If you have ice cube trays lying around in your refrigerator and chilling your drinks with ice cubes is not a huge priority for you, you can still make use of these handy kitchen tools in a number of useful ways, both edible and non-edible.
Don't toss out those cardboard tubes just yet. Whenever you have one leftover from a roll of paper towels, toilet paper, or wrapping paper, hang on to it, because it's got some great DIY potential.
Not only does a dishwasher save you the manual labor of physically washing your dirty kitchenware, it can sterilize your make-up brushes, launder your favorite baseball cap, and even cook up your next dinner.
Sturdier than sewing thread and far less cumbersome than metal wire, dental floss has an amazing multitude of practical uses that can be used for baking, cooking, interior decorating, and more.
It turns out that the silver crinkly material traditionally used for wrapping leftovers and making funny hats to block out messages from extraterrestrial beings is pretty darn useful for a number of other random but handy tasks, such as sharpening your scissors and keeping bugs away from your vegetable garden. What can aluminum foil not do? Seriously.
The next time you brew yourself a nice cup of hot tea, don't throw the tea bag away. Old tea bags can be used in many ways ranging from household cleanup to DIY beauty and even gardening.
The annoying thing about pantyhose? They snag and tear very easily. The amazing thing about pantyhose? They have about a gazillion practical uses even if you can no longer wear them.
A single paper clip can go a long way. Having just one of these ubiquitous office supplies can make you a smartphone mount, replace your broken zipper tab, scratch your lottery ticket, and eject the CD from your stuck DVD drive.
In 1859, 22-year-old chemist Robert A. Chesebrough accidentally discovered petroleum jelly when he visited a working oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania. Oil workers complained of a gooey substance referred to as "rod wax" which kept getting into the machinery and slowing them down. Chesebrough noticed that oil workers also smeared this same substance on their burn marks or dry skin to help speed the healing process.
Got a bunch of T-shirts you need to get rid of? Depending on how nostalgic you are for your high school choir club shirt or rock concert tee from your college days, you can cut up your former threads into a dishrag or gym headband.
Seriously, what can a lemon not do? Other than being your go-to fruit for making lemonade, this versatile citrus can do some household cleanup, deodorize bad smells, alleviate sunburns, and much, much more. Read on and you will never look at a lemon the same way again.
We all know that distilled white vinegar is great as a general non-toxic cleaning solution and for deodorizing funky smelling rooms, but did you know that vinegar is also great for curing hiccups, deterring ants from invading your home, relieving jellyfish stings, and testing the alkalinity of your garden soil?
The best thing since the creation of bread may just be... sliced bread. Soft bread slices have the perfect absorbent texture for picking up tiny pieces of broken glass, gently cleaning dust off your precious oil paintings, and even safely removing splinters from your finger when soaked with milk and taped to your skin with a bandage.
Do you have a bunch of old jeans that no longer fit you or are too outdated to wear in public? If you are handy with a sewing machine, the possibilities for upcycling your jeans into something crafty are endless. You can update your old denims into a jean tote bag, yoga mat bag, quilt, or a super-handy utility belt (or mini-apron).
In their cooked form, rice is great for making spam musubi, sushi, and other amazing meals. In their uncooked form, dry rice grains are unexpectedly useful for preventing your salt from clumping in your salt shaker, cleaning out the insides of weirdly-shaped, hard-to-wash containers, weighing down your unbaked pie crust, cleaning out your coffee grinder, and—if you act quickly enough—saving your wet cell phone from cell phone death.
Wax paper, a moisture-proof paper commonly used in the kitchen to keep food from sticking, can also be used to preserve maple leaves, keep bathroom fixtures spotless, line your refrigerator bins, funnel spices into small spice containers, and make re-corking unfinished wine bottles a cinch.
Cornstarch, a fine, powdery starch commonly used as a thickening agent for sauces and gravies, can also be used to remove ink stains from the carpet, detangle stubborn knots, silence your squeaky floorboards, and give your pooch a dry shampoo.
