HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 152, 28 June 1924, Page 22

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Coffee grounds, like tea leaves, may be sprinkled on the floor to prevent dust rising while sweeping. Try mixing mustard with a little salt and milk instead of water. It will not dry like mixing in the ordinary way. A strip of carpet glued to a piece of wood will remove mud from shoes with- | out scratching the leather. Squeezed lemons should be saved for cleaning copper and 'brass and for ■whitening the wood of kitchen tables. Before cleaning copper kettles, fill them with boiling water. They will be found to polish more quickly. When the steel fittings of a stove become brown through heat, rub them with a rag dipped in vinegar, before cleaning in the usual way. Mix a little ammonia with the heeswax and turpentine used for floorpolishing. The wax will then dissolve quickly. To make brooms fresh and clean dip into a pail of boiling soda, and water They dry in the sun. Soak new blankets for some hours in cold water to which two or three handfills of salt have been added, wring well, then wash in the usual way. Putty for odd jobs is made by crushing a handful of whitening in a small bowl, and mixing it to the desired consistency with linseed oil. To prevent stretched and mis-shapen garments, hang the clothes upon the line as much as possible in the position in which they are worn. Soak new brushes and brooms in cold water for several hours before using them; this prevents the bristles from breaking and fallins out. Shabby, dark leather will look like new if rubbed over with linseed oil. Polish with a eoft duster until the leather is dry and glossy. If potatoes after either steaming or hoiling have a hard or somewhat waxy appearance, try shaking them in the air for just one minute, and you will be surprised how light and floury they become. When mending a jumper or any other ribbed woollen garments, do not darn in i the usual way, says a correspondent. Inj stead take yarn and run stitches across the rent, then begin at the top left-hand I side and chain-stitch down the row of cross threads, taking in a thread at every stitch. These chain stitches have the same effect as the knitted rib. and. if the yam matches, the darn will not be noticed.