Another Use For... 101 Common Household Items [Paperback]

Vicki Lansky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1999

If you drop a raw egg, what's the fastest way to clean it up? With a turkey baster. What's the easiest way to clean a shower door? Wipe it with a fabric softener sheet. This new edition features practical, useful tips like these and dozens more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Here's another fun book from Vicki Lansky, famous for giving her expert advice in the pages of Family Circle Magazine and such classics as Baking Soda: Over 500 Fabulous, Fun, and Frugal Ideas You've Probably Never Heard Of. It takes a certain kind of creative mind to gaze over the common objects of everyday life and figure out ways to reuse and recycle materials as inventively as Lansky does, but she is a real pro. Here are just a few of the hundreds of creative uses outlined: use a waxed milk carton as a charcoal lighter by filling it with charcoal and lighting the box; protect bows on wrapped presents for shipping by covering them with those little plastic berry boxes; use a baster to suck up a dropped egg; use a paintbrush to dust houseplants; use carpet scraps under typewriters and printers to muffle their noise; use a bottle cork as a drill stop; use crumpled newspapers to dry freshly washed windows instead of expensive paper towels; use a king-size pillowcase as a cover for baby's changing table; use large rubber bands to keep covers on casseroles and pots transported to a potluck; use old socks on ladder tops to keep them from marring walls. Add hundreds more ideas for everyday household articles and you've got another winner from Vicki Lansky! --Mark A. Hetts

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Book Peddlers; 2nd edition (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916773299
• ISBN-13: 978-0916773298
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 7.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,483,367 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Feed Me I'm Yours, my first book, began as a local fund raising cookbook in 1974 and turned me into an author. I thought it was the only book I'd ever write and then for a while, I thought that each new book would be my last. Was I wrong!

Along the way I also became a publisher. Feed Me I'm Yours was first published from my husband's and my home on Meadowbrook Lane (i.e., Meadowbrook Press). Our company grew very fast as we learned the publishing business. After our divorce 8 years later, I left Meadowbook Press with no plans of being a publisher again. However, as the books I wrote for others went out of print, I established my own imprint, Book Peddlers, which now publishes over half of my 30 titles...including (naturally) Vicki Lansky's Divorce Book for Parents.

When you write parenting books, everyone glances critically at your children. Thank goodness mine had the good grace to turn out well. Despite my mistakes (and they'll be the first to point them out) my thirty-something twosome have survived and thrived in spite of having had a "professional" mother. Lucky me!

I think my mother would be astonished to know that I give out cleaning and household advice to millions of people as a columnist for Family Circle magazine. After all, she 'not I' had made a career of homemaking. In 1988, when Family Circle asked me to be a contributing editor to their "Help" column, I was delighted. This would be a place for me to share "grown-up" tips. I was now moving beyond the days of needing to know that peanut butter removes gum from children's hair!

Writing about household hints has been more of an education than I ever dreamt. I'm often asked what my favorite tip is. Usually it's the one I've not heard before, which is what keeps my work so interesting. My books on Baking Soda tips and Vinegar tips have sold in the hundreds of thousands copies. Amazing. How lucky I am to be able to share so many helpful ideas...and it is good, clean FUN too.

I'm not sure of my next projects as I've decided to cut back a bit on my book life and work a little more on just my life. But I'm never far from my computer and I know there are idea gremlins scrambling around my brain waiting to escape. Stay tuned.....

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful?...You Bet!, April 19, 2005

By 

kjmills (WA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Another Use For... 101 Common Household Items (Paperback)

I picked this book up from the library, and now I'm looking for a copy to purchase. I started reading this 143 page book, and by page 15, I knew it was hopeless because I kept finding helpful tips that I had never thought of but that I wanted to remember. However, there was too much, and I couldn't remember any of it, so I decided that I needed to have my own copy for reference. Not everything in it is helpful or applicable to me, and yes, crome does pop up frequently, but there is enough advise that I need to make it well worth it. It's also very diversified in useful utensils and in purposes, so I am sure that this book would prove just as helpful to anyone even if they thought none of the stuff I appreciated helpful and only wanted the advise that I threw aside. I haven't seen the 2004 edition, so that may be even better, I don't know.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It Never Dawned on me, March 29, 2000

By 

Jen Bochenko (Texas USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Another Use For... 101 Common Household Items (Paperback)

I picked this up for a new frugal newsletter I've started and most of the things just never dawned on me. It's a complete book listing other uses for common items you probably have around the house from a simple cube of ice to worn out garden hoses. Very helpful for recycling for free. One thing I wondered dawned on the author, almost everything cleans chrome.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars awesome, January 12, 2009

By 

Arkela L. Samuels - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Another Use For . . .: 101 Common Household Items (Paperback)

helpful,insightful.I read through the entire book in one night.I gladly shared info that I have learned....SIMPLY AWESOME INFO