9 amazing uses for aluminium foil

As any parent of a potty-trained youngster knows, accidents happen.

When they happen in bed, however, you can spare the mattress – even if you don’t have a plastic protector available.

First, lay several sheets of aluminum foil across the width of the mattress.

Then, cover them with a good-sized beach towel.

Finally, attach the mattress pad and bottom sheet.

Is your silverware looking a bit dull these days?

Try an ion exchange, a molecular reaction in which aluminum acts as a catalyst.

All you have to do is line a pan with a sheet of aluminum foil, fill it with cold water, and add two teaspoons of salt.

Drop your tarnished silverware into the solution, let it sit for two to three minutes, then rinse off and dry.

It’s maddening. You use a steel-wool pad once, put it in a dish by the sink, and the next day you find a rusty mess fit only for the trash.

To prevent rust and get your money’s worth from a pad, wrap it in foil and toss it into the freezer.

You can also lengthen the life of your steel-wool soap pads by crumpling up a sheet of foil and placing it under the steel wool in its dish or container.

(Don’t forget to periodically drain off the water that collects at the bottom.)

Sometimes a worn spot adds to the charm of an old mirror; sometimes it’s a distraction.

You can easily disguise small flaws on a mirror’s reflective surface by putting a piece of aluminum foil, shiny side facing out, on the back of the glass.

To hold the foil in place, attach it to the backing behind the mirror or to the frame with masking tape.

Don’t tape it to the mirror itself.

What can you do with those clean pieces of leftover foil you have hanging around?

Use them to sharpen up your dull scissors!

Smooth them out if necessary, and then fold the strips into several layers and start cutting.

Seven or eight passes should do the trick. Pretty simple, huh?

To slide big pieces of furniture over a smooth floor, place small pieces of aluminum foil under the legs.

Put the dull side of the foil down — the dull side is actually more slippery than the shiny side.

Is your flashlight, Walkman, or your kid’s toy working intermittently?

Check the battery compartment.

Those springs that hold the batteries in place can lose their tension after a while, letting the batteries loosen.

Fold a small piece of aluminum foil until you have a pad that’s thick enough to take up the slack.

Place the pad between the battery and the spring.

When you iron clothing, a lot of the iron’s heat is sucked up by the board itself – requiring you to make several passes to remove wrinkles.

To speed things up, put a piece of aluminum foil under your ironing board cover.

The foil will reflect the heat back through the clothing, smoothing wrinkles quicker.

Don’t become unglued just because a vinyl floor tile does.

Simply reposition the tile on the floor, lay a piece of aluminum foil over it, and run a hot clothes iron over it a few times until you can feel the glue melting underneath.

Put a pile of books or bricks on top of the tile to weight it down while the glue resets.

This technique also works well to smooth out bulges and straighten curled seams in sheet vinyl flooring.