I also found that some of the mallet heads made nice decorations by themselves and gave mixed sets of mallet heads away to various people.  Some of the more decorative croquet stakes and mallet sticks have been used as plant markers in our garden over the years and several permanently reside in my backyard Stick Garden.  

Some of what was left over from the various croquet sets remained on a shelf on the garage.  A couple of summers ago I took some of these remaining pieces out and put them on top of a wooden platform in our driveway--a makeshift table of old wooden palettes we have used to make our cement-block sculptures (the rocks on the various platform layers are from these projects).  I began arranging these croquet pieces into various stick "sculptures." I don't use any nails or fasteners. I just just lean the pieces up against each other.   Sometimes animals or the weather knocks part of it down. I try to rebuild it, and it often winds up being somewhat different after this.