Remember the old cartoon with Dudley Do-Right the Canadian mountie? He was forever ruining Dastardly Dirks’s plots and DD would always say, “Curses! Foiled again!” Well, today’s Works for Me tip has to do with common old everyday foil – one of my favorite things. Here’s a helpful little list with some of my favorite uses (besides covering tonight’s casserole):
1. Shine your chrome ~ For sparkling chrome on your appliances, strollers, golf club shafts, and older car bumpers, crumple up a handful of aluminum foil with the shiny side out and apply some elbow grease. If you rub real hard, the foil will even remove rust spots.
2.Keep a paintbrush wet ~ Going to continue painting tomorrow morning? Don’t bother to clean the brush — just squeeze out the excess paint and wrap the brush tightly in aluminum foil (or plastic wrap). Use a rubber band to hold the foil tightly at the base of the handle. For extended wet-brush storage, think paintbrush Popsicle, and toss the wrapped brush in the freezer. But don’t forget to defrost the brush for an hour or so before you paint.
3. Sharpen your scissors ~ What can you do with those clean pieces of leftover foil you have hanging around? Use them to sharpen up your dull scissors! Smooth them out if necessary, and then fold the strips into several layers and start cutting. Seven or eight passes should do the trick.
4. Move furniture with ease ~ To slide big pieces of furniture over a smooth floor, place small pieces of aluminum foil under the legs. Put the dull side of the foil down — the dull side is actually more slippery than the shiny side.
5. Speed your ironing ~ When you iron clothing, a lot of the iron’s heat is sucked up by the board itself — requiring you to make several passes to remove wrinkles. To speed things up, put a piece of aluminum foil under your ironing board cover. The foil will reflect the heat back through the clothing, smoothing wrinkles quicker.
6. Clean your iron ~ Is starch building up on your clothes iron and causing it to stick? To get rid of it, run your hot iron over a piece of aluminum foil.
7. Clean your barbecue grill ~ After the last steak is brought in, and while the coals are still red-hot, lay a sheet of aluminum foil over the grill to burn off any remaining foodstuffs. The next time you use your barbecue, crumple up the foil and use it to easily scrub off the burned food before you start cooking.
8. Keep matches dry ~ It’s a tried-and-true soldier’s trick worth remembering: Wrap your kitchen matches in aluminum foil to keep them from getting damp or wet on camping trips.
Check out Shannon’s blog for more Works for Me Wednesday tips!
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