Office binder clips, commonly used for binding together thick stacks of computer paper, can also be used as a bookmark, money clip, picture hanger, boots hanger, cable organizer, and more.
Almost every human being on the planet uses toothpaste daily, but typically for just one task—oral hygiene. Keeping your teeth clean is undoubtedly important, but this magical mixture of abrasives, fluoride, and detergents must be useful for more than just scrubbing your chops, right? For instance, it's great at removing scuff marks from shoes!
Though silica gel packets clearly instruct you to throw them away (and not eat them), you can actually keep them for a variety of unexpectedly practical uses around the home. Silica gel is a desiccant, a substance that absorbs moisture, which makes these packets perfect for keeping things extremely dry and moisture-free.
Sooner or later you're going to have to deal with a stuck zipper, whether it's on your favorite jacket, backpack, or pair of pants. Simply tugging hard on the zipper tab hardly ever works, but a few things lying around your house might do the trick.
Your hair dryer can come in handy for a number of unexpected uses, from removing crayon marks on walls to helping mold your plastic store-bought glasses to fit your big head. Not surprisingly, your hair dryer can also be used to defrost things, quickly dry wet things, and speed up the cooking at your next summer BBQ by heating up your cooking charcoal quickly after lighting.
Beeswax is a natural wax produced by honeybees and can also be used for your home. Commonly associated with making your own DIY candles, beeswax is the perfect DIY product for making your own lip balm, non-toxic crayons, mustache wax, and more.
Rice water refers to the cloudy water that is leftover after washing rice in a bowl, or the excess water drained from a pot used for cooking rice in boiling water. Whichever method you prefer, rice water can be saved in a separate container once cooled, then used for a number of beauty, health, and home uses.
Commonly associated with cleaning and disinfecting items around the home, bleach can also be used as a water sterilization method in an emergency situation when you do not have access to clean, running water. Simply add 6 drops of bleach to a gallon of water and wait for 30 minutes before drinking.
While crockpots are commonly used for making soups and stews or for slow-cooking meats, they are also surprisingly useful for making other foods that you may not associate with a slow cooker, such as brownies, bread, cheesecake, fruit butters, and even yogurt.
If you ever want to try rebooting your car batteries before calling a towing service, make a solution out of 1 ounce of epsom salt dissolved in warm water, and apply the solution to the battery cell before starting your car.
Shower curtains and shower curtain liners are great for making sure that your bathroom floor doesn't collect water, but eventually you'll want to replace them. When you do, the old one can be repurposed for a number of practical uses around the house and outdoors.
If you ever accidentally drop pieces of cork into your newly opened wine bottle, you can use a plastic drinking straw to fish them out. Simply place the straw over the cork piece and close the other end of the straw with your finger to create a suction that sucks the cork out of the wine.
Other than the expected task of removing lint from clothing, lint rollers are a great tool to have around the house for a wide variety of cleaning and non-cleaning uses.
Originally discovered in dry lake beds in Tibet, borax is a mineral and a salt of boric acid, and is usually sold in white powder form in drugstores. Like baking soda, borax has many household cleaning uses, and can also be used to get rid of insects and pests from your living space.
Commonly found in the medicine aisle in grocery stores near the bandages, hydrogen peroxide is best known for disinfecting wounds, but it's also extremely useful for a number of cleaning and health uses, such as removing sweat and blood stains from clothes, disinfecting cutting boards, removing bacteria from your produce before consumption, and more.
If you ever need to wash your beanie and need some sort of hat mould to retain the shape of the fabric while it is drying, blow up a party balloon until it is about the size of your head. Place the beanie on top of the balloon until it dries.
Don't you hate it when the ice cream in your freezer loses its soft, smooth textures and has ice crystals all over its surface? Prevent this from happening by covering the ice cream in the carton with a sheet of plastic wrap before closing the lid tightly.
