Ironing Clothing With Snaps

From Popular Mechanics, June, 1957, how to press fabric with snaps.

Vintage Halloween Party Recipes (1932)

Inside the October 1932 issue of The Royal Neighbor, a Halloween menu because "even witches and goblins like to eat."

The entire menu is listed as Halloween Ham, Witches' Salad, Goblin Sandwiches, Doughnuts, Olives, Celery, and Cider; below are the recipes that are included.

Vintage Slip Cover Tips

From How To Be Your Own Decorator, by Helen Koues, Director of Good Housekeeping Studio (copyright 1926 by Good Housekeeping Magazine; second edition, printed April, 1927), "Slip Cover Points."

Wee Wisdom Cooking (For Kids)

Inside Wee Wisdom (July 1964 issue), Carol Lynn Worthen's "Cooking Is Fun" column with a recipe for Uncooked Fruit Squares:

Ice Cream Ideas

From a 1937 Frigidaire publication, "Ideas For Using Commercial Ice Creams."

Enter To Win A Vintage Style Pink KitchenAid Mixer And Raise Money For Breast Cancer Research

PartSelect is hosting a Paint Your Appliance Pink Sweeps to help raise awareness and $10,000 for Breast Cancer Research -- and they're giving prizes away to those who help.

To participate, simply paint a pink ribbon on any major household appliance, photograph it, and then email, blog, or Tweet your entry (using the #pinkappliance hashtag). For each entry received, PartSelect will donate $25 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, up to a maximum of $10,000. And everyone who sends in a photo will be entered to win 1 of 3 Pink Prize Packages valued at $369.97, including a Pink KitchenAid Stand Mixer, Pink Mixer Cover and more.

Entries are accepted until midnight on September 30, 2009.

Recycling By Selling Online

In the spirit of thrift, I advocate recycling -- not only by changing or re-purposing, but by sharing your resources (hand-me-downs and hand-me-ups, if it works!), as well as buying and selling used items at rummage sales, flea markets and thrift stores. Reselling items no longer used (or deals you find) is just good common sense -- in any economy. But the reality of reselling is that it's work.

In order to make the most money off of your no longer used or needed items, I asked Hillary DePiano to share some things to consider before you decide to make your computer pay for itself and dive into selling online.

Hillary has been selling on eBay since 1997 and is an eBay store owner, PowerSeller and Trading Assistant. She has experience selling on many different platforms and shares her experiences with others through her blog, The Whine Seller, and books.

Here are Hillary's Top Three Things To Know Before Trying To Sell Anything Online

1. Make sure you have the time to sell the item online. Selling online can be very time consuming. Before you even consider listing something online, make sure that you have the time to write a proper decision, answer buyer questions and pack and ship the item in a timely fashion. Failure to do any of these in a reasonable amount of time can cost you dollars on this sale by deterring optional buyers or future business from buyers you didn’t answer in time or bad feedback earned for slow service.

2. Make sure the item is worth selling online. Do some research into the value of your item before you attempt to sell it. Heavier items like furniture or workout equipment is worth less online because buyers don’t know how to handle the transport of such a large item. Heavier items can also sell for less online because people aren’t willing to pay the more expensive shipping costs. There are some items that are just simply better suited to being sold in the classifieds or at a garage sale so be sure to do some research into your item before you dive into trying to sell it online. If you can sell your item for more through an offline channel, be sure that you don’t miss that opportunity.

3. Make sure that you’ve considered all fees. The item you have may be worth $5 more if you sell it online but if the eBay and PayPal fees work out to $10, then you are actually losing money overall. Take a moment to consider all the costs associated with sell online when you are looking to price your content. If the fees are eating up any additional profit you’d be making, it just isn’t worth it.

More about Hillary: Hillary DePiano is a fiction and non-fiction author best known for her play, The Love of Three Oranges and her e-commerce blog, The Whine Seller; you can keep up with her at Twitter too.

