The Most Excellent Bowl Scraper Ever

Seriously.  Not kidding.  The most excellent bowl scraper ever.   

Find a plastic lid--you know, the kind that you usually throw out that comes on potato chip cans or Crisco or some other product.  Various sizes are good. 

With a sharp pair of scissors, slice through the hard outer edge until you reach the perimeter of the center circle.  Cut around the inner circle of the lid about 3/4's of the way and then slice out through the rim on the other side.  This is important!  Do not cut away the entire rim because it will keep your scraper stable and it will serve as a handle. 

There you have it:  it's free, it's washable, it's re-cycled, it works like a dream.  Everything good! 

I always keep at least half a dozen of these in the kitchen drawer--they're brilliant for scraping every bit out of a bowl so that you don't waste anything. 

Did I mention that it's free and washable? It doesn't get better than that!  And if the plastic is fairly flexible, the scraper can last for years and years--I have a couple that I use often that I made in the 1990's.

.....I will now, sheepishly, admit that I thought more than twice about posting something that seemed to me to be foolishly simple.  My parents remembered being kids during the Great Depression when "making do" was a way of life.  We always did stuff like this at home, so I figured that other people must do such also.  But recently several people have assured me that they most certainly do not do this sort of thing and that they had never heard of a scraper like this but they wanted one.  Surprising. 

So all I can say is:   go hunt down some plastic lids, get you some scissors, and get busy!