7 Ways to Reuse Your Old Fruit Crates

4 minutes

With a little imagination, practically any item can be recycled and given a new lease of life as part of your interior decor. Today, we want to show you some original ways you can reuse old fruit crates in your home.

Last update: 03 March, 2020

If you like fruit, you’ll probably have found that you’ve managed to collect a fair number of fruit crates over the years. With a little creativity, you can give those old boxes a second chance at life. In this article, we’ll show you some of the different ways you can reuse fruit crates in your decor.

If, on the other hand, you’ve simply been throwing them away up until now, now’s the time to change that. Once you’ve seen these ideas, you’ll never want to throw them away again. As you’ll soon see, recycled wood opens up a huge array of possibilities.

Reusing fruit crates in your garden

The first option is to use your wooden crates as planters for your garden or patio. If you have several smaller plants, you can grow them all in the same crate. If they’re slightly larger, you can plant them all separately.

You can also personalize your planters, decorating them however you like. If you’re thinking of painting them, we’d recommend sanding them first to ensure a smooth, even finish, and to get rid of any splinters.

As well as painting your crates, you can also customize them with all kinds of decorative elements. We suggest using wooden decorations, as they’re durable and easy to glue on.

Sewing box

Fruit crates can also be transformed into practical sewing boxes. You can store all your equipment inside and keep it on a table or shelf. That way, it will help decorate your room and ensure you can access it whenever you need it.

If you have a lot of sewing equipment and materials, you can stack the crates like drawers, and use each one for a different item, such as fabrics, thread, and yarn. You can then label and decorate each box so that you know exactly what’s in each one.

Reusing fruit crates as clothespins boxes

If your clothespins are always scattered around the house and getting lost, this is the perfect option for you. Simply gather up all the pins you can find and keep them in an old fruit crate. Again, you can decorate the crates with paint, or simply line the inside with patterned paper.

Fruit crate shelves

By decorating your fruit crates and hanging them upright on the wall, you can use them as handy shelves. You can then display your books and decorative objects on shelves you’ve decorated with your own two hands.

Reusing fruit crates as toy boxes

Toy boxes are essential for children’s rooms, especially if you want to keep your home tidy and organized. If your children enjoy arts and crafts, don’t hesitate to get them involved and decorate the fruit crate together. That way, they can choose the colors they like best and decide which toys they want to keep in it.

As well as toys, you can also use these crates to store small books. You can divide the books into separate boxes, organizing them by theme or genre. This also gives you the option of decorating the crates with pictures or words relating to that genre.

For example, if you decide to use one box for animal books, you could decorate it with lions, dogs, dolphins… By getting your kids involved in decorating their boxes, you can encourage them to take responsibility for their stuff.

Photo frames

Are you tired of conventional photo frames? If the answer is yes, we have the solution. Believe it or not, you can transform old fruit crates into picture frames.

Because they’re generally larger than standard frames, you can normally use them to display several photos instead of one. These beautiful frames would make a fantastic addition to your home, or even a charming homemade gift for family or friends.

As always, you can decorate these frames however you like. Then, all you need is some glue to stick the photos to the base. Last of all, you simply have to stand the crate upright so that it’s supported on one edge and the photos are visible.

Reusing fruit crates as stationery organizers

Washi tape is a type of decorative ribbon, available in all different colors and patterns. It’s normally used to decorate objects and is currently more popular than ever.

You can reuse your old fruit crates to store all your tape and other pieces of stationery all in one place. With a few pieces of hardboard, you can create dividers for your crate, making different sized compartments depending on what you want to store.