The only thing that beats the feeling of unwrapping a protective layer of bubble wrap to reveal what’s inside is popping a few of the bubbles afterward! But while we already love bubble wrap as a packing material and as a fun form of stress relief, today’s post will give you even more reason to love appreciate bubble wrap.
Along with protecting valuables in storage or in the mail, you can use bubble wrap in a number of other ways that you may have never even considered! To show you just what this versatile material is capable of, I’ll be sharing 9 uses for bubble wrap below that I’ve found to be useful around the house.
These 9 uses are reason enough to hang onto every piece of bubble wrap that comes into your home—even if it means resisting the urge to pop all those bubbles!
Note: We used both large-style bubble wrap and standard bubble wrap with smaller bubbles in these photos. Either type will work for the majority of these uses, but it’s nice to have options!
9 Practical Uses For Bubble Wrap
1. Protect Your Produce
Protect your fresh produce by cutting a piece of bubble wrap to it fit snugly inside the produce drawer in your fridge. Once the bubble wrap is in place, replace the fruits and veggies in your produce drawer.
The bubble wrap will help prevent the produce from rolling around as much when you open and close the drawer. And fewer bumps in the drawer means fewer bruises!
2. Make An Insulated Grocery Tote
Instead of buying a fancy insulated bag to keep your groceries cold on the way home from the store, you can DIY one using bubble wrap! Just line the inside of one of your reusable grocery bags with bubble wrap, and the bubbles will help insulate your groceries so they don’t melt before you can bring them inside. (Bonus: You can also use your insulated tote to keep hot foods warm!)
3. Insulate Drafty Windows
Feeling chilly due to drafty windows? You can insulate those windows to keep your house warmer with just some bubble wrap and a bit of water. To learn how to use bubble wrap to insulate your windows, check out this post.
4. Protect Your Windshield From Frost
Bubble wrap can be just as effective for insulating car windows as it it for the windows in your home. This can be particularly useful when it’s supposed to be cold overnight and you’d like to avoid the delay that comes along with having to scrape ice off your windshield in the morning!
Protect your windshield from frosting over by covering it in a sheet of bubble wrap overnight, using your windshield wipers to hold it in place. The next morning, simply remove the bubble wrap and you’ll be ready to go!
5. Cushion Uncomfortable Handles
The handles on buckets, crutches, brooms, and other items can be uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time or even cause painful blisters. But you can cushion troublesome handles to make them easier to hold by wrapping a piece of bubble wrap around them and securing it with a couple of rubber bands.
I’ve found that cushioning my broom handle has been especially helpful when I use it for my favorite bathtub cleaning method. It makes it easier to scrub thoroughly without any added discomfort!
6. Protect Your Knees In The Garden
A few hours of working out in the yard or garden can be really tough on the knees! But you can make it easier on them by fashioning some knee pads out of bubble wrap.
Use a few pieces of bubble wrap and some tape to fastening “bubble patches” onto the knees of your pants. Whether you’re kneeling on concrete or grass the bubble wrap will protect your knees from hours of discomfort—both while you work and afterward!
7. Silence And Protect Storage Boxes
Whether it’s your tool box or a storage box of craft supplies, the box itself can get pretty banged up if there are heavy or sharp objects inside. And not to mention the racket it probably makes when you’re moving it from place to place!
But you can protect hard cases and tool boxes by lining their interior with bubble wrap. Not only will this protect the box and the contents inside it, but it’ll make it much less noisy too!
8. Keep Your Plants Warm
Another useful way to take advantage of bubble wrap’s insulating qualities is for keeping your plants warm during a cold snap. If there’s a hard freeze warning in your area or a cold front approaching, wrap your pots up with bubble wrap to keep them warm (or wrap bubble wrap around a plant change and set it over plants in your garden.) Your plants will thank you!
9. Fix A “Sweaty” Toilet Tank
Since toilets are almost always connected to the cold water line, the water in the tank is often significantly colder than the air in the bathroom. Much like it does on a cold can of Diet Coke, this can cause condensation to form on the outside of your toilet’s water tank and make it look “sweaty.”
But you can eliminate the condensation issue by lining the inside of your toilet tank with bubble wrap. Just turn off the water, flush the toilet to empty the tank, and use a silicone sealant to glue a few sheets of bubble wrap to the walls of the inside of the tank.
When the sealant has dried, you can turn the water back on to refill the tank. No more condensation issues, all thanks to a little bubble wrap!
Are there any other uses for bubble wrap you would add to this list?
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