How To Dry Ribbon & Avoid The Iron

From Popular Mechanics, June, 1957, how to avoid shine on washed ribbon.

Daily Care OF Wooden Floors

More from How To Protect & Preserve America's Homes (Moore's Handy Index Book): tips on the care of varnished, shellacked, and painted floors.

Tips On Buying Rugs

Tips on selecting the proper size rugs and how to place them found in several 1940's issues of Modern Woman magazine.

Make Tailored-to-Measure Lingerie Boxes

From a 1952 issue of The WorkBasket, complete instructions for making lingerie boxes; great if if you have materials on-hand -- if not, it may just be cheaper to buy lingerie organizers.

Avoid Mistakes With Poisons

If you've run out of those Mr. Yuck stickers, here are some tips on making your own poison bottle warnings from Good Ideas: An Interesting Collection Made By Eddy's:

How To Make A Lamb Candle From A Vintage Cake Mold

Inspired by my interview (part one, part two) with Luke M. Vaillancourt where I learned how his mother first began filling antique chocolate moulds with wax prior to settling on using the vintage confectionery molds to make chalkware pieces, I dug around for this vintage scan from The Workbasket with instructions for using a lamb cake mold to make a lamb candle. (Easter may not soon be on the horizon, but perhaps you have a more suitable cake mold for the upcoming holiday seasons?)

Vintage Recipe Thursday: Foundation Recipe Rolled Cookies

My recipe for this week's Vintage Recipe Thursday comes from Delicious Cakes for Every Occasion from 6 Foundation Recipes, a 1932 booklet from Airy Fairy Cake Flour (via the Priscilla Proving Plant) Commander Larabee Corporation, Minneapolis, Minn.

How To Free A Sticking Or Dragging Door

Tips on dealing with a door that sticks or drags -- before you pane it -- from the November-December 1967 issue of Workbench.

How To Make Hairpin Lace Lamp Shade Covers

The instructions & patterns for making three different hairpin lace lampshade covers from this 1954 Coats & Clark's Modern Trends magazine:

Another Home Ec Edition Of High-Five Fridays

1 LA Weekly gives a nice review of the Culinary Collection at the Los Angeles Public Library.

2 Tips for storing fresh fruit & vegetables at SustainLane.

3 Creative Fat Grrl is breaking the rules & making up recipes as she goes along. (Sounds too-too familiar!)

4 & 5 At Kitsch Slapped, I've posted the pattern & instructions for making a retro (1957) "free form" decor board for displaying your pictures etc. on your walls -- and I'm dishing on my love of reading vintage, out of print & just plain "old" books (which also applies to several topics here at Things Your Grandmother Knew).

Vintage Recipe Thursday: Frozen Fruit Cheese Salad

This is my first time participating in Vintage Recipe Thursday -- but it's the 23rd edition.

The recipe I'm posting comes from Creative Cooking with Cottage Cheese, a vintage booklet from the American Dairy Association Test Kitchen featuring -- you guessed it! -- recipes with cottage cheese as an ingredient.

I'm not a real big fan of cottage cheese... Unless it's in a cheesecake, lasagna or stuffed shells, I usually pass on the stuff; but this dessert recipe features lots of fruit & sugar, so I might just give this Frozen Fruit Cheese Salad recipe a try...

(Don't forget to check out the rest of the vintage recipes in this edition.)

How To Remove Nail Polish From Fabric

Years ago, after naggin' my dad for making them late for dinner with another couple, my mom was "forced" to apply her nail polish in the car (while my dad drove); not 10 minutes after they left, they came back into the house again because mom had spilled nail polish all over her pants (grey sans-a-belt pants, as I vividly recall).

Mom was fuming, especially because dad was enjoying it all too much, making statements about just who it was that was making them late for dinner. (Bad daddy!)

