Extend battery life
If your batteries have run down and you do not have any new ones, use some aluminum foil. Place the foil according to this instruction.
Iron clothes from both sides at once
Put some aluminum foil under the clothes before ironing, as described here. Foil becomes hot really fast, and this is how your clothes can be ironed from both sides.
Sharpen your scissors
If you need to sharpen your scissors and get rid of rust, cut a piece of foil 7-10 times, just as described in this blog.
Remove static electricity from your clothes
Put some foil balls in the washer together with the laundry. After washing, your clothes won’t accumulate electricity and attract dust and hair.
Scrub Metal Pots and Pans
There’s no need to soak crusty metal pots and pans overnight in the sink. (Sorry to those who like to leave “soakers” for Mom to deal with the next day.)
- Wet the pan then sprinkle it with a thick layer of salt or baking soda.
- Grab a wad of aluminum foil, and use it to scour the pan clean. Rinse, dry, and you’re done.
- Not for use on non-stick pots or pans.
Keep Bananas Fresh Longer
Like avocados, bananas seem to go from not ready to over-ripe in the blink of an eye.
During the process of ripening, bananas release a gas that reacts with oxygen to speed up the process. This happens mostly at the stem. The solution? Use foil to create a barrier between the two.
Simply wrap a bit of aluminum foil around the stems, singly or as a bunch, and your bananas will last several days longer.
Protect food from burning
In order to protect food from sticking in the frying pan, put a layer of foil in the bottom. This is also how you can cook without oil.
Catch ice cream cone drips
Aluminum foil uses extend far beyond keeping your best cookie sheets clean. You can actually prevent children from making a mess of their clothes by wrapping the bottom of an ice-cream cone with a piece of aluminum foil before handing it to them.
Sharpen your scissors
What can you do with those clean pieces of leftover foil you have hanging around? Use them to sharpen up your dull scissors! Smooth them out if necessary, and then fold the strips into several layers and start cutting. Seven or eight passes should do the trick. Pretty simple, huh?
Improvise a frying pan
If you don’t feel like lugging a frying pan along on your next camping trip you can form your own by centering a forked stick over two layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Wrap the edges of the foil tightly around the forked branches, while leaving some slack in the foil between the forks. Invert the stick and depress the center to hold food for frying.
Create special-shaped cake pans
Make a teddy bear birthday cake, a Valentine’s Day heart cake, a Christmas tree cake, or whatever shaped cake the occasion may call for. Just form a double thickness of heavy-duty aluminum foil into the desired shape inside a large cake pan.
Preserve steel-wool pads
It’s maddening. You use a steel-wool pad once, put it in a dish by the sink, and the next day you find a rusty mess fit only for the trash. To prevent rust and get your money’s worth from a pad, wrap it in foil and toss it into the freezer. You can also lengthen the life of your steel-wool soap pads by crumpling up a sheet of foil and placing it under the steel wool in its dish or container. (Don’t forget to periodically drain off the water that collects at the bottom.)
Hide worn spots in mirrors
Sometimes a worn spot adds to the charm of an old mirror; sometimes it’s a distraction. You can easily disguise small flaws on a mirror’s reflective surface by putting a piece of aluminum foil, shiny side facing out, on the back of the glass. To hold the foil in place, attach it to the backing behind the mirror or to the frame with masking tape. Don’t tape it to the mirror itself.
Clean jewelry
To clean your jewelry, simply line a small bowl with aluminum foil. Fill the bowl with hot water and mix in one tablespoon of bleach-free powdered laundry detergent (not liquid), such as Tide. Put the jewelry in the solution and let it soak for one minute. Rinse well and air-dry. This procedure makes use of the chemical process known as ion exchange, which can also be used to clean silverware.
Don’t dye your glasses
You want to catch up on your reading during the time it takes to colour your hair. But you can’t read without your specs, and if you put them on, hair dye can stain them. Solution: Wrap the temples of your glasses with aluminum foil.
Create a sun box for plants
A sunny window is a great place for keeping plants that love a lot of light. However, since the light always comes from the same direction, plants tend to bend toward it. To bathe your plants in light from all sides, make a sun box: Remove the top and one side from a cardboard box and line the other three sides and bottom with aluminum foil, shiny side out, taping or gluing it in place. Place plants in the box and set it near a window.
Grow untangled cuttings
Help plant cuttings grow strong and uncluttered by starting them in a container covered with a sheet of aluminum foil. Simply poke a few holes in the foil and insert the cuttings through the holes. There’s even an added bonus: The foil slows water evaporation, so you’ll need to add water less frequently.
Make a barbecue drip pan
To keep meat drippings off your barbecue coals, fashion a disposable drip pan out of a couple of layers of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Shape it freehand, or use an inverted baking pan as a mold (remember to remove the pan once your creation is finished). Also, don’t forget to make your drip pan slightly larger than the meat on the grill.
Line roller pans
Cleaning out paint roller pans is a pain, which is why a lot of folks buy disposable plastic pans or liners. But lining a metal roller pan with aluminum foil works just as well—and can be a lot cheaper.
Speed your ironing
When you iron clothing, a lot of the iron’s heat is sucked up by the board itself—requiring you to make several passes with the iron to remove wrinkles. To speed things up, put a piece of aluminum foil under your ironing board cover. This foil will reflect heat back through the clothing, smoothing the wrinkles more quickly.
