Ways to Use a Brick

Kids' Crafts

• Bricks make a good base for craft projects for children. They are heavy enough to make useful bookends. Paint the bricks with acrylic paints in designs to match your child's room. Apply felt to the bottom of the bookend to prevent it from scarring your shelf. Bricks work well for outdoor crafts, such as garden stones. Apply waterproof paint to the brick, and add gems, beads or other small rocks to decorate. A brick can also make a nice garden sign.

Household Uses

• You can use bricks around the house for more than just building. Place a brick inside your oven while baking, and set your dishes on top of the heated brick to keep the food hot on the table. Cover a brick with fabric to match your room, and use it as a doorstop. You might want to use a brick to hold down tent or gazebo corners. Bricks make good hand weights while walking or working out. You can also keep a brick in the garage to set behind the tire of a vehicle to keep it from rolling while being repaired.

Holiday Uses

• Bricks can easily be used as props for a variety of holiday uses and can be repurposed each time. Wrap a brick in Christmas wrapping paper, and use it as decoration. For Independence Day, paint a brick red, white and blue, and use it to hold down a picnic tablecloth, or use it as a base for shooting fireworks. At Halloween, paint a brick orange or black, and insert taper candles into the holes for a spooky holiday display.

Miscellaneous Uses

• Markers, doorstops and garden signs are other ways in which you can use bricks. Keep a brick handy in your workshop for holding down paper plans, for use as a makeshift hammer or knocking wood pieces into place. Bricks are handy to take when camping as they can be used to pound in tent stacks, to anchor umbrellas and to serve as fire pit markers. Heat a brick in a campfire, and it will retain heat long enough for you to cook on it for up to an hour.