The Wilhelmsen Botanical Blog

Hey, I just wanted to share a few things that I have come across.  If you need baby or kid items for a good price then make sure you check out Kid to Kid (there are several locations in Utah) for gently used clothes (they even have maternity clothes), strollers, cribs, bassinets, car seats, toys, etc, before stopping in at Wal-mart or Target.  You can also check out Craigslist at http://saltlakecity.craigslist.org/bab/ for listings of inexpensive baby items.

Also, I heard these great tips on Good Things Utah yesterday and I wanted to share them.  They are some new uses for everyday household products, enjoy!

Toothpaste:

Great to clean and polish sterling silver, gently rub on your silver and then rinse with warm water, polish with a soft cloth… don’t scrub the polish on, just gently rub, if needed you can use a soft soft bristle tooth brush, but be very gentle, let the toothpaste do the work to remove tarnish.

Fill a nail hole in the wall – must be paste not gel, fill the hole and use your finger to level it even, when it’s dried you can paint over it. (remember dabbing paint with a Q-tip is easier and cleaner than trying to paint with a brush and get rid of brush strokes)

Temporary way to hang paper or art projects on a wall is to use toothpaste, use it like a glue, smudge some on the corners, press, hold.. when it dries it will hold the project up… and when you peel it down, you just wipe the toothpaste of with a damp cloth

Dental Floss:

If you don’t have a cheese slicer, no problem, wrap the ends of dental floss around your fingers and slice through the cheese… obviously you should opt to NOT use minty floss for this… it also works great with cheesecake

Do you have cookies that don’t want to come off the cookie sheet, no problem, same thing, slice the floss under the cookies and lift them off

Try dental floss instead of thread for heavy mending project, particularly tents, canvas bags, backpacks… waxed floss even works better since it will slide through the material easily… floss is stronger and will hold your mend well, after you tie the knot, drop a tiny dot of crazy glue to hold it in place and seal the knot

Mouthwash (it needs to be alcohol based, sugarless mouthwash):

Freshen up smelly gym socks in the washer, sometimes the wash cycle just doesn’t do the trick, add a cup of mouthwash to the wash cycle.

Disinfect your counters, spray on your counter and use like an antiseptic cleanser for your kitchen and bathroom counters, pour a ¼ cup in your toilet bowl to help disinfect and clean your toilet as well.

You can also use it as an astringent for cleansing your face, dab some on a cotton ball and gently wipe your face, you should feel a tingling sensation. Rinse with warm water followed by a splash of cold and you will feel clean and refreshed.

Denture Cleaner:

Clean your diamonds, drop the tablet in a glass of water just like required for dentures, but place your diamond jewels in, when you remove and rinse, your diamonds will sparkle (do not use on pearls)

Clean the flower scum from narrow necked vases, or hard water stains from glasses or coffee decanters, match the amount of water to right number of tablets, fill and drop in the tablets, after fizzing stops, rinse and all the stains and scum will be removed.

Clean your toothbrush, after all they are used to clean dentures, they work really well with your toothbrush too! For that matter, other items you may want to clean, binkies, retainers, mouth guards… etc.

You can also drop 4 tablets into your toilet bowl to get rid of stains and rings around your toilet.