DIY Tupperware

When I had my first child some women in the area brought us dinner. It was of course greatly appreciated. One women brought her dinner in old plastic cool whip and cottage cheese containers.  She told me that she always has these on hand so that she can take food to people and not worry about getting her good Tupperware back. 

When I heard this I had one of those "D'OH" moments.  The kind of moment where something is so obvious that you can't believe you never thought of it before.

So my Tupperware cupboard is now full of old plastic containers and I have used them for many things but mostly for organizing the kids stuff like crayons or cars.

They work great, but the down side is I never know whats in them since my photographic memory is still in the shop (it broke during my first pregnancy.)  I saw a post about getting the ink off of the containers and was very excited about it.

Remove Ink From Plastic Containers
You will need
Acetone (found in the beauty section next to the nail polish remover)
Dishpan
Rag
Gloves

Directions
 Wear the gloves to protect your hands and saturate the rag with the acetone.  Make sure you are in a well ventilated area.  Wrap the rag around the container and let it sit in a dishpan for 3-5 minutes.  Check the container by rubbing the paint.  If it doesn't come easily off then keep soaking.

I had never heard of acetone but it was easy to find. It was right by the nail polish remover and it was around $3 or $4. I can't remember exactly.

I soaked my rags.... then passed out from the fumes.  Ok I really didn't, but I never knew there could be a smell that is worse then ammonia.  I put the rags over the containers then went outside to get some air, the whole time I was wondering if I had any brain cells left.

After about 5 minutes I went back to rub a little of the ink to see if it would come off.  I then had to run and shove my hand in ice water to warm it up.  Yes you read that right.  I have no idea what acetone is or what  is in it, but something that smells that bad and burns my gloved hand from being so cold should be banned.  It was like grabbing dry ice.  (yes I am exaggerating again, but the rag was freakishly cold and I had to keep taking breaks so my hands could warm up.)

The Verdict: After rubbing at the ink with the wet rags I was both surprised and disappointed.  The website said that some containers will work better then others.  I ended up doing about 6 of them to see how each one would work. 

This Greek yogurt worked great.  It took very little effort for the ink to come off the container and it's lid

You would think that this is a before photo, but it's not.  The acetone didn't even smudge the ink.

I had a couple of containers that looked like this.  I bet if I soaked them longer in acetone then I could have gotten all the ink off, but this would have required longer time with the fumes and freezing rags. 

It works, and I like that I can use dry erase markers on them so I know whats it in, but I won't do it again.  Save yourself the  headache (literally) and spend the money on cheap Ziploc Tupperware.