If you’re anything like us, there’s hardly ever a morning where you don’t make time to sit down with your morning coffee and really enjoy it. When we first started really appreciating coffee, two things happened. The first was the we became obsessed with the aromatic smell and rich, bold flavours of coffee and suddenly wanted coffee flavoured and scented everything. The second was the we suddenly found ourselves with mounds of leftover coffee grounds every day, wondering whether they should be thrown out, washed down the sink, or disposed of in another way we’d just never thought of. Now, we’re DIY enthusiasts, so we’re always looking for ways to repurpose and reuse things. That’s how this list happened!
Check out these 15 amazingly useful and totally environmentally friendly ways to put your morning’s coffee grounds to good use. We’ve never felt guilty about enjoying a good morning coffee, but now we usually feel great about it!
1. DIY coffee ground candle
If you’ve never tried making your own candles then you’re really in for a treat with this one! It might sound like an intimidating project, but we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how simple making your own candles really is. In fact, it’s actually also quite easy to make a candle that’s actually scented like your favourite things! For coffee lovers like us, Pop Sugar has a complete tutorial for making your own coffee scented candle using your very own grounds from your morning cup!
2. Antique paper stain
If you’ve ever spilled coffee on a light colour shirt before than you already know as well as we do that it has some serious staining power. That’s why Crafting A Greener World decided to harness that characteristic and actually use it to stain things on purpose! Using actual brewed coffee is a bit too much for this process though (and it would also be a waste of your delicious beverage), so they suggest adding antique colour and natural looking wear to your paper by wetting the grounds instead. We love their pirate party invite idea!
3. Coffee ground anti-cellulite scrub
If you’ve ever browsed the internet for beauty tips before then you’re well aware, as are we, that online beauty sources are full of false facts and recipes or “miracle” solutions that don’t actually work. Occasionally, however, you’ll find one that actually does work even if it sounds like just another “natural alternative”. We learned that by taking a chance on one of these solutions and finding that it actually had very real effects! The trick we tried was a coffee grounds based cellulite scrub just like this one on Pop Sugar and we saw results within the week. That might sound doubtful, but if you’re feeling skeptical then we certainly urge you to try it out. We’ve it ever since.
4. DIY coffee face mask
The same way that coffee grounds rejuvenate the skin with an anti-cellulite effect on the rest of your body thanks to caffeine, they also have several beneficial effects on your face! Besides discouraging wrinkles, coffee grounds mixed into a soothing face mask also give the solution a bit of gentle exfoliating power. This is another natural beauty secret that we use all the time. Check it out in more detail on Beauty Banter.
5. Hand odour remover
Whether you’ve picked up a smell from cleaning products, preparing food, or spilling a drink on yourself, it’s not always the greatest sensation to have a strong scent on your hands when you didn’t mean to. Cutting garlic, for example, is something that has always made our hands smell even once we’ve washed them and that has always driven us crazy. This Old House is here to save the day next time that happens! They show you how scrubbing your hands with coffee grounds can eliminate odours from all kinds of different things to leave you feeling clean and fresh for real.
6. Ant deterrent
When it comes to bugs and pests, we never know what the best defence against them is going to be. Sometimes we’re convinced that chemicals are the only way to keep our home pest free, but we’re not actually really fans of using them often because we have pets and we don’t want to make our pets sick. That’s why we’re always looking for natural pest control or deterrents, just like this idea from Movoto! They teach you how to keep ants at bay using- you guessed it- your morning coffee grounds.
7. Dark wood stain for scratches
We’ve already talked about how coffee can be used to stain paper, but that’s a pretty niche project that not everyone might need on a regular basis. Instead of staining paper, why not use the coffee as a stain for larger pieces instead? Furniture, for example, looks great with an alternative natural coffee ground stain as opposed to a chemical store bought one when it’s made of worn vintage dark wood. The match will be so close that your friends will scarcely notice that there was ever a scratch on you furniture piece to being with! Pop Sugar shows you how to make that magic happen.
8. Gardening fertilizer
We’re huge fans of composting and fertilizing because it make us feel as thought we’re reducing our carbon footprint and giving back to the earth in at least subtle ways. Getting that involved in green home habits, however, can be a challenge, so here’s a way to make fertilizing your garden easier so that your plants get nutritional value but you don’t have to spend money on fertilizer; use coffee grounds instead! See how great the idea really can be on Gardening Know How.
9. Coffee ground soap cakes
Do you love the idea of scrubbing various parts of your body with coffee because you’ve heard how beneficial it can be? Well, lucky for all of us, Pop Sugar to show off the technique and teach us how to make adorable little bars of soap from natural materials, primiarily women.
10. Coffee ice
When it comes to iced coffees there are several ways to make them. This method from WikiHow, however, was an opportunity to get rid of and use up all of our coffee ground garbage, which is especially useful during summer music festivals and other mini occasions that might give you a nice beverage beyond walking through their door. Instead, these little coffee ice cubes pop right into whatever drink you’re enjoy automatically giving things of a view of the iconic prolem
11. Coffee hair rinse
Have you had dry hair that lacks shine for most of your life, so you’re always on the lookout for hair solutions that will give it a bit of volume and umph? Well, there are lots of salon products out there that will claim to do the same thing, but whether or not they actually work is another story. We prefer natural solutions because our hair doesn’t withstand heavy, oil products very well and, naturally, we’re always open to free options too. That’s why we were excited to try this coffee ground based hair treatment from The Indian Spot! We were even more excited that it actually helped.
12. Coffee ground pin cushion
Are you a sewing enthusiast and avid crafter just like us? Then you probably already agree that making yourself something new that will help you out when you start crafting other things is the best kind of DIY project to make! You’re just enabling yourself to do even more DIY later. This cute coffee ground filled pin cushion from Budget 101 is the perfect example of what we mean and you’ll get the added bonus of coffee grounds preventing your sewing pins and needles from rusting. They’re also soft enough that they won’t compact and harden to the point that your pins bend when you stick them through!
13. DIY cockroach trap
Were you intrigued by the idea that coffee grounds can help you deter ants in your home, but ants are actually the least of your worries because you’ve got the misfortune of having cockroaches in your building instead? Well, your first step should certainly be to call your landlord, but after that we urge you to set up this effective cockroach trap featured on One Good Thing By Jillee! This will at least help you keep things under control to an extent until an exterminator visits and, of course, it’s made with the coffee grounds that you already have very quick and easy access to.
14. DIY garbage disposal cleanser
If your house has a garbage disposal system them you already know that it can be both a blessing and a curse. While it helps cut down on the amount of waste that you actually have to take out with the garbage each week, disposals can also start to smell poorly if they’re not cleaned properly. Excess waste in the drain can attract bugs and vermin and then you’ll have a whole other problem on your hands. Instead of letting your drain smell and just doing your best to rinse it with water, try washing everything down once and for all with one of these purifying coffee ground cleaning cakes featured on Pop Sugar.
