10 Wacky Uses for Dixie® Cups

1. Protect tomatoes from cutworms and insects. Remove the bottoms of Dixie Cups and push the cups into the soil to encircle young plants.
2. Improvise a funnel. Punch a hole in the bottom of a Dixie Cup near the edge.
3. Make a weather vane. Remove the bottom from a Dixie Cup and hang the cup horizontally from a string. Theopening will tend to face into the wind.
4. Protect the light bulb in the oven while you’re using strong cleansers. Cover the light bulb with a Dixie Cup. The translucent cup allows light to shine.
5. Germinate seeds. Use a pencil to poke a hole in center of the bottom of a Dixie Cup. Fill the cup halfway with soil. Place the seed inside and cover with more soil. Follow directions on the seed packet for proper care, and be sure to label the plant name on the cup with an indelible marker. When ready to plant, peal away the cup.
6. Turn soap slivers into liquid soap. Place slivers of soap in a Dixie Cup with a little water, and wait a few days.
7. Make “Strawberry Short Cup.” Place a spoonful of whipped topping in the bottom of six 9 oz. Dixie Cups. Alternate filling the cups with strawberries and cubed cake to one inch below the rim. Press down with a spoon to fill any air pockets. Complete with whipped topping and a single whole strawberry. Serves six.
8. Repel leafhoppers from lettuce heads.Tack plastic yellow Dixie Cups upside down to short stakes in the lettuce patch and coat the cups with Vaseline Petroleum Jelly. The leafhoppers, attracted to the color yellow, get stuck in the gelatinous gunk on the cups.
9. Relieve an earache caused by the change in pressure in an airplane. Dampen a paper towel with hot water, ball it up, and place in the bottom of a Dixie Cup. Then hold the Dixie Cup over your ear. The steam from the hot water will soften the wax in your ear, alleviating the pain.
10. Make a poor man’s telephone. Punch a small hole in the bottom of two Dixie Cups. Then thread the ends of a long piece of string through the holes and tie each end to a button. You and a friend each take a cup and walk apart until the string is straight and taut. Speak into the open end of your cup. Your sound waves travel along the string and can be heard by your friend through the open end of the other cup.