Crafty Reuse: Shower Curtain Liners

Last week, commenter Robyn asked about crafty ideas for reusing an old shower curtain liner. What a great question! It turns out there are several ways to reuse that old shower curtain liner.

Re-nest suggests using tarps to kill weeds in your yard. Why not use an old liner place of the tarp? Just weigh it down with bricks over the problem area on a sunny day. The plastic liner will trap the heat from the sun. There’s a good chance you’ll kill any other plants underneath there, so this is probably best if you’re clearing an area to plant a garden bed.

But that’s just the beginning! Check out these other crafty ideas for that old plastic shower curtain or liner:

  • Essortment shows you how to create a mini greenhouse! All you need is a discarded cardboard box, your curtain liner (use this for the plastic the project calls for), a coat hanger, dirt, seeds, and water.
  • Over at Dollar Store Crafts, Kitten Muffin from Filth Wizardry turns a shower curtain liner into a play mat using just the liner and some permanent markers.
  • You can also cut up the liner and use it in sewing projects in place of oil cloth – maybe to make a waterproof beach bag? You’ll want to switch to a heavy needle and back your project with tissue paper to help the liner feed through your machine. When you’re done sewing, you can just tear the paper away. Try a little bit of a longer stitch length, too. Otherwise, you might just create a perforated line on your liner that tears easily.
  • You might also try cutting the liner into fun shapes and decoupaging them with different materials to make a mobile like the one by Denise Carbonell in this post. Book or magazine pages would work really well. Maybe a combination of both?

I’m sure there are lots of other uses for these things, too. Have you incorporated an old liner into a crafty project? Spill it in the comments!

Image credit: Creative Commons photo by House of Sims

9 thoughts on “Crafty Reuse: Shower Curtain Liners”

  1. The tarp and greenhouse ideas seem cool, but I’m confused. Old liners aren’t clean enough to use in crafts, (eew). If they were, I’d keep using them as the liner!

  2. Thanks for posting this idea! Rhiannon makes a good point – my liner is beginning to tear from the hooks. It does need to be scrubbed clean if I’m going to re-use it, but I’d rather do that than toss this large piece of plastic out. Plastic anything in landfills is already such a problem. I like the greenhouse idea too!

  3. I buy coffee in 34 oz plastic containers. My brand is a beautiful blue but there are others that are red and decaf is green. I can’t bring myself to toss these out and have run out of things to store in the. I also noticed that the potato chips I buy are in the same color container with a bright yellow lid. I would like some ideas of crafts or some good use for these. I have thought of possibly using them in a flower bed with the chip cans as just added decorations. The coffee cans are square with the handle on one corner and the chip cans are round. Anyone have any ideas email me at inchowlady@yahoo.com

  4. We don’t purchase plastic shower liners anymore because of the PVC and off gassing (not to mention the land fill issue, those holes tear quickly). Nasty!

    Instead, we use mildew resistant cloth shower curtains. These also make great fabric for cloth diaper covers, wet bags, play mats and anything else you need a water resistant fabric for.

  5. Old shower curtain liners (especially patterned ones) make wonderful window films, which can soften light entering a room as well as block out curious eyes. Measure the window pane. Cut the plastic about 1/4″ larger all around. Wash the window with a really good window cleaner (AKA vinegar) and dry. Lay a dishtowel in the window sill. VERY IMPORTANT: mist the window with a light coat of water. Lay the plastic in place. VERY IMPORTANT: mist the plastic. Squeegee out all of the water (hence the towel). The plastic will shrink a little as it dries. After at least 24 hours, any excess plastic can be removed with a sharp craft knife. These can be removed with just a tug and don’t damage the glass. IMPORTANT NOTE: if you have just installed new thermal windows, this may void your warranty! I have these in several rooms in my house instead of curtains (for the summer) and they are like sun-lit art on the walls.

  6. Creative list of options for a liner we would quickly discard after use. We get calls all the time from people looking for the same clear plastic vinyl for craft projects and upholstering; what a great way to show them how to reuse throughout the home. Thanks

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top