Heading to the beach soon? Lucky you! If you're a beachgoer, which I'm not despite living only a couple of hours from the Jersey Shore (although my kids of course love the beach; what kids don't except the unusually tidy?), then likely you have a couple of boatloads of beach toys.  But me, for the one-or-at-the-most-twice-a-summer beach trips, I find it silly to store a bunch of toys for the other 364 days of the year. So what to do?

Why, raid your kitchen, of course! With the added bonus of knowing that you're repurposing things and being a little "greener" to boot.

Buckets? Yogurt tubs, cottage cheese containers, or old Tupperware work well. Shovels? How about a flour scoop? Sieve? How about a, uh, sieve? Same thing with funnels. See how easy it is? I know I've got stuff right now in my kitchen that's old enough and plastic enough that I wouldn't mind it being set aside for beach purposes. (Just don't let your kids be the ones to raid the kitchen or you may end up missing your, say, corkscrew at a crucial moment.) Ooh, and maybe I'll see what's in the bath toys, too!

Now we just have to plan a trip to the beach.