My mother ended up throwing out her pants -- I bet she would have liked to have known about this tip from a 1940's Modern Woman magazine and given it a try. (Then again, those pants were probably ruined due to being associated with the row with my dad! lol) Anyway, here's a tip for you to try, should you ever end up with such a problem with nail polish on your clothing.

How To Keep Your Thermos Clean

Another tip from Good Ideas: An Interesting Collection Made By Eddy's, just in time for back to school and cooler weather thermos use.

Basic Painting Tips

From How To Be Your Own Decorator, by Helen Koues, Director of Good Housekeeping Studio (copyright 1926 by Good Housekeeping Magazine; second edition, printed April, 1927), "Painting Points."

Tips For Better & Safer Food Storage In Your Refrigerator

From a 1937 Frigidaire publication, tips for better & safer food storage using your refrigerator; they aren't as dated as you think!

Vegetable Chopping Tip

From Popular Mechanics, June, 1957, a tip for chopping vegetables in a bowl -- so the bowl won't rock & roll. Personally, I'm not sure this would make things any less dangerous for me...

Washing Knitted Garments

Tips on how to avoid stretching knit clothing during washing & drying (1940's Modern Woman magazine).

Frosting Flower Tips

From this Chefmaster Food Decorating Supplies Catalog (#10), stock numbers of decorating tubes as well as tips for using them -- including the suggestion that frosting flowers be made several days in advance, with butter cream flowers being refrigerated, but those made with Royal icing should air dry.

How To Make A (Retro) Entertainment Center

From the November-December 1967 issue of Workbench, pattern & instructions for a wooden console for your "portable or 'component' stereo set" -- aka a turntable. The finished entertainment center is coffee-table height, with pivoting speaker cabinets.

Ladies & Gentlemen, Start Your Irons!

You do remember what an iron is, right? With today's wrinkle-free fabrics, home dry-cleaning kits, and wrinkled fashions, heck, you might not even own one... See if that heavy triangular thing is doing duty as a doorstop, or hiding in the closet somewhere, and get it plugged in to see if it works; because not only is ironing coming back, kids, but in today's economy patching clothing with iron-on appliques (mighty handy, especially if you can't sew) and other DIY projects are making the use of irons virtually mandatory.

If you don't have an iron, or don't want to risk your iron's potential ruin by using it for craft projects, check for irons at your local thrift shop.

Retro and even nearly-new steam irons -- in working order -- can be purchased at thrift shops from between $3 and $19, as compared to $20 to $70 for new irons.




Thrift shops may also have vintage and antique irons available. These will usually be more expensive, but when your projects call for more muscle, these old ones offer much more weight -- the vintage steam models are quite heavy when compared to modern makes designs to literally make light work of ironing.


Most antique irons are basically like bricks your set in the fire, they can come in handy for gluing projects.

Lightweight vintage irons seem to vary in price widely (here anyway), but I know a few fans of them who refuse any other type of irons. They swear that sans steam these vintage irons work better than any steam iron, are especially wonderful for ironing out wrinkled vintage sewing patterns, and that the shape better suits the shaping of vintage clothing.


You can also find used irons expensively priced at rummage sales & estate sales, but note that many of these irons have not been used or even checked in years whereas thrift shops test them and only put working appliances out for sale.

Since used irons are rather plentiful, I never bother with irons with bad, missing or frayed cords; unless your iron belonged to grandma or otherwise has sentimental value, it's not worth investing in a repair.

Double Chocolate Cake Recipe

I've not tried the following vintage recipes for Double Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Icing Deluxe yet; my favorite chocolate cake recipes are vintage but use powered cocoa not melted chocolate... If anyone tries this, I'd appreciate hearing from you!



Recipes from clipping glued into this vintage wooden recipe scrapbook.

Recycle That Matchbook & Be Prepared

A vintage tip for turning an old matchbook into a small portable sewing kit -- make a bunch for kids going off to college, girls' purses, mens' wallets etc.

