Tips from A to Z to Make Your Life Easier

Place a piece of aluminum foil under your ironing board cover to speed up your ironing and to get better results. Try it and see what happens.

Don't you get tired of using a steel-wool pad once and then it gets rusty? To prevent rust from getting on your pad, wrap it in aluminum foil and put it in the freezer until you are ready to use it again. Just let your family know it is there so no one will throw it out and fry it.

If your leather shoes are scuffed, shine them with banana peels. Simply rub the shoes with the inside of the banana peel and then use a soft cloth to buff them. The shoes will look shiny. You can also use banana peels on other leather objects.

Banana peels also work wonders on silverware and your aluminum pots and pans to keep them shiny.

Keep ants away by soaking cotton balls in a solution of sugar and water and leaving them in places where you have seen ants. You can also use salt in place of sugar. They both will work.

Make your refrigerator smell fresh by dampening cotton balls with some vanilla extract or essential oil and place them on a shelf towards the back of the refrigerator.

Carry a dustpan to the beach with your kids. It will be a tool for helping them scoop up sand to build those sand castles.

When you are shoveling snow, let your little ones help by using a dustpan.

The way dustpans are made they can be clamped onto your broom. You probably knew that already.

There are many uses for egg cartons, so stop throwing them away.

• Use egg cartons as extra ice trays when you are having a party and need more ice.
• Use them on your dresser to drop earrings and rings into the sections. You will never have to search for that matching earring when you are in a hurry to get dressed and go someplace.
• Use egg cartons on your desk for paper clips, thumb tacks, and rubber bands.

Just because the item is listed as a flower pot, it can be used for so other things. On a picnic table, it could hold your utensils, condiments, and folded napkins. Decorate the pot to correspond with the holiday. For instance, decorate it in red, white and blue for Fourth of July.

Remember those cotton balls mentioned above? Put the leftover ones in a decorated flower pot in the bathroom. Use the bottom of the flower pot for a soap dish.

Ginger has so many health benefits for headaches, cramps, colds, chills, stress, constipation and almost any other ailment. Think of it this way. There are more health benefits for ginger than there are not.

Ginger also has a lot of beauty benefits, such as for acne, wrinkles, age spots, and hair loss. It is safe to say that if it can't be helped by ginger, more than likely it won't be helped by many other things either.

After you cook a ham and eat off of it once, don't think you can't use leftover ham in so many other ways. For instance, you can eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

• For breakfast, you can fry the ham and eat it instead of bacon or sausage. You can also add pieces of ham to your scrambled eggs or omelet
• For lunch, you can include pieces of it in your salad and you can make a ham sandwich with some of the slices.
• For dinner, add chopped up pieces of ham for your macaroni and cheese dish.

Use an ice cream scoop to get the perfect shape and size of meatballs. Every one of them will be uniform and just the right portion.

You can use an ice cream scoop for the same reasons you would use a melon baller. Just like you scooped out meatballs, you can scoop out melons for a fruit salad or drinks.

The most common use for jam is to put it on toast. If that is the only thing you are doing with it, you are cheating jam out of so many other uses. For instance, use jam on your pancakes and waffles.

Add jam to plain yogurt for a delicious treat.

Put some in your oatmeal for a change of pace from eat plain oatmeal every day.

Ketchup is not just for putting on your hot dog or hamburger. Use ketchup to clean copper. Simply coat the surface with a thin layer of ketchup. Wait from five to ten minutes to rinse off and dry. There is no need to buy an expensive brand for this project.

Use ketchup to soothe insect bites. It might already be on your picnic table anyway. Dab a little on the bite. You will feel better immediately because the salt in ketchup will draw out some of the inflammation.

There are so many uses for lemons that it is hard to narrow the uses down to just a few. Lemons are very versatile that can be used for many things.

Use lemons as a toilet bowl cleaner by mixing one part lemon juice to two parts of borax. Let it sit for a couple of hours and then rinse.

Add lemon juice to your laundry detergent to whiten clothes.

Drink a glass of water and two teaspoons of lemon juice for heartburn.

