These life hacks are sure to make your life easier and more interesting by either solving those nagging little everyday problems or making a routine activity extraordinary. Here are five great ideas brought to you by the fine teachers of Dabble!
Keep Your Nails Clean While Gardening
Don’t have gardening gloves? No worries! Shannon Lucid shares, “To keep your nails clean while gardening, first scrape your nails over a bar of soap. Make sure you get soap under each nail. When you are done, simply wash your hands and voila – no dirt will be under your fingernails!”
Shannon also knows how to make a bar of soap last longer – felt it! Learn how by taking her Felted Soap Workshop and leave with three gorgeous bars of soap with built in washcloths.
Make Evening Walks More Interesting
Remember scavenger hunts? Want to find real hidden treasure in your neighborhood? Elise Taylor, who is an expert on geocaching, (the search for hidden treasure by use of GPS) suggests, “It’s easy to forget that there are still surprises all around us! Geocaching is like being able to see a whole different world that you never knew existed. Sign up, grab your smartphone, and EXPLORE. Who knows what you’ll find!”
Conveniently, for those of you who are new to the geocaching phenomenon, Elise teaches a class on that!
Travel Light and Still Look Incredible
Ever pack for a trip and have so many gadgets, your favorite pair of shoes barely fit in? Or catch yourself calling the hotel in a panic to make sure that they do, indeed, have an iron? Mal Strong has a hack for that: “A flat iron makes an awesome 3-in-1 tool for travelers. In addition to straightening your hair, it can also be used to curl the hair, and bonus use as a mini iron to spruce up pant and shirt cuffs that have gotten wrinkled from travelling.”
How does one curl hair with a flat iron? Mal has you covered on that, too: “To curl with your flat iron, take a section of hair the same size as the flat iron – clamp at the top of your hair strand and pull through while turning the flat iron away from your face. As with all hot tools, we suggest practicing with the iron turned off to learn the motion and avoid hair damage. And always use heat protectant!”
To learn more about curling, sign up for Mal’s upcoming Curling 101 class here:
Keep Your Leather Goods Gorgeous…Naturally!
Leather is a fabric that, if properly taken care of, can last a lifetime. Unfortunately there are a lot of products on the market that are less than eco-friendly. Alexz Sandoval of Bird Trouble has an easy solution to keeping leather looking it’s best, saying, “I love keeping Bird Trouble leather gorgeous with an DIY all-natural polisher and conditioner! All it takes is melting down solid beeswax (can be found at Whole Foods or most organic grocers), semi-solid coconut butter, and liquid almond oil together. I’ve been happy using the results of melting together a 2 – 1/2 – 1/2 ratio. Rub the mixture on with a soft scrap cloth, and store the remaining mixture in a short glass jar or tin to use later. This DIY mixture smells great while conditioning and protecting leather from outside muck… plus, I just know I’m not inhaling some weird toxins!”
Make gorgeous leather goods in these classes!
Poach an Egg at Work
Karen deKanter isn’t just an expert on the Paleo lifestyle, but is a wiz at finding quick ways to make an office lunch more interesting. On how to poach an egg at work, she says, “I fill a coffee mug with water (3/4 of the way up), gently crack the egg and drop it into water, poke the yolk with a fork, then microwave for approximately 90 seconds. Once it’s done, I tip out the water, save the egg, and enjoy!”
Get more of Karen’s brilliant insight at her Paleo Cookout.
If you’re interested in one of these classes and it is unavailable and/or sold out, please contact Devin at devin@dabble.co.