Handy Household Hints from the Early 1900s

Here are some tips that I've gleaned from various magazines; please use common sense, however, when working with volatile substances!

Save all stale bread to be made into puddings, toast, croutons for soups, or crumbs for rolling croquettes in. Take a little stake cake, slice thin, place in a dish and pour over it some stewed fruit, or a sauce made of vinegar and water, sweetened to taste, flavored with a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg, and thickened with one or two tablespoonfuls of corn starch, and one has a simple dessert which children, especially, are fond of.

In dressing small children one can utilize garments too badly worn for older people to wear, by making them into neat, serviceable apparel for the little ones. Make the best material into small garments, piece the good scraps into quilts, which may have lining of the same kind of material, while an old woolen or cotton blanket is used as interlining, and cut the small, worn pieces into bits to use for making rugs or carpets. After cutting over knit underwear to make smaller garments, take the larger scraps , lay flat, lap one edge over the other and stitch together, and you have a piece of goods that will do nicely for lining a comfort. Make the little one's stockings out of worn larger ones, and so on.

Furniture polish: to one part turpentine add three parts linseed-oil, shaking the bottle until thoroughly mixed. Apply with a woolen cloth, and do not use too much, or the last state of your furniture will be worse than the first. Put a little one the cloth and rub in thoroughly, then polish with a dry cloth until the oil is entirely absorbed.

To keep raisins from settling to the bottom of the pan, wash them in hot water before putting them into a cake .

Try turpentine in removing a corn, applying every night by means of a toothpick. The corn will come out easily in a very short time.

Chestnut-leaves, steeeped and applied to a burn, will be found very healing and soothing.

Take a piece of clean cloth, tie a spoonful or two of salt in it, and use as a pad to rub the griddle with when frying griddle-cakes. it saves butter and smoke, and the cakes will not burn if attened to.

Hydrogen peroxide on wicker is a great cleaner.

A piece of woolen cloth fastened around the arm of a sewing machine near the needle-bar is handy to stick pins and needles in, instead of throwing them on the table, and then losing time picking them up.

To prevent curtains from becoming soiled by blowing against the screens when the window is open, attach a safety-pin to the hem of curtain and catch it over a small brass hook, screwed to the side of the window at a convenient height.

Now, can you add any?