seriously hope i can get this done on time, because i'm a broke, grad student newbie that is sadly deprived of being able to watch the PPK. the funny part is that i see all the prizes and all three seem equally awesome, although they're probably not monetarily even. doesn't matter if i can't get the photos of my two crafts, though!

suddenly, i'm glad that i once puked on a walgreens' welcome mat when i was 7 and had the flu.

Last edited by l.a.i.n (Wed 7/13/05 3:37 pm)

i'll work on the drawings tonight. i don't promise CAD drawings or anything, but i'll at least rig something up in paint that shows a decent representation of what they are in case i don't get the photos. first choice is bribing my coworker to let me borrow her digital camera!