Some of my favourites from the list include:
7. Nail polish on keys for easy identification
I like this because I have bought kitsch key covers with cute monkey heads, which are lovely and rubbery, but they're not cheap and they do wear and tear easily resulting in dead monkeys. It's also a great way to use up old nail polish since recently discovering the fantastic quality of shellac manicures, although how long will it be until I find polish inferior for finger nails AND for my keys......
20. Separating egg yolks with a plastic bottle.
It was awesome and delivered in animated gif form. Nuff said
5. Toilet roll inners as cable tidies
because we all use bog roll and all have cables. No household is completely wireless. No normal household at least.
47. Giving plastic packaging a screw top
going to have to give this a go, the resealable stickies that are provided with the supermarket rice/cous cous just aren't sticky enough risking scatters of starchy particles.
Here is my contribution to solving a home problem. It's not as elegant as the life hacks in the list but it's a problem that has plagued us since moving into out current flat. It was winter when we moved in and the leather sofas present at the flat would give us a chilly nip on the posterior, through clothes, whenever we sat on it. So I dug out an old throw which solved the problem but gave us a new one: cover creep.
fig 1 Cover creep. Where the throw would end up on the floor instead of the sofa.
(The sofa duvet keeps us toasty but exacerbates the creep)
(The sofa duvet keeps us toasty but exacerbates the creep)
I knew I couldn't simply tether the throw because as soon as you sit down with any force or speed, you'd snap the tether or break whatever it was tethered to. I thought about tying books to the throw, but then would it make an annoying thud every time you stood up?
The TiT solution was inspired by the ridiculous 30 second tutorials on the Great British sewing bee, specifically the curtain episode. I learnt that for a good set of curtains, they should be weighted and you can purchase lead discs (available at fabulous John Lewis). You know, we don't have a lot of money but we do have a lot of coppers.
fig 2 the TiT solution. The seams plus the coin make a funny word, hee hee
The TiT formation is simply a way of making little pockets for the 2p coins that allows them to be removed for washing, but evenly distributed along the throw without them falling out or jingling. I put 16p in each corner and the centre and one coin in each of the remaining pockets. My sewing is far from neat, you can see thread where I just moved the needle to the next point and some openings were big enough to allow only 1p coins. However, this took me less than 30 minutes to complete (it would be much quicker if you're a proficient sewer and or not disturbed by door to door chuggers) and I'm not fussed because it's going behind the sofa.
It's working so far, I can always add more coins if it's too light. I feel like I've had a mini life victory today....how sad :P
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