Need to scrub stubborn mineral deposits from your toilet bowl or leftover food gunk from your oven rack? Use a pumice stone, which will remove hardened material from the surface without leaving behind a scratch.
Hate the feeling of dirt beneath your fingernails after gardening? Rather than digging out the dirt afterwards, take a preventive measure by digging your fingernails into a bar of soap, which will keep them clean and wash out easily afterwards.
Are your teeth starting to look a little on the yellow side? Try rubbing apple cider vinegar directly on them before rinsing with water. It's a super quick way to whiten teeth on the spot.
Using a metal or silicone muffin tin, you can bake, freeze, or whip up a wide variety of snacks, appetizers, and desserts that aren't just cupcakes and muffins.
Too much leftover red wine after a big party? Rather than forcing yourself to drink everything before the flavor goes bad or pouring it down the drain, save some for non-drinking household and beauty uses, such as trapping fruit flies, marinating steak, and conditioning your skin.
If your beloved fern houseplant is looking limp, make a tonic out of 1 tablespoon castor oil, 1 tablespoon baby oil, and 4 cups lukewarm water. Feed your fern with 1 tablespoon of the tonic followed by a normal amount of plain water once a day for several days until your fern starts looking healthy again.
Need to keep your beloved houseplant alive while you're on vacation? Repot the plant with a disposable diaper at the bottom of the flowerpot before covering with soil; the diaper will help retain soil moisture at the bottom, which will keep your plant properly hydrated for a good window of time while you're gone.
Need to fake a few stage tears for your next starring role? Apply a thin layer of Vicks VapoRub underneath your eyes right before you go on stage to generate excess moisture that can help create faux teardrops.
Paper shredder not working like it used to? Soak several pieces of paper in baby oil and run them through the shredder, which will help lubricate the blades and make them run smoothly for future shredding purposes.
Here is more reason to eat cereal for breakfast. Once you have an empty cereal box on hand, you can use it as a DIY magazine organizer, emergency cupcake transport, cutting mat for arts and crafts, DIY holiday gift box and more.
Thanksgiving is still a few weeks away, but it's definitely not too early to pull out that turkey baster hiding in your kitchen drawer. There are many things you can do with it besides baste a roasting turkey.
Do you hate bringing drinks outdoors because of the possibility of leaves, bugs and other debris flying into your cup? Solve this annoying problem by placing a cupcake liner over the opening of your cup when you are not drinking it. Mission accomplished.
Even if you never plan on visiting a golf course for the rest of your life, it's still a good idea to have a few golf tees lying around the house. You never know when you might need to replace a small cap, stake a picnic blanket to the ground on a windy day, and (assuming that they are clean and new) hold a thick sandwich together.
Need to give yourself a super-cheap back massage? Place a few tennis balls inside a long sock, tie the end, and place the sock on the floor. Then, lie down and roll your back against the sock to relieve your sore back muscles.
If your love for Chinese takeout has left you with a pile of unused disposable chopsticks in your kitchen drawer, then you're in luck. In addition to being a very versatile eating utensil for pretty much any cuisine, chopsticks also come in handy for eating Cheetos without getting cheesy dust all over your fingers, pitting cherries, skewering food, stirring drinks, cleaning out dirt from hard-to-reach spaces, and more.
Gardening hose starting to leak? Don't throw it out just yet. Cut it up into smaller lengths and slice it open to use the hose as a protective barrier for outdoor electrical cords, or as added grip on a metal paint can handle.
Like table salt, black pepper has its unexpectedly handy uses that goes beyond seasoning your meals at the dining table. You can use black pepper to keep ants from invading your home, drive away bugs from eating your delicious garden vegetables, temporarily fix a radiator leak, and even stop bleeding on a minor wound.
If you want to prevent your bathroom mirror from fogging up in the morning, simply rub shaving cream all over the surface before hopping into the shower.
