Happy Hacks for Your Clothes and Closets — Hacks #23

My foray into sharing kitchen, household, and personal living tips was completely accidental — how numerous enjoyable aspects of life often unfold.

I have never been a Susie Homemaker type. My time spent in routine kitchen and housekeeping endeavors always has been as minimal as possible.

By contrast, my mother was the epitome of the exceptional mother, wife, and homemaker. I often joked that she taught me as a young girl everything one should know and benefit from — how to cook, bake, iron, sew, clean, and do laundry — but that none of it took!

Nevertheless, I have enjoyed this research detour, finding useful tips and hints to save time, energy, or a few pennies. Alas, I have run out of helpful hacks. Therefore, this will be my last “Lifestyle Hacks” piece.

Many thanks to all of you who have read them! 🙏

✅ Dry fitted sheets more efficiently

Those pesky corners of fitted sheets never dry as completely as flat ones, do they?

A faster way to dry a fitted sheet is to pop it into an extra spin cycle of the dryer. Then make it straight onto the bed without a spread or duvet on top. It will dry quickly without wrinkles. Yay!

✅ Eliminate deodorant stains from shirts

Discovering deodorant stains on one’s shirt is a bummer. If you have tried other fixes, this may represent a new, simple suggestion.

Use a dry sponge to buff out the deodorant stain. This also works if someone hugs you and leaves a deodorant stain on the shoulder or upper arm of your jacket.

✅ Substitute shoe polish using a banana peel

Many of us were raised to understand that well-polished leather shoes were an important element of good grooming (in the pre-sneakers era).

However, polishing them ourselves may not be high on today’s “to-do list.”

Various hacks exist for polishing shoes. But this is the first time I have heard about using the inner lining of a banana skin. Wild, huh?

Rub the peel across the leather on the outside of your shoes, just as if using shoe polish. Once the banana peel is wiped over both shoes, buff them with a soft cloth. Voila — banana-polished shoes!

✅ Keep bedding linens organized in closets

This is a clever idea if you have multiple groups of linens, especially for fitting different-sized beds.

Fold and store bedding inside a pillowcase. It remains clean and tidy, and you will never have to hunt for a matching set again.

Or, as an alternative, store sets of bedding in baskets labeled by either room or bed size. You will easily identify the king-sized from the twin or queen at a glance.

✅ Convert a shirt into a cardigan sweater

For DIYers with items in your wardrobe that might be enjoyed as a new, repurposed article of clothing, this sounds intriguing and relatively easy to manage.

Use a ruler to draw a straight line down the front center of your shirt or tee, and cut it in half.

Following the manufacturer’s directions, hem the cut edges with hem tape and iron it. If you want to jazz it up a tad, add a button or two as embellishment.

Voila, a brand new sweater! I love this clever hack to jazz up one’s wardrobe at a nominal cost.

✅ Secure buttons with Elmer’s white glue

A dab of white craft glue on top of the buttons (in the center, where the threads are) will strengthen the thread and help maintain the buttons where they belong — on your shirts.

This is a great idea, especially if you do not sew.

✅️ Use magnets for button gaps

Struggling with gaps between buttons on your favorite shirt?

Using tiny magnets provides a discreet and effective fix. They keep everything in place, ensuring your shirt remains gap-free.

Sew a small magnet onto the inside placket of your shirt behind any problematic button. Pair it with a corresponding magnet on the other side. The magnets snap between the buttons to keep the fabric taut, preventing unwanted peeks.

This is a bit more work. However, for the industrious — or perhaps your friendly tailor or dry cleaner— the solution certainly beats old-fashioned safety pins.

✅ Roll clothing in drawers

Instead of folding t-shirts and other items in drawers, roll them.

Store in neat rows where you can see the top of each rather than a stacked pile that requires you to rifle through to find items underneath.

This is especially helpful if you have a limited number of drawers for clothing.

✅ Use dividers in your underwear drawer

Using drawer dividers is an excellent way to quickly identify the black or white socks from the same colored underwear. Buy the fancy ones or make your own from small cardboard boxes.

Any tip that saves an extra minute or two when getting ready for work in the morning, yes? Or to simplify things for the kiddies.

✅ Prevent clothes from sliding off hangers

Wrap a rubber band or two at each end of a clothes hanger. It works on plastic, wooden, or wire ones and prevents clothing from sliding onto the closet floor.

This was shared in a previous article, but I have included it again because it is especially helpful.

✅ Use hairspray for a hole in tights or hosiery

To prevent a tear in your tights or pantyhose from getting worse, spray generously the area with hairspray. In my youth, we used clear nail polish, also.

✅ Stretch shoes that have become too tight

Have your feet seem to have widened for some reason, and your favorite shoes are too tight?

Fill two Ziploc bags with water, and seal them tightly. Place the bags in your shoes, and place them in the freezer. The water will freeze overnight and expand your shoes without damage. The freezer also helps zap away smelly odors, too.

Thanks for reading!

References:

1. “Hack My Life” television program

2. https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/useful-home-hacks

3. https://www.excludedfashion.com/blog/top-10-fashion-hacks-everyone-should-know8

4. https://www.buzzfeed.com/juliegerstein/easy-no-sew-diy-clothing-hacks

5. https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/useful-home-hacks

6. https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/elmers-glue-uses-261199

7. https://www.scienceofpeople.com/clothing-hacks/

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