Do you have a bunch of extra hangers in your closet? If you have a sizable wardrobe and recently traded in some clothes, there’s a chance you have at least a few. Fortunately, if you ever get bored and you have a bunch of hangers hanging around, you may be able to repurpose them for some creative DIY projects. Even if they don’t all match, we have uses for wooden, plastic and wire hangers alike.
But enough chatter—here are your 16 best ways to reuse some of your old hangers.
1. Turn Them Non-Slip
Many of us have at least some wire hangers lying around and we all know that these are the lowest form of hangers. They don’t look particularly nice on their own and they’re also not particularly strong. Still, even these can be made better with a little bit of craftiness. All you have to do is get some neon yarn and wrap it tightly around these hangers to make them a little nicer to look at—plus the yarn adds some grip so your clothes won’t slip off.
2. Book Hangers
If you want to completely repurpose your wire hangers, this is one interesting way to accomplish that. Take your hanger and bend it into a kind of half-square shape and nail one side of it to the wall. By doing this, you can make a nice little shelf which can hold a few books or magazines!
3. Dish Drainers
Although you’ll need a bit sturdier of a hanger for this one (wooden hangers, we’re looking at you), you can definitely reuse wooden hangers for some good purposes. For one thing, you can take these hangers, alternate them up and down and bind them together in the middle to make a pretty respectable dish drainer.
4. Wreaths
Of all the types of hangers you may have lying around, your cheapest wire hangers may be the best ones for repurposing. All you need is a bunch of these hangers, some wire cutters and maybe some pliers. With your tools, you can bend and weave a bunch of these hangers together into a wreath (which you can then decorate with flowers or whatever else your heart desires).
5. Wire Entryway Holder
If you don’t want to do as much work but you still want to put an old wire hanger to use, consider using one on the wall near your doorway as a general holder of things. Simply nail a hanger upside down near the doorway of your home and use the hook as a place to put jewelry, keys, necklaces or whatever else you might have in your pockets.
6. Flip Flop Organizer
If you live near the beach, chances are pretty high that you have at least a few pairs of cheap flip flops floating around in your closet. If you want a cheap and easy way to organize them, try using some of those trust old wire hangers. Keep the hook part but unravel the button or cut it in half and twist the sides apart into hooks. Once you’re done, you can hang one shoe on each side of the hanger.
7. Topiaries
Do you know what a topiary is? If you don’t, it’s a decorative shrubbery or tree that you can use to decorate your home. As it turns out, you can start the basis of one if you use another of your old wire hangers. Trim one up into a round or circular shape (or whatever shape you like, really) and then mount it in a pot of soil. With some coaxing, your plants will grow around the wireframe!
8. Chandelier
You’re probably wondering what we’re even talking about with this one. To begin, know that we’re talking about using wooden hangers on this one. There are a few ways to do this. First, you can lay all your wooden hangers on a slant and mount them around two steel rings. You can even do it with hard plastic hangers if you orient them the opposite way! We leave the details up to you.
9. Artwork Display
As a much simpler project, you can also simply pin up wooden hangars around your house by nails and use them to hang pictures or paintings from. To do this, simply mount a wooden hangar on the wall with nails and hang a small frame from the little hooks in it with twine!
10. Glasses Hanger
This is a similar twist on the above trick except it’s upside down. In this case, you take a wooden hangar and use the hook part to hang on a nail or a peg. This way, you can use the crossbar below it to hang many pairs of glasses or sunglasses on. If you keep this by the front door, you don’t have to be afraid of losing a pair of specs ever again.
11. Ribbon Organizers
If you’re a particularly crafty person, you probably have a drawer full of ribbon and thread that you can’t tell apart at a glance. Wouldn’t it be great if you could mount all of that stuff somewhere where you could easily get to it? If you said yes, you can easily accomplish that with a simple wire hanger—feed the crossbar through the center of your ribbons and threads and you’ll be good to go.
12. Scarf Organizer
Although this one takes a little bit of extra work and materials, the principle remains the same. You start with a wire hanger and you may need to add some plastic rings or bangles to create additional rings. Wrap it all and tape it together to create a bunch of holes to stuff scarfs through and hang it on your closet door.
13. Wedding Gift
With wedding season upon us, you may be wondering about creative gifts you can give the lucky bride and groom. Although this one seems a little unusual, it is a nice touch that involves a wooden hanger. All you have to do is get a wooden hanger and twist the bottom wire into a signature of whoever’s name you’re giving it to! This one may require some extra help—but it turns out looking pretty cool.
14. Decorative Tree
If you’re feeling very unusual (or maybe you have a baby’s room to decorate), you can use multiple hangers to create a mobile or a kind of floating Christmas tree as well. The first one has to be mounted from the ceiling. After that, hang two more off that one, then two more of each of those and so on until the entire thing makes a mobile.
15. Coat Hangers
This one is a little strange as well—after all, you already use a coat hanger to hang coats. Still, you can make it a little fancier by getting two wooden hangers, inverting them and mounting them on some kind of block or box. Mount that box to the wall and you know have space to hang three to four garments of clothing off of each one.
16. Decorative Mirror
Of everything, this one might be the coolest. If you have a lot of wire hangers lying around, you can bend a bunch of them together to make a beautiful starburst-style mirror. Essentially, you bend the hangers so that each one of them looks like a flower petal and then mount each of those behind a circular mirror in the middle. The results are pretty adorable.