The mighty rubber band. Such a simple design. How would we live without it?

Here are 10 of my favorite ways to use this little elastic wonder:

1. Put around a can of paint to wipe the dripping paint off the brush. Wrap the band from the bottom of the can up and over the opened top. Swipe the edge of your brush on this band instead of the lip of the can. Makes for easier clean up and less likely to have your half used can get glued to itself during storage.
2. Distinguish drinking glasses. We used to go through every water glass in the house each day. Now each person gets their own colored rubber band and wraps it around their drinking glass. You can even leave them on during dish washing, but I prefer to take them off.

3. Removed a stripped screw. You can use a rubber band to extract a stripped screw. Place the rubber band between the screw head and a screw driver (one size larger than the driver that stripped the screw.) Press and turn. With any luck, the rubber will fill the stripped spaces and come out of the hole.
4. Keep clothes from slipping off hangers. Wrap a rubber band a couple of turns around each end of a hanger. This will keep your silky shirts from falling off.
5. Give your Easter eggs stripes. Wrap bands around eggs before you dunk them into the dye. Once the eggs are dry, take off the bands. There won’t be color where the bands were on the eggs.
6. Keep papers tucked in your car visor. Put a band around the sun visor on your car. This way you can keep parking stubs, directions or favorite photos close at hand but still be able to use the visor. If you don’t use the band, the papers will fall on you when you pull down the visor.
7. Break in a baseball glove. Anyone who has played little league (or has a kid who played little league) know that you need to break in your glove. One way you do this is to place a baseball into the palm of the glove and wrap the glove around it with a rubber band.
8. Use to keep CDs and DVDs from disappearing from their cases during a yard sale.
9. Tie dye. Rubber bands are one of the essential materials needed for tie dying.
10. Make a rubber band gun with your hand. I always wanted to know how to do this. Now I know. You can too. Just watch this short video.

There are endless ways to use the ever versatile rubber band. As a matter of fact, if you know a young inventor (grades 5th through 8th) who has a new use for rubber bands, they can enter The University of Akron’s Rubber Band Contest and possibly win $5,000. Deadline for entries is April 2, 2012.

Do you have a new way to use a rubber band?

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