Displaying Your Earrings - Easier Done than Said!

This is, hands-down, our favorite re-use for an everyday object ever, crafted with love and care by our wonderful hubby.

We clearly have a thing for jewelry and finding ways to organize, sort through and even display some of our favorite pieces is always a problem. If you throw, say, a bunch of earrings in a bowl, you then have to dig through that bowl to find the second half, (or sometimes even the first) which is not always easy or convenient --so, you really need some sort of display:

Voila!

How did he do it, you ask? It was actually rather simple. He took the glass and backing off of a picture frame we didn't want to use anymore. He then used a picture hanging kit that he had rotting away in his tool kit and affixed the wire from said kit into sides of the frame, frame. Next thing we knew, we had a super cute earring display -- no clutter or mess or problems finding anything, ever again!

...and our favorite part is that this is so cool looking, we leave it out for all to see. We could even hang it on the wall if we wanted!

Planters Need Cozies Too!

How cool is this Re-Nest blog idea? Who knew that planters needed cozies too? And you can make them out of cute, old socks! Perfect!

10 New Uses for Lemon

According to a Real Simple magazine article, there are 10 uses for a lemon, other than being a lemon, of course:

1. Sanitize a chopping block. Run a slice of lemon over the surface to disinfect.

2. Eliminate the browning that occurs when food sits out too long. Sprinkle apple or pear slices with lemon juice before serving, or squeeze a bit into guacamole and give it a stir.

3. Remove tough food stains from plastic and light-colored wooden cutting boards. Slice a lemon in half, squeeze the juice onto the soiled surface, rub, and let sit for 20 minutes. Rinse with water.

4. Fade tea stains on cloth. Dilute lemon juice with an equal amount of water. Use an eyedropper or a Q-tip to make sure the juice targets the stain. Thoroughly flush with cool water.

5. Decorate on the cheap. Fill a glass bowl with lemons for a sunny centerpiece. Or display a row of them along a windowsill.

6. Relieve a sore throat. Cut a lemon in half. Skewer one half over a medium flame on a gas stove or an electric burner set on high and roast until the peel turns golden brown. Let cool slightly, then mix the juice with 1 teaspoon of honey. Swallow the mixture.

7. Whiten fingernails. Rub a wedge on the surface of your nails.

8. Shine the interior of copper cookware. Sprinkle a lemon wedge with salt, then scrub.

9. Brighten laundry whites. Add 1/2 cup lemon juice to the wash cycle of a normal-size load.

10. Remove soft cheese or other sticky foods from a grater. Rub both sides of the grater with the pulp side of a cut lemon.

Pot and Repot

Our husband collects bottle openers. And while we whole-heartedly support this habit, we don't love all the bottle openers we have acquired in various locations throughout the kitchen of late.

Our solution? We had this pot laying around that had been used to house an orchid. We, of course, lacking a green thumb, managed to kill said orchid within months of it being gifted to us. The pot that remained was cute, but had funny slits in it to accomodate the unique needs of the orchid. We opted not to replant a new orchid given our difficulty with the first one (Did we mentioned we accidentally killed it?) But how in the world could we reuse such a weird pot?

bottle openers + funny, slitted pot = a storage solution for Hubby's collection! YAY!

Speaking of sheet sets...

Speaking of sheet sets... need a handy way to protect those sets if you don't have a super clean place to store them? (We, for instance, have no linen closet and store our sheet sets with the dustbunnies, under the bed) No one likes to pull out a clean set of sheets to find them riddled in dust or dirt!

How about that gift box you've been saving from Christmas? Gift boxes (with or w/o lids) make the perfect storage container for sheet sets, keeping them organized and clean!

Sleepy time...

Few tasks annoy us more than opening our linen closet, eagerly anticipating fresh bed dressing, and trying to dig out the various pieces of the sheet sets. Inevitably, there is always one piece wrinkled up like an old prune, caught in the closet cracks or just plain MIA.

We've found the perfect solution: wrap your sheet sets in their respective pilllowcase, right off of the drying line. Stack your tidy, sheet bundles neatly in the linent closet and you never have to worry about tracking them down or ironing them again.

A-jar or two or three....

Admit it. You secretly long to find a use for those gorgeous, glass jars and cringe every time you throw one in the recycling. We do!

You know what we're talking about -- the one that used to contain spaghetti sauce, bubble bath, jelly...Well, friends, we always save those beautiful, glass jars because they make excellent storage containers.

While we'll show you what we used them for, it's important to note that you probably won't have the exact same use/same storage issues. (As you'll see below, we used them to contain cat toys, diswashing supplies and doggie poop bags) The point is to open you mind up to the thousands of ways you can re-use these everyday items in a new way and avoid throwing them out at all.