Exfoliate With Reusable Organic Cotton Facial Products

One way to save money, go green, and still have beautiful skin is to exfoliate with reusable organic cotton face scubbies. (Skin care & cosmetic companies don't want you to know it, but washing gently with a wet washcloth works better than exfoliating products -- I know, I've worked for those companies!)

Rather than spending money on products to scrub away your dead skin cells -- and having a product container &/or packaging to sit in a landfill -- why not use this pretty handmade set?


This three-piece set is made of organic cotton and includes not only a pretty pink spiral scrubbie, but two smaller rectangular pads for removing make-up, apply toner or astringent etc. Washable & reusable, they save the environment from all those daily used cotton balls, tissue squares & swabs which, while they may be degradable, wind up petrified sitting in garbage bags in landfills.

I know what some of you are thinking... "Why not just use a washcloth then?" Well, you certainly could; but having special scrubbies that are just yours (and not used by hubby or the kids etc.) not only makes you feel special (and when they are cute, more feminine), but means you can keep track of them & their use. (Can't tell you the number of times my favorite washcloths have ended up being used as rags for household projects -- arg! -- but pretty pink pads are likely to say "Hands off, bub" even when you're not there to do so!)

If this 3-piece set is sold out -- or you just want more than one set, so that one is always soft & dry waiting for use -- check Play With Fiber's Twolia shop for more.

Tips Off Shoe Laces?

This tip from Good Ideas: An Interesting Collection Made By Eddy's ("that good bread in the bright gingham wrapper") says you can mend the ends of shoelaces with paraffin wax; worth a try before new laces you buy!

High-Five Friday: On A Wednesday

Because kids home from school have me hoppin' here, what was started last week didn't get finished until this week -- and if I wait for this Friday, well, I think you know where I'm headed *wink*

1) Recipes & Food: Found this a few Thursdays ago & been meaning to share it because it's fabulous! Thirteen Foods & Food Mixes You Can Make Yourself.

2) Green Living: Updating your home environment need not be bad for the big environment we all share; see Eco-Reupholstering with Rubie Green, Mod Green Pod and Zafu Kapok.

3) Creativity: DIY Inukshuk (Don't worry; if you don't know what an Inukshuk is, she'll tell you! I'd never heard of this before myself, but what a cool, inexpensive, creative, green thing to do -- with children too!)

4) Recycling, Thrift & Entertainment: New Vintage Reviews Carnival, 4th Edition: Reviewing "old stuff" with hopes to inspire you to go into that attic, basement, or closet (maybe even the thrift store or yard sale) dust off that old stuff, and let it entertain you.

5) Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank Mrs. Green of MyZeroWaste.com for giving Things Your Grandmother Knew the One Lovely Blog Award. How cool is that? Grandma would say that is pretty darn cool.

When Do You Add The Salt?

Salt is in a great number of foodstuff already, but if you're cooking from scratch, when do you add the salt to things like homemade gravies & puddings? Well, if what you're making has milk as an ingredient, you add the salt last:

Curtain Tiebacks From Spoons

From the March 1951 issue of Profitable Hobbies magazine, converting kitchen serving spoons into window treatments.

Storing Jams & Pickles

This tip on storing pickles & jams on lower shelves is especially helpful during warm weather and when you crank up the winter heat too.

Bobbie Pins For Hems

I wish I would have found this issue of Modern Woman Magazine earlier this summer when my daughter was doing theatre costuming at Trollwood... Bobbie pins would have been easier to control than pointy pins.

How To Soften Hard, Lumpy Sugar

Have problems with lumpy &/or hard sugar in summer? Aside from getting the Kool-Aid making children to properly reseal the canisters, try this vintage tip:


From a 1952 issue of The Workbasket (sorry I can't remember the exact issue; I had a boo-boo with my computer while scanning & was lucky to save the 30 or so scans, even if they were no longer in their proper folders).