7 Handy Uses for Clothes Pins ...

One of the uses for clothes pins you'll find really practical is for closing food packets. It's so annoying when you fold the inner packet down and straight away it unrolls! Simply peg a clothes pin onto the folded packet and it'll stay firmly in place. Now your food will stay fresh and won't spill all over the kitchen cupboards.

Do you have lots of cookbooks? Books tend to close when you're in the middle of a recipe, and you have to keep propping the page open. But then you get food ingredients all over your nice cookbook. Using a bookmark isn't much help, as you need the page to stay open. Simply pop a peg on the pages you're working from, and they'll stay open exactly where you want them.

Do you find that the parchment paper doesn't stay in place when you're filling a cake tin with batter? Use a couple of pegs to hold it in place. But don't forget to remove before baking - clothes pins aren't meant to be ovenproof (especially plastic ones)!

Old-fashioned clothes pegs have long been used to make clothes pin dolls. Here's an updated version to make a cute mermaid (redtedart.com). But there are all kinds of crafts that you can use the wooden pins for - here are some brilliant ideas (tipjunkie.com). They're also handy for hanging up craft items to dry.

Clothes pins are also handy for organizing your closet. Do you have lots of scarves, belts or necklaces? Peg them to a clothes hanger and you'll not only keep them organised, but be able to make better use of the space. You can also turn a hanger into a skirt hanger by fixing a couple of pins to the bar.

Dining outdoors is fun, but not so good when a puff of wind blows your tablecloth away. If the table is thin enough, use clothes pins to keep the cloth firmly in place. Pop them either side of where the seats are. Do be careful that you don't bump into them though - that wouldn't be very comfortable!

Finally, it can be useful to carry some clothes pins when traveling. If your hotel room or accommodation doesn't have enough hangers you can use the pins to hang things up. You'll find other uses for them as well; for example, if the curtains in your room don't close properly, you can pull them shut with a few clothes pins.

The humble clothes pin has so many different uses that it's worth stocking up so that you always have enough. They're so inexpensive, and you'll get a lot of use out of them. So don't keep them just for hanging out your laundry! Have you discovered any unusual but practical uses for clothes pins?