Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Those Old College Tees

We all have them – those four million t-shirts baring our university’s logo/our sorority letters/the 45 clubs we are a part of. You’ve collected them over the course of your degree, and now you have so many you can barely close your dresser drawers. You probably have a few you wear — the nice one you bought at the bookstore, or your favorite shirt you acquired at a school event (because every college student knows free sh*t is good sh*t) that you wear to the gym or sleep in. But the rest? They just sit there taking up precious dresser space because you can’t bring yourself to get rid of them.

“I did my first beer bong in that one,” you tell yourself. “I can’t throw away the memories!” Well, you don’t have to. Here are a few ways to reuse your old shirts.

Throw pillows — Pick the t-shirts with logos you love, but never wear. Follow these easy instructions, and you have new room decor. The main cost is pillow forms, or cotton batting, but it’s a lot cheaper than going out and buying them from a decor store. Variation: make an actual t-shirt pillow.

T-shirt shopping bag — Go green when lugging your groceries home with a snazzy new shopping bag. You can save the planet by not using plastic bags, and have extra change for happy hour by not spending a cent on the reusable ones from the grocery store. Plus, you can turn that pre-party t-shirt into something actually useful!

T-shirt quilt — If you’re feeling ambitious, and have a ton of t-shirts, make a t-shirt quilt. You’ll have a unique new blanket, and still be able to look at your favorite tees. If you’re not feeling up to the challenge alone, and have a quilter in the family (such as a grandma or an aunt) why not ask them to help you out? You will get a less amateur looking product, and they will get some quality time with their favorite student.

Pillow cube — Makes a soft projectile to wake a roommate sleeping through her alarm if you share a bedroom.

Recon your t-shirt — If you really like the design on the shirt, but don’t like how it fits, why not reconstruct it so you’ll actually wear it. The book, Generation T: 101 Ways to Transform a T-shirt is a good step-by-step guide to help you out.

Have any more suggestions, let us know!