Soften your hair with mayonnaise by applying a generous amount to the dry ends. Let it stay on for 15 minutes. Rinse all the mayo out and shampoo your hair as usual. The results will be rich looking hair.

Using mayo on your skin will be just as good as having a spa day. Mix mayo with a teaspoon of olive oil and apply to your skin. Let it sit for 5-7 minutes. Rinse off with warm water. Your skin will have an instant glow.

Use clear nail polish to keep small dents, dings, and chips from spreading on your car. Just dab a small amount of nail polish on them.

Use clear nail polish to keep a run from spreading when you are wearing hose.

Remove rust from kitchen knives by running the blade into an onion three or four times or until the rust has come off.

After using your grill for cookouts over the summer, you will have a hard time cleaning it. A way to make a hard job easy, slice an onion in half and stick a fork in one of the halves. Rub the onion over the grill with a bit of force. You will see the difference right away.

After you eat all the pickles in the jar and nothing is left but the juice, what do you do with the leftover juice? Do you drink it, throw it away or find some other use for it?

You could use pickle juice in place of vinegar in salad dressings, soups, or in other recipes. Use the juice to make more pickles from vegetables you have on hand. All you have to do is put cucumbers, carrots or red onions in the jar of pickle juice and you have new pickles.

You can put hard-boiled eggs in the leftover juice.

Make pickled watermelon rind. Cut off the skin, and drop pieces into the leftover pickle juice.

Have you ever wondered what the Q stands for in Q-tips? The Q-tip was invented in the 1920's by Leo Gerstenzang after seeing his wife put a piece of cotton on a toothpick to clean their baby's ears. Leo invented Q-tips to replace his wife's invention. The Q stood for quality. Therefore, the name is "Quality Tips."

Doctors today advise that you should not use Q-tips to clean the ears. Q-tips have many other uses, especially for cleaning small areas.

Q-tips are small enough to get into the corners and crevices of your electronics. Soak a Q-tip in isopropyl alcohol and rub it over your laptop, computer, phone, and tablet.

Also, use Q-tip to clean the battery compartment on your TV remote and other electronic where batteries are kept.

If your eyeglasses keep sliding off your face, wrap a rubber band around each handle. Your glasses will no longer slide down on your nose.

Keep your electronic cords organized with rubber bands.

Sharpen your dull scissors by cutting through a sheet of fine-grit sandpaper.

If you don’t have an emery board the next time you need to file your nails, a piece of fine grain sandpaper can act as a make-shift emery board.

Just as toothpaste is good for cleaning dingy teeth, it is also good for cleaning fingernails that have been left discolored after nail polish has been removed.

Put a small amount on a brush different from the one you brush your teeth with. Scrub the top and underneath the nails and around the cuticles for better-looking nails.

Uggs are on the same list as cargo pants, hair clamps, scrunchies, and wristlets. Some people want them to go away and stay away. Uggs are comfortable and there are ways to make the winter boots look cool enough for people to accept them.

Celebrities have been pictured wearing Uggs with pants or leggings. That is making other people want to wear them also.

Clean your windshield wiper blades by putting vinegar on a cloth and wiping them.

Use vinegar on clothes with underarm wet stains. Spray full-strength white vinegar on the stain before washing and the stain will disappear.

Of course, you know that you can use vinegar on certain foods such as salads, chopped barbecue, pasta, tuna salad and so many other dishes.

Stop water spots off from landing on your chrome faucets by rubbing the fixtures with a piece of wax paper.

Use wax paper to unstick a zipper. The paper will help the zipper slide along its track if you use wax paper over the teeth.

Every copier is not a Xerox. Xerox is the brand name of just one copier. However, some people call every copy machine a Xerox. Some people even call the printed document a Xerox.

Yogurt is a cheap substitute for teeth whitening treatments. Just rub some yogurt on your teeth daily for at least two weeks. Phosphorus and calcium in yogurt will cause your teeth to become whiter.

Clean your skin with yogurt. Rub some on your face or the area you want to be cleaned. Leave on for about 20 minutes. Then rinse the yogurt off and be amazed at the results.

Make zucchini bread because it is really delicious. There are some quick and easy recipes online.

Use zucchini in a salad to spice it up a bit.