Cheap Cat Hair Brush

Awhile back we bought a plastic cat hair brush with little plastic nubs at the end of its bristles that worked quite poorly. With the cats shedding all over the house, hubby wanted to get a metal bristle cat hair brush. Since I forgot to pick one up, I wondered if a regular plastic cheapo comb would work since they were shedding on my lap.

This is ten strokes from the short-haired cat.

The long haired cat produced a ton of hair. Not going to buy that metal cat hair brush after all, this works terrifically, and I have these things lying around the house. Heck, I recall seeing two just lying around on the ground in town this past week. Keep your eyes peeled and you might find an excellent cat hair brush on the floor somewhere that you can pick up and take home if you need one.

Laptop Screen Cleaner

Use rubbing alcohol and a lint free cloth rag (not paper towel!) to clean your screen. Don't waste your money for computer screen cleaner, this cost pennies and what the factory uses to clean it before shipping it to the store.

Reader Suggestion Friday - Crochet with Plastic Bags

A reader's friend uses plastic bags to crochet durable reusable grocery bags. (I use t-shirts for my reusable grocery bags)

If you would like to see a photo tutorial on how to cut bags to reuse as yarn go here.

Recycle Cindy from myrecycledbags.com crocheted a clothespin bag for her clothesline with this method. (I used a toddler's dress for my clothespin bag)

Check out the rest of Cindy's site, cool reuse projects, some of which I think I am going to do, which of course I'll post when I do them.

Make Your Own Drain Cleaner

Pour a scoopful of baking soda in your slow drain and follow it by a glug or two of vinegar until the bakind soda is dissolved. Watch it bubble and fizz and leave for 15-30 minutes and wash it down with a large saucepan full of boiling water. Do this until you see improvement.

Have yet to try it on a really stubborn slow drain. If you have, let us know in the comments.

Wowser Wednesday - Aluminum Can Garden Markers

I have a post about making garden markers with an old mini blind which is cheap and fast, but I saw a post on Little House in the Suburbs of making garden markers out of aluminum cans and they are BEAUTIFUL! Maybe one day when I have time on my hands I'll do these. (Ha!)

Some of you may be experiencing deja vu; this post was naughty and showed up in the wrong place last week. It was only up for an hour, but some of you were so quick I was seeing people linking to it before I discovered it! :)

Free Moving Boxes

If you are moving, instead of paying for moving boxes, find them for free. When I lived in bigger cities, my favorite place to dumpster dive for boxes was shoe stores. They had massive amounts of large boxes that were typically close in size. The other kind of store I would hit up was book stores for the same reason; their boxes were generally sturdier though.

If you live in a smaller town it might be more difficult. Walmart is not a good one to work with I have found, so I found an action figure selling warehouse that sold stuff on ebay (that was an interesting business find!) for my last move in this tiny town. Drive around the back of businesses and see if you find piles of broken down boxes to get an idea of who generates a lot of box trash.

I always asked the manager before taking boxes from the dumpster and most were congenial enough to save them up for me. They generate a lot of box trash when they receive shipments.

Car Dehydrator

Don't have a dehydrator but would like to make fruit leather or dehydrate fruit and veggies? To make sure you get appropriate temperatures, just setting out in the sun can make it difficult, but if you have an automobile and it is high temperature summer time, you have a dehydrator.

Prepare your fruit roll up mixture and pour in a wax paper lined cookie sheet. Put cheesecloth over the pan (not touching) to keep bugs off. For veggies and fruit, put sliced pieces on a cooling rack in a baking pan and cover with cheesecloth.

Put food in back window in the sun. Leave window cracked to let moisture out.

Thin sliced fruit and fruit leather should dry in about 6 hours of hot sun in the car. Large pieces (like half of an apricot) could take up to 2 days.

Tasty Finger Paint

Want to occupy your toddler with finger paints that are non-toxic and easy to make? I posted a cheap one yesterday and a tasty one today. These are not paints that will keep, so if you expect a masterpiece that you will want to keep forever, these are not the paints.

Tasty Finger Paint

White creamy food (like pudding, yogurt or as I used, sour cream) and food coloring

Place drops of food coloring in small bowls of pudding/yogurt. Paint on wax paper or baking cookie sheets. Wash soon so no bugs are attracted to the artwork.

Cheap Finger Paint

Want to occupy your toddler with finger paints that are non-toxic and easy to make? I have a cheap one today and a tasty one tomorrow. These are not paints that will keep, so if you expect a masterpiece that you will want to keep forever, these are not the paints.

Cheap Finger Paint

Flour, water and food coloring.

Mix just enough water into flour to make a paste and drop in food coloring. No worries if they ingest it. Use on paper, waxed paper, cookie sheets, etc.

Wowser Wednesday - Tie turned into carrying case

At Nouvelle Mama, there is a tutorial for taking a tie and turning it into a carrying case for an electronic gadget. If you click on the pdf for the tutorial, the first page is blank, but the tutorial on the other three pages is all there.