Don't Throw That Out!: A Pennywise Parent's Guide to Creative Uses for Over 200 Household Items (Family & Childcare) [Paperback]

Vicki Lansky (Author), Martha Campbell (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Family & Childcare | Publication Date: June 2003

This pennywise guide is packed with more than 200 helpful tips for frugal parents who know that children are as entertained by an empty refrigerator box as they are with an expensive pre-fab fort. An easy-to-read format illustrated with cute line drawings lists numerous alternative uses for common household items.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The "Queen of Helpful Hints" (for parents), strikes again, this time with the "outrageous" notion that you shouldn't throw away stuff other books say you should and with practical tips that cost nothing. In the first category, for instance, an inflatable wading pool can go under a bed to store out-of-season toys. In the second, you can make a baby bonnet hold its shape by drying it on a balloon. You get the idea. This fun and useful small-format book will slip right in among however many other of Lansky's two dozen titles you already stock. Jo Peer-Haas

Product Details

• Paperback: 108 pages
• Publisher: Book Peddlers (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 091677340X
• ISBN-13: 978-0916773403
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #855,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Feed Me I'm Yours, my first book, began as a local fund raising cookbook in 1974 and turned me into an author. I thought it was the only book I'd ever write and then for a while, I thought that each new book would be my last. Was I wrong!

Along the way I also became a publisher. Feed Me I'm Yours was first published from my husband's and my home on Meadowbrook Lane (i.e., Meadowbrook Press). Our company grew very fast as we learned the publishing business. After our divorce 8 years later, I left Meadowbook Press with no plans of being a publisher again. However, as the books I wrote for others went out of print, I established my own imprint, Book Peddlers, which now publishes over half of my 30 titles...including (naturally) Vicki Lansky's Divorce Book for Parents.

When you write parenting books, everyone glances critically at your children. Thank goodness mine had the good grace to turn out well. Despite my mistakes (and they'll be the first to point them out) my thirty-something twosome have survived and thrived in spite of having had a "professional" mother. Lucky me!

I think my mother would be astonished to know that I give out cleaning and household advice to millions of people as a columnist for Family Circle magazine. After all, she 'not I' had made a career of homemaking. In 1988, when Family Circle asked me to be a contributing editor to their "Help" column, I was delighted. This would be a place for me to share "grown-up" tips. I was now moving beyond the days of needing to know that peanut butter removes gum from children's hair!

Writing about household hints has been more of an education than I ever dreamt. I'm often asked what my favorite tip is. Usually it's the one I've not heard before, which is what keeps my work so interesting. My books on Baking Soda tips and Vinegar tips have sold in the hundreds of thousands copies. Amazing. How lucky I am to be able to share so many helpful ideas...and it is good, clean FUN too.

I'm not sure of my next projects as I've decided to cut back a bit on my book life and work a little more on just my life. But I'm never far from my computer and I know there are idea gremlins scrambling around my brain waiting to escape. Stay tuned.....