NOW CLOSED: Fairy is 50! We want to know what you used to make from old Fairy bottles. Space rocket? Snowman? Tell us and you could win a year's supply of Fairy!

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Fairy turns 50 this year and to mark the occasion it's bringing back the iconic white bottle as a limited edition - look out for it on supermarket shelves from next week.

In the meantime, they're asking for your stories about the original Fairy bottles - did you (or your siblings) make a rocket, plane or crayon holder?

Do you remember John ("here's one I made earlier") Noakes on Blue Peter using one to make the Blue Peter rocket?

Did you want to make something but, just like the ad, your mum never seemed to have an empty bottle? What did you yearn to make?

We'd like you to take a sudsy trip down memory lane. The best stories will win a year's supply of 'mi-ild green, Fair-ry Liquid'!

And if you have (or could take) a photo of a Fairy bottle craft-y-creation still knocking around from the past few decades, please email it to [email protected].

Your stories will be used in the Mumsnet Fairy microsite, which is coming soon (featuring new crafty Fairy creations!).

If you're selected to win one of the prizes, we'll look up your email address and get in touch by 12 February 2010.

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

Essence of Jack, that is one of the funniest jokes I have EVER heard

Rofl at the squid joke!!!

We still have some fairy-liquid shakers that we used at church for the children

God knows what the rattly bits are... probably small chips of asbestos

have you not made any rockets, mp?

@ pofaced.

Of course, a fairy-bottle-rocket would already have a baby on it.....

I used to make pen pots, jewellery tubs, money box. However the most fun I ever had was to use them as water guns in the garden with my sisters. We would each decorate one[so could often be found putting wayyy too much fairy in the washing up] and after they were painted with our names on etc then we would use them as water guns for THE best water fights!!

now this is my DREAM prize < nips off to think up prizewinner>

As a fairly unartistic sort my fairy bottles were limited to water fights, the occasional shuttle (dad's idea of bonding) or a crepe paper skirt, bit of wool and some newspaper and we had a unhuggable doll.

Please bring back the old style bottles.

My parents used to cut the top off them, cut away the middle section and the put the top back onto the bottom section, but upside down. They would then use these to put my paints in. If I knocked them over, the paint didn't spill everywhere. Now you can buy similar pots from ELC, but I like the thrift idea of making them myself from washing up liquid bottles.

Thanks for that nicklebabe they can shove their years supply

Yeah I remember my Mum saving these for months so I could make a huge fairytale castle out of them, egg-boxes (proper cardboard ones you could paint not plasticy stuff used now!) and cereal packets!

Ohhh, oooh - I've got one no-one else has got. [inappropriately over enthused emoticon] My mum used fairy liquid bottles to make money boxes for my sister and I. Cover with sticky-back plastic, cut a slit in the side (approx 1" by 0.5") and hey presto - money box!

She also made us the cardboard and sticky backed plastic dressing table tidies - thanks Blue Peter!

Can I ask a mercenary question about the photos? Are Fairy going to retain the rights to the photos and possibly use them for marketing purposes outside of the microsite? If so it's a bit cheapskate on their part, they get lovely retro photos and the people who submit them might (and only might) get about a tenner's worth of washing up liquid?

Those types of photos could make lovely nostalgic tv and print ads.

I seem to recall making a windmill with a fairy bottle...

Oh and I see this thread has made the MN roundup

I remember the old bottles fondly - following Blue Peter instructions to make a Blakes 7 communicator thingy (cut off top and bottom to leave a bangle shape then decorate with silver foil and buttons). Was nearest I could get to watching it as in the days pre-video recorders Blakes 7 clashed with Crossroads, and nothing came between my mother and Crossroads.

Using the top of the bottles, you could make a plug and socket for your Sindy lampstand made by Blue Peter instructions (those Action Man/Sindy rooms they made promised so much but delivered so little when you tried to copy it yourself)

I also made many pen tidies and money boxes (paper ears, cover bottle in pink paper and use the individual egg box bottom bits for piggy feet - a very deformed piggy bank but a pig nonetheless)

Wish I had pictures of this stuff now - but with the price of flash cubes and developing pictures were a rare event! Our kids don't know they're born...

And by the way, surely a year's supply can't be much when Fairy cleans all theeeeeese dishes, as Nanette Newman used to point out... (I really am old)

Am I allowed to say on this thread that a certain supermarket, beginning with T and ending in ESCO produces a value washingup liquid in a very similarly shaped bottle to the Fairy one?

Here's a desk tidy I attempted to make from a book called "What Can I Do Today? Over 100 projects for girls age 6-12" (obviously omitted to say girls age 6-12 with an art degree)

www.flickr.com/photos/nickandjulie/4332121809/

trying again... desk tidy instructions

WE used to chop the top off and grow things in them - lots of herbs and my poor our DH got so excited once as he planted an apple seed - it sprouted but nothing ever happened....

Of course, we all know that the BEST thing they were used for is rockets!!

Just remembered,walkie talkies were also FAB!

Simply cut the top of 2 bottles, poke a hole in the bottom and add string to each bottle. You need to make this at least 20m - we spent many a long summer playing Starsky and Hutch and wonderwoman vs the hulk.....

various fairy bottles saved and washed out - glue together with pva and tadaaaa

I used to love the old bottles. The new ones just look like all the other brands. They used to match my curtains quite beautifully. (Sighs wistfully, thinks about hand cream as I have already done the washing up.)