I love office and school supplies! I am woman enough to admit. And so the fabulous sales in the fall always make my eyes gleam. The penny, dime, quarter and fifty cents deals seem too good to pass up.

One of the things that seem most fascinating is the plastic pencil boxes. Not the little slider boxes but proper plastic pencil boxes with hinges and closing hinges. I usually can pick them up on sale during back to school season for 25 or 50 cents apiece at Walgreens.

I live in a world of little people, little things and way to much crud so I knew there had to be some way to utilize these boxes! And I found some! Remember these can be used in so many ways other than holding crayons, pencils or other school supplies!

Here are just 5 ideas to get you going!

1.  Army Men: My kids have those little army men everywhere. They populate their cities, conduct major battles, and generally get thrown around. Did you know they even make them in fire and police varieties now? And did you know those little stinkers are pointy and sharp? My feet know! You can store quite a few in 1 pencil box and then they don’t have to either leave them out or pull everything out of a big bin to find them!
2. USB Drives/Press Kits: You know those little USB/Flash drives? Those little storage devices are awesome to have around for those quick file transfers, movies or whatever. But if you don’t actually have it plugged into your computer it can be hard to keep track of them. And can I let you into a little blogger secret? We get press kits from lots of companies on USB drives. So once we pull all the information off for pieces and videos, we have perfectly serviceable USB Drives. They all fit wonderfully in these pencil boxes until someone happens to need a USB Drive (even the palm tree ones;).
3. Hair Clips: I have decided, women’s and girls’ hair clips have full reproductive abilities. Because it seems no matter how many you throw out because they break or chip they just keep coming! My daughters basically filled a bathroom drawer with hair elastics and clips. Well, that was until I brought the pencil boxes in! Now they have 2 boxes. 1 for clips and 1 for hair ties and there is even room for other things now! Imagine.
4. Lego People: Legos are awesome. All Legos. But there is a special fascination with the Lego figures. Such a fascination that even the generic, non character ones sell for a pretty  penny. So while we have numerous bins of Lego bricks we only have 20-30 Lego people. And of course they want to play with them all the time. Even if they aren’t playing with the Lego bricks. I can tell you from experience that nothing is more annoying than kids pulling out numerous Lego bins because they can’t find Loki’s staff or Batman. So you can keep all your Lego People and their accessories in 1 pencil box. It will save your kids oodles of time, save you oodles of nagging, and save your oodles of limping.
5. Game Piece Storage: You are just finishing a rousing (ready fairly stressful) game of Sorry. The more stressful the game was the more likely that today is the day. The day that the box falls apart. So now you are annoyed and just want to be done. But now you are trying to shove everything in the box and trying to get the lid to stick to it… This isn’t going to work. Instead just pop all the pieces into a pencil box. Then you will just need the box and the board to be have everything you need. And more importantly, when you are done you have a dependable method of storage that you don’t have to fight with! 

 Remember just because you buy something that has a use already assigned to it doesn’t mean you can’t use it for something else! Look for unexpected uses for everyday items (or back to school bargains) and your life will be just a little more organized. And you might even have a little more money left;).

So what could you store in your pencil boxes?