We store our broom and swiffer in our laundry closet and they are constantly falling over or getting in the way. I had a spare curtain rod, so decided to try installing it on the wall at an angle to corral the long handles. Works great!
Category: Life Hack
Custom packaging
As much as I love cloth bags, sometimes you need packaging you can see through that is inexpensive. For my spinning starter kits I needed a long narrow plastic bag. I have a whole bundle of large clear plastic bags, but they are twice as wide as I needed for this application. I found that if I ran my quilting mini iron, set to high, down the center of the bags, it was enough to melt and separate the bag into two, with a well sealed seam. The iron does come with a blade attachment, but the blade cut the plastic too fast and didn’t heat the plastic up enough to melt it.
I tied off my bags with some of my old hand-spun yarn oddments. Another good use for left-over yarn!
Microwaves
Did you know that microwaves and wifi use a similar radio frequency? I do now. The way our house is set up, the microwave faces the point of entry for our internet connection, which is where the router lives. Not always, but enough to be irritating, when we run the microwave, the wifi glitches. Moving either is not an option. The router has a dual channel at 5Ghz, and we still experience interference (this is in response to articles like this one that suggesting moving or upgrading.) I have been experimenting with options for awhile. A cookie sheet put in front of the microwave isn’t very effective, by the way. We had the idea of using a fireplace curtain as a kind of Faraday cage, or really a wall. It is an awkward space, so a trip to the hardware store was in order to source parts for a rod, since a traditional rod for fireplaces wouldn’t work. I found pretty copper bell pipe clamps!
I also found steel rod. Unfortunately the smallest pipe clamp was 1/2” and the rod is 5/16”. Rubber spacers to the rescue.
I started with just one curtain, since it would fit nicely to the side of the microwave when not in use. I tested, but at home alone in the morning, I couldn’t replicate the conditions (TV worked fine, even live streaming).
When it was evening, and everyone was drawing bandwidth and the football game was on the main screen, I did another test. Bingo. No loss of signal for the game. However, my youngest still reported her iPad and hearing aids, which connect with Bluetooth, glitched. I installed the second curtain, which makes the setup more bulky, but effectively makes the mesh holes smaller since they aren’t fully open. That did the trick.
Two to one
I have Frankenstein’d my shirts before, where I have two shirts with opposite positive attributes, so I combine them. Mostly it involves ripping seams, cutting, and sewing back together. I’m at it again. I found a printed tee that I liked the print and the message: “Keep going, just to see what happens” with singing dancing skeletons. But it is a “women’s” shirt, so has cap sleeves and a snug fit. Bah. I have an old shirt with lovely full sleeves, but a high neck and short body. Also Bah.
I like peach and olive green together, so I selected these shirts for tailor surgery. I ripped out the seams on the peach shirt, except for the shoulders, and cut a larger neck hole. I cut the sleeves and the hem off the olive shirt, and a two inch section of the body. I sewed the olive green strips into the side seams of the peach shirt to give it more ease, sewed the butterfly sleeves in, then used the olive green hem to edge the neckline.
I like how it came out. Before I had two shirts I would not wear, now I have one shirt I will.
Bug catcher
I’ve been seeing some strange bug catching methods on my feeds, so I thought I would share my preferred method for catching and removing critters from the house: a cup and card stock. Put the cup over the insect, slide the card stock under, tada, instant cage. Thin paper can work, but isn’t as secure. Clear plastic cups are awesome, but a glass works too.
This works great for creatures on flat surfaces, and the materials are cheap and readily available.
Critters and Craft 