June 19, 2004

Curious, George: What to do with unwanted CDs This article (via neilgaiman.com) brought the subject up in my mind. I have a stack of AOL CD's nearly two feet high, and I want to think of something cool and arty to do with them. Any ideas?
  • I always wanted to cover one whole wall in my living room with them. Sort of a shiny wallpaper deal. Except I don't have the patience to collect them all and put them up.
  • I hammered my AOL cds to a wall until I realized everyone else was doing the same.
  • While I have no ideas what to do with your shiny things, these guys do
  • My wife is a recycling artist and uses AOL CD's (and CDR's that fail to burn properly) to make glass mosaic ornaments -- www.streetfairamerica.com/EmilyK.
  • aaronetc, you should be pushing the monkey magnets here.
  • One year glued the faces together and made Xmas tree ornaments- actually rather nice if you have lots of little lights. Another year got some steel wire and made a really big mobile. And remember, Google is your friend.
  • Everybody buy some monkey magnets! :) Actually, I just came over here when MeFi went black a few months ago and am still feeling the place out, so I guess it never occured to me. Buy 'em!
  • Throw them straight into a landfill so that future entrepreneurs can mine them out and sell them as a resource. this will only work if we ever run out of petroleum products. if ever...
  • If you make music yourself, you could put your latest opus in a limited-edition jewel case from two padded aol cds latched at the 120-degree spots (maybe one is a hinge). Show them you care with homemade cd cases.* *volume may require outsourcing to your "home" overseas. Or just get some friends together for a fun party. Daily. With quotas. It wouldn't take long at all to hammer out ~275 units.
  • I just fling 'em.
  • While I have no ideas what to do with your shiny things, these guys do I don't like the sound of that.
  • WARNING: Do what you wish with your shiny things, but hands off our Ms. shinything. Capish? *hefts 100-ton hammer™ meaningfully*
  • They're really fun to put in the microwave, though it gets old after the first two or three. On the other hand, that could be an art project, comparing the patterns that form on the disc surface...
  • Whew! Thanks Alnedra, you a standup gal. Bada-bing, bada-boom.
  • From experience: don't use them as shooting targets. The resulting myriad tiny fragments are almost impossible to clean up.
  • They're really fun to put in the microwave, though it gets old after the first two or three. A local craftswoman does this and then uses the CDs as clock faces, building the clock bodies out of other discarded bits like circuit boards and hard drive guts. For larger clocks she uses platter-sized laser discs (remember a time before DVDs?).
  • Joe, does she have a website with photos?
  • Probably, but damned if I can find it...
  • Joe,mct: Something like this?
  • What is "This article" supposed to link to?