Well, I didn't know either, until my husband decided to become a home brewer. He first went to Firehouse Subs to purchase one of their pickle buckets, but they only had one. After purchasing it for $3, the employees told him of another Firehouse Subs he could try.
While driving over he remembered that someone (probably from the home brewer forum he frequents) told him you could get the frosting buckets from grocery store bakeries. The second restaurant is next to a Publix, so he thought he'd step in and try. He asked, they gave.
He's been back a couple more times since then, and been to a couple other stores, and we now have who knows how many buckets. He has his ciders brewing in several of them, and the rest we plan to put to other uses.
Frosting Bucket Use #1 - Bulk food bucket
Hey, they're food grade, why not use them for food? We put flour into one. Whenever we buy some bulk sugar, we'll use another for sugar. The lids seal nice and tight to keep out anything that might want to get inside.
Frosting Bucket Use #2 - Trash can
We needed a trash can for the nursery, but with limited funds, other stuff always seemed more important. Some of the scavenged buckets didn't have lids, and we don't really need a lid here (am not sure if this will need to change once the baby is mobile, but for now all is well). We just put a trash bag in and we are good to go.
Frosting Bucket Use #3 - Toy holder
Seven months in, I think we've done a good job with keeping the toys to a reasonable limit. Our house is not overrun with plastic, but it was getting a bit cluttered. Using another bucket sans lid, we corral her dolls, rattles, rings, and anything else that isn't a block ( set inherited from my grandma, they came with a nice wooden box with dove tail joints!) or a book (we have another basket for that. The basket was used in the laundry area, but I decided it would be more useful holding the board books).
Frosting Bucket Use #4 - Home brew
There's a little more to it than just putting your would-be cider/wine/ etc inside. This is my husband's project, but it looks like he drilled a hole into the lid and attached some sort of CO2 device. We haven't tried any yet, but it seem to be working and a good use of the buckets.
Decorating Frosting Buckets
This one was a little hard to figure out, especially with the challenge of only using what I already own. The plastic is a difficult surface to attach things to- permanent marker rubs off, for example. You need special formulations of paint that won't rub off. Regular Mod Podge might work, and they also make one that works on plastic, but I own neither, so it doesn't do me any good :)
Then I realized that all the buckets have labels on them (which we removed by soaking them in soapy water and then Goo Gone), so I decided to whip something up on the computer, print it out on sheet-size labels (which I did have), cut out, and attach. And voila! No longer a plain-old frosting bucket, but a first-class flour storage container!
A handy-dandy trash can!
And a toy-clutter tamer!
Later my husband had the idea that maybe I could sew a cozy around them, similar to a coffee cup. It's an idea that I haven't ruled out, but haven't wanted to attempt. My sewing is very rudimentary and I just wanted to get it done. Maybe a project for another time.
And the best part, it only cost us the time for picking up the buckets and figuring out what to do with them!
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