Home & Garden

So we just broke in our new grill and found ourselves without a wire brush to clean it. My mom told me this great tip - scrub the grill with a wad of used aluminum foil. It worked like a charm.  Not a

Do you have a travel mug or favorite coffee mug that is totally brown from coffee and tea stains?  Well just pour hot water, the hotter the better (boil it too) into the mug to the top.  Then add about

Tired of 800 number phone trees and don't have time to navigate complicated customer service help lines? See if the company you need to call is listed at GetHuman and save time.  Get a live person on the

I'm so thrilled with the bottle of Seventh Generation non-toxic cleaning solution (Natural Glass and Surface Cleaner) I just bought.  I'm very impressed with the product because it does work

TreeHugger.com has an entire website about how to protect and recover our ecological health, but this page in particular has 29 guides on how to go green in such areas as pets, cleaning, furniture, work, gift giving

I just home from the paint store, and I found the coolest products! Someone else already posted a hint about blackboard paint, but tonight I saw Glow in the Dark topcoat by Benjamin Moore and Dry Erase Paint by

Don’t forget to deadhead in your garden!  Deadheading just means snipping off the spent flowers on your plants.  Many annuals and perennials benefit from doing this small chore.  By deadheading

If you have little kids, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser really is magic.  A friend told me about it when we were in the process of moving and it worked wonders on scuff marks on walls and stairs, fingerprints everywhere

Starbucks has a program called "Grounds for your Garden" that provides used coffee grounds at no charge to customers and local parks as a soil amendment. Help your garden and the environment! Check it

We just moved to a new house and picking paint colors for each room started out as a fun task and turned into a dreaded chore!  Looking at the fan deck of thousands and thousands of colors and trying to picture

My mom just brought me a bottle of Twinkle Stainless Steel cleaner.  It's amazing and does not streak!  I usually use natural cleaning products, but cannot find a stainless steel cleanser that actually

To create professional-looking artwork on the walls, print the pictures you like on transparencies and use a projector to present the image on the wall.  Then trace the image with pencil.  You can create

Did you know that even when your appliances are off, they often are still using electricity?  This article in the Boston Globe gives some good tips on how to minimize the cost of this "phantom load."  

Allthebestinvitations.com is the best place to buy invitations, birth announcements, etc., hands down. For my son's bar mitzvah, I spent days on the internet and hours driving from store to store, and this place

The MomAdvice blog has some really cute organizing printables for moms: Chore & Technology Tickets Weekly Planner Price Book Lunchbox Notes {Cute & Fun!} Monthly Budget Sheet Diaper

Another way to use those clear plastic shoeboxes is to use them for first aid items.  I always had a ton of band-aids, Bactine, anti-itch creams, nail clippers and other misc. first aid items that

The Vietnam Veterans of America accept donations of clothing, shoes, books, small electronics, household items, and many more things. Best of all, they will pick up your donation at your home in Eastern MA. You

If you serve chicken or beef broth or soup or ramen noodle soup, put some broth or soup in an ice cube tray and freeze. This makes a wonderful cool treat for your dog or cat. Let them eat it outside, though, as

When the kids were babies, I framed every piece of paper they scribbled on. Now I surreptitiously try to throw them away.  Don't get me wrong, I love their artwork.  But there is just so much of

If your children have the same or almost the same water or tub toy, toothbrush or dishwear, it's difficult to mark their names on it since even permanent marker comes off after a few washings. The solution:

I am not an organized cook. I have ten million cookbooks with one page dogeared in each. And then there are all the recipes I have emailed to myself.... Then one day I came across recipething. It is very simple

Do you know about evite.com? You can send email invitations to a party (many to choose from), and the guests can rsvp online, with a personalized message. All the invited guests can see who is invited and if they

By now, everyone’s garden is in full swing, but if you need any pest controls or fertilizer, check out the products from Gardens Alive. All of their products are chemical-free and they actually work. I

If you would like to try growing mint, here is a tip – it’s invasive and will take over your entire garden if you plant it in the ground.  Put it in a large planter on your patio to keep it contained

Need a creative way to organize your kid's puzzles?  I had a hard time finding those special wooden puzzle organizers so I use one of those desk/paper organizers with the different slots and place the

Express Email Invites: Invitations Online Evite has been pretty much the only game in town for a while now. But the Wall Street Journal just reviewed mypunchbowl.com as a competent competitor. It does have

Did you know that you can subscribe online to Consumer Reports? You can easily search whenever you want on whatever you need, from baby and child gear to electronics, appliances, and that new car. It’s

The Best Silhouette Portraits Last fall, we had silhouette portraits done of the kids at a local fair. Now we are addicted. I should have started doing these annually when the kids were babies.... I highly recommend

I used Trumba for a year and really liked it. But when they wanted me to renew for $100, I decided to look at all of the free web calendars out there first. I’ve switched to Google Calendar and it is working

I just put bath toys in a mesh bag used for washing your unmentionables. Then, I hung the bag on a suction cup hook that I picked up at Target. It's inexpensive and lets the toys air out a bit between baths

Do you fear the library because you're not sure how much in overdue fines you have on your library card?  Are you not sure how many books you even have checked out or when they are due?  Worry no

Here's an easy organizing idea that I relied on when the kids were little. Buy an accordian folder with 12 or more dividers. Decorate as desired. Label the dividers with the months. Now, every time you do a

Our three kids have their favorite and least favorite chores on "major cleaning day", but it's not always fair to let them choose. I write down each chore on paper, drop them into a basket, and each

I love this artist.  Her name is Ann LaVigne and she's local (Boston).  Her drawings are so much fun.  I ordered the "Monkey with Guitar" for my daughter's room and now we have

Once your beautiful daffodils shrivel at the end of spring, here's a neat way to tailor the greens so the bulb can still absorb the nutrients.  Braid them!  It sounds weird, but it looks really nice

Did you ever get caught in a summer downpour with no protection at all? Take a small, empty prescription bottle, remove the label, and stuff inside the largest plastic bag that you can. Toss it in the bottom of

If you have not been to Ikea, you just won't believe your eyes when you get there! When one opened up about 45 minutes away from our house, we ignored the advice to check it out, thinking, how great can a furniture

You may remember reading the Hints from Heloise column in your local paper.  She's still around and is still a great resource for tips and tricks.  She's even updated a lot of her old tips for

I got tired of throwing away untouched produce that had gone bad because "no one knew we had it".  Now, after every trip to the grocery store, I post "This Week's Specials" on the refrigerator