Making something useful out of acrylic scraps

From a recent project we ended up with a few hundred scraps of acrylic, mostly in little squares like these. But what to do with all those scraps?

We collected them into eight groups and mixed and matched the different pieces until each stack was the same height. (The thickness of cast acrylic tends to vary a bit.) We mostly used the clear pieces but threw in a few bright ones for effect.

We ran a bead of acrylic cement down the side of each stack to bond them together, making rigid crystalline blocks.

Of course, you needn't make simple stacks.

Four of the stacks were made as clear but wavy.

And the way that light shines through them all is phenomenal.

And here's where those acrylic columns go: They form the support columns of a sturdy shelf, 1 x 5 foot in size. The top surface is rigid, made of five laminated layers of (much larger) scrap plastic. The shelf gets to hold up the cabinets of little drawers on our soldering bench; a minor place of honor.