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| Nearly all types of grass will grow hollow stems that can be used as drinking straws. |
Things You'll Need
- Growing wheat, rye, bamboo or lawn grass
- Light-duty electrical extension cord
- Hand soap or hand sanitizer dispensers
- Plastic, hollow coffee stirrers
- Aquarium tubing, unused
- Hollow licorice sticks
Instructions
Natural straws
- Plant a patch of bamboo, cereal grasses like wheat or rye, or ordinary lawn grass. Most grasses have hollow stem segments that can be dried and used as drinking straws.
- Grow your grass until the stems are the length you desire for your drinking straws. This will take several weeks. Alternately, find a vacant lot where the grass is already long enough for your purpose.
- Harvest your grass. Use garden snips to cut the grass stems to the length you desire. Cut off any seed heads. Snip off the nodes, the elbow-like joints that separate the stem segments.
- Use your grass stems immediately as drinking straws, or, for better results, dry them into straw. Spread out your grass stems in a sunny location outdoors and allow them to dry, or tie them in a bunch with string and hang them in a well ventilated spot. They should be dry enough to use as drinking straws within three to five days.
Extension Cord Straws
- Cut off the ends of a light-duty electrical extension cord. Light-duty cords have two parallel flexible tubes.
- Make a 1-inch vertical cut along each of the parallel tubes of the cord.
- Get a firm grip on the electrical wiring inside one of the tubes by winding it a few times around the shaft of a screwdriver.
- Pull the wiring out and discard it. Repeat with the other tube.
- Cut off the slit portions of the tubing and discard. Use the empty tubing as a super-long drinking straw, or cut it into several flexible drinking straws of whatever length you choose. You can also separate the two tubes and make single-barreled drinking straws.
More DIY Straw Ideas
- Cut aquarium tubing into whatever lengths you desire for your clear, flexible DIY drinking straws. Incorporate these into, for example, an undersea-themed party. Make several 2-foot to 3-foot lengths of drinking straws and place them by a punch bowl filled with light-blue colored punch and toy plastic fish so your guests can sit around the bowl with their straws directly in the punch bowl.
- Use plastic, hollow coffee stirrers as drinking straws. Legions of small children have independently discovered these DIY straws already, but that's no reason you can't take advantage of their ingenuity.
- Repurpose a hand-pumped soap dispenser into a drinking-straw assembly. Empty and thoroughly rinse a hand-pumped soap dispenser or hand sanitizer dispenser so that no trace of soap taste remains. Fill the dispenser with the beverage of your choice and sip from the nozzle.
- Snip off the ends of licorice sticks. Serve these edible drinking straws along with fruit punch at a children's party.
Tips & Warnings
- Bamboo will grow in the southern regions of the United States. Wheat and rye will grow just about anywhere in the continental United States.
- Lawn grass cut to the usual height is only long enough to form blades. After a few weeks without mowing, it will form the hollow stems characteristic of grass plants.
- Aquarium tubing is similar in diameter to commercially made drinking straws. It is inexpensive and available just about anywhere pet supplies are sold.
- You can purchase empty soap dispenser assemblies from craft and boutique stores and make these into drinking straws, too.
