How to stay cool on a hot summer night and other random tips.

Dummy disclaimers are in red but I hope common sense prevails and they are not needed. I take no responsibility for the stupidity of others.

The last few weeks has seen a large rise in temperature and some horribly hot nights. I do not do well with the heat and have been using fans and cold flannels to cool down.

Last week I had a brainwave. I filled a hot water bottle with a little ice and some water from the fridge.....I had made a cold water bottle.

To be honest it is logical and I have no idea why I hadn’t thought of it before. If you warm your bed with a hot water bottle then why not cool it with a cold water bottle?

This got me thinking about useful tips around the house so here goes.

1.  To get the most out of face cream, hand cream or anything else in a tube, cut it in half when it’s nearly empty and you can get to what is left inside. There is usually a lot of the product left that would otherwise get wasted. The top, which you have cut off, will usually fit over the tube to keep the contents from drying up. Do not do this with products that are prescribed, go off easily or are chemically. Be careful when cutting the tube, good scissors are needed.

2.  The lids from certain products make good containers. The lids from Sanctuary products are orange or clear and are fabulous little pots. I use some on my desk at work for paper clips, split pins etc and I use some in the bathroom for standing my electronic and normal toothbrush in. It is always a waste to throw away a useful item if it can be reused as something else. However, if I don’t have a use for something I do not keep it “in case” because that leads to clutter. Again, check the suitability of the lid you are using. If the product was toxic in any way or contained a lot of chemicals, do not re-use, just re-cycle.

  

3.  The container that cake cases come in is fabulous for slightly bigger desk pots and again, I use them at work. In a world of excess it is good to re use things rather than buy something else.

4.  I have a glass kitchen jar for cotton wool balls in the bathroom. It looks nice and is functional. This one was too tall for my kitchen so I re-purposed it for the bathroom. It matches the cotton bud container bought for the princely sum of £2. You could also use glass jars for decorative soaps, bath pearls, bath salts or bath puffs. Beware children (and men) and glass.

5.  A tip my mum told me years ago is to use normal furniture polish to remove sticky marks left behind by labels. It works, you usually have it in the cupboard and it is a lot cheaper than buying the products which are designed to remove sticky marks. Check on the bottle of polish for the kinds of surfaces you can use it on. If it is not listed then you are risking ruining the surface.

6.  For those hard to iron items of clothes, something you want to dry quickly or if you just run out of drying space... I have a solution. Take a radiator clothes airer and put it over the top of the door. You can then hang a couple of coat hangers with clothes on to dry. If a door is not strong be sensible and don’t put anything dripping wet on either.

Before anyone questions the use of the word “chemically”, as used in number 1, it is, in fact, a Sara word and is allowed.  😄