DIY Life

Heather brought us a great blog post on how she, her children and her brother use Pam cooking spray. As I was reading her post, I started thinking that there has to be more excellent uses besides cooking with the spray and the ingenious uses her loved ones have.

Gomestic writer Darlene McFarlane has 13 remarkable uses for cooking spray. Who knew cooking spray could keep debris from sticking to your car wheels or car grill, not to mention keeping your locks and mailbox free from sticking and freezing? Cooking spray is also great for keeping candle wax from sticking to the candle holders, cleans dirt and soap scum from your shower, quiets squeaky hinges, lubricates a bicycle chain, makes snow slide off the shovel easier if you spray your shovel first, and keeps wet grass from sticking to your lawnmower blades.

Please be careful with some of these suggestions. You will want to clean up the cooking spray very thoroughly before you take your next shower, so that you don't fall down and break your noggin. Also, be careful when using cooking spray on a putty knife. Using too much of a good thing, such as cooking spray, isn't always a good thing, if ya know what I mean. In other words, you could end up hurting yourself!

Did you know that petroleum jelly has been around since the late 1800's? It can be used as a lubricant for all sorts of little jobs around the house. I use my little jar of petroleum jelly to lubricate the annoying hinges on the doors of my bathroom sink, for coating my chapped lips in the winter, and even dab a little on my toddler's bottom when she gets a little too red.

Gomestic user Darlene McFarlane has compiled an awesome list of uses for petroleum jelly. She writes about everything from removing water rings on wood to using jelly to shine your shoes. How about using Vaseline to protect cuts and scrapes? It works just as well as Neosporin, in my opinion. It works wonders as a moisturizer, especially if you have sensitive skin like I do. I get really dry skin on my hands and feet, so I slather them with a layer of petroleum jelly and put on socks, allowing the jelly to be absorbed into my feet overnight. Voila, in the morning I have nice soft footsies. I do the same thing with my hands. Yeah, I know, it isn't the most romantic thing in the world to do, but I can get away with it on weeknights since my husband works second shift and I am sleeping by the time he gets home. Check out the rest of what Darlene has to say, I am sure you will find her list just as useful as I do.

Here at DIY Life, we love to write about regular household items that can be used in a myriad of different and useful ways (for example, check out our love affair with vinegar). Few things excite me more than finding a new and unusual use for something I have sitting on my shelf, so you can imagine my delight when I came across the Tacoma Wheelmen's Bicycle Club's 1,997 unofficial uses for WD-40. Many of the tips are simply riffs and repeats of WD-40's basic job, which is, of course, lubricating stuff, but a lot of them were new to me. Here's a quick list of some that I found particularly useful (and/or weird):

#176. Helps clean showers (and makes them four times as slippery, I bet)
#510. Spray on disposable razor blades to make them function longer
#648. Cleans (that's a bit broad, but if it cleans, it CLEANS!)
#778. Unfreezes car doors (I've used it for this before, and it really works)