Creativity

JOHN O'BYRNE uses his as colour-coded identity badges for mice and as bull's-eyes for very sharp-shooters. How do you use yours? No, not Cadbury's Creme Eggs! Confetti!

Spray with glitter for low-tech sequins, says Sue Johnson. Or smother people in it, as a murder method in an Agatha Christie. Or sing an aria to "Just one Confetto". Peter Thomas makes model Confetterate soldiers. Paul Holland makes confetti bolognese and suggests that at divorce proceedings couples are given an empty packet and made to fill it up. Taxidermy for Mao's Paper Tigers, says John Pickin. Horseshoe-shaped slippers for My Little Pony, says Eric Bridgstock. Meteor showers in planetaria, says Bruce Birchall.

Jessica Cottis would insulate Cardboard City with it. Jennifer Wilde would dye it black and throw it at the newly divorced. Joanna Cadde would use it in rabbit hutches. Sophie Howarth rolls it into beads and makes Hawaiian lei. Kirsty Tillett uses it in mosaics, and Emma Flynn as low- cost pebble-dashing; Charlotte Girard stuffs bean-bags with it, and Faye Braggins stuffs soft toys. The Two Nicolases (Wilson and Armitt) make fake snow for theatre productions and add scent to make an everlasting pot-pourri.

Ian Pusey pours the EU confetti mountain into the Millennium Dome. Kim Noble circulates it as euro notes: red confetti = 1 euro, blue confetti = 10 euros, etc. Keep stocks at local toilets for marriages of convenience, Mike Gifford suggests. Bring back the beauty spot! Eric Dunkley declares. Or use as jumbo-size microdots for short-sighted spies. Use in pointillism to make fake Seurats, says T.M. O'Grady - or children could paste red confetti to their faces, to feign the measles and bunk off school.

Andrew Duncan offers two free packets with every Barbara Cartland novel. Or have a jolly cremation, he says: mix with the ashes. James A. Kelly sells it to Zsa-Zsa Gabor and Liz Taylor. Claire Dalby makes papier-mache thimbles.

Parachutes for flea paratroopers, says Len Clarke. Tiddlywinks for diddymen, says Magy Higgs. In droughts, sprinkle on babies for dry baptism to save water, Luela Palmer advises. Plug holes in a colander, says John Bronsdon, to turn into a sea-going coracle.

John Bronsdon, Jessica Cottis, Eric Dunkley, Sophie Howarth and Sue Johnson win a Chambers Dictionary of Quotations. (We had two unclaimed ones to recycle.) The recent visit of the Chinese leader involved hiding from his view scenes of dissent he would rather not see. Wentworth Hall, near Barnsley, was built by a pit-owner who ordered all the slagheaps etc visible from the place be landscaped, to hide the origins of his wealth. We wondered what else certain people might like to render invisible?

Suggestions: Loki.Valhalla @btinternet.com or Creativity, Features, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, London E14 5DL by 8 December. Results and three Chambers prizes on 14 December. Next week: Reincarnation: who will come back as what, and why?