MY cheap alternative to buying white plastic blazes.

The River to River trail here in Southern IL has very little to no maintenance in some of the privately owned easement areas like Power Line right of ways and privately owned areas with trail permissions. The landowners don't clear them. Some of them bought he land wth the stipulation that the R2R crosses the property, and the locals in some places seem to like to collect the blazes or use them for target practice.
The cheapest I have found them is .50 each plus shipping, and you still have to mark them. A piece of white vinyl siding I had laying around got volunteered. They are smooth on the inside and made to be UV sensitive. Some Blue Krylon plastic paint looks good enough for lost people. Not for the AT, but for any volunteer maintained trails in need of blazing (in non wilderness designated areas) its better than the rotten wood ones that are missing or falling apart, and not as cruddy looking as paint sprayed on a tree.

Good idea Scott. We have a 1-mile private trail that winds around the perimeter of our property. I attempted to mark it with homemade plastic blazes on which I had used permanent markers. Within a week, maybe two, the sun had faded all of them into unreadability. We have some vinyl siding I could use for round two.

I actually pretty well messed these up by spraying too close but I didn't want to paint my hand, which I did anyway. A little practice wouldn't have hurt.

I always wear disposable gloves to keep paint off my hands when painting. I get the cheap latex variety at Harbor Freight. I also like safety glasses or a face shield to protect my prescription glasses. It can be a bit uncomfortable when its warm out but it saves a lot of personal clean up afterwards.

I actually have cheap latex gloves, I'm just too lazy to put them on most of the time.

Plan on redoing some trails this fall. Thanks for the ideas to save some money. Will have to hit up the habitat for humanity scrap yard for some siding

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I've seen several local farmers put up no trespassing signs made from vinyl siding...some of them are 20 years old and look the same as the day they put them up.