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99 Extraordinary, Creative and Unusual Uses for Ordinary and Everyday Objects
by lifehackery - All Posts By This Author
(16 votes)
Imagine all of the silly old stuff you have sitting around the house that is simply going to waste and hasn’t been used in years. Think it’s all junk? Perhaps not. Here are ninety-nine creative ways you can use things you thought had only one purpose, from beer and soda to rulers, stamps, sugar, toothpaste, old CDs and even your iPod.
Having trouble learning how to chopstick? Think of this approach as cheap-and-easy training wheels while you learn the ropes. Inexpensive plastic clothes pins can be disassembled without tools or much effort and their spring can be reused with any generic chopsticks.
Scared to fight for the road, pitting your bike against a few tons of truck or car? Take a conventional fold-out ruler, apply something shiny and reflective and strap it to the back of your ride. Fold it out as needed and back in when parked.
Sick of those fake-smelling toilet bowl fresheners that reek like faux flowers? Get the normal hanging plastic device but swap out the insides with a tea scent of your choice - there are plenty to choose from and it will almost certainly beat out “lemon mist.”
Looking to have a professional and colorful nail job but don’t want to pay for it? Find some interesting stamps with the same or alternating patterns, trim out and apply them. This approach is more manageable and easy to remove anyway.
Prefer loose-leaf tea but find yourself forgetting to buy bags or tea balls? No worries so long as you have a handy household stapler and some tissue paper.
10 Unusual Uses for Beer: marinate meat in it, grow better grass, kill slugs, snails and mice, calm a stomach ache, polish gold, take a bath, polish furniture or cook with it.
3 Unusual Uses for Chocolate: make underwear, cars or even a dress.
6 Unusual Uses for Tooth Paste: Stop itching bug bites and minor rashes, clean up Kool-Aid stains, sooth minor burns, clean ivory piano keys, remove smells from your hands, spot clean your shoes.
6 Unusual Uses for Paper Clips: unbreakable bag closers, zipper pull replacement, cherry pit remover, bathroom door key, Christmas tree ornament hooks, reach electronic reset buttons.
10 Unusual Uses for Sugar: make cut flowers last longer, improve outdoor plant health, hand cleaner, wasp trap, soothe a burned tongue, kill cockroaches, fly catcher, start a fire, keep biscuits or cake fresh
6 Unusual Uses for Butter: remove glue from your hands, gum from your hair, swallow pills more easily, slice through sticky items, remove tree sap or even use it to shave.
10 Unusual Uses for Human Hair: test tress making, growing food, cleaning oil spills, making clothes, creating furniture, crafting art, making soy sauce, nesting material, creating rope.
10 Unusual Uses for an iPod: load text files of exam answers, plan workouts and set timing goals, load a subway map, calculate a tip, learn a language, use the light to read, repel telemarketers, facilitate geocaching, magic 8 ball or sing in the shower to tunes with a waterproof case.
5 Unusual Uses for Old CDS: mini hovercraft, disco ball, lamp, “q-ball” and sculptures
28 Unusual Uses for Coca-Cola: clean a toilet bowl, remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers, clean corrosion from car battery terminals, cook, loosen a rusty bolt, bake a moist ham, remove grease from clothes, clean rust in a bathtub, clean milk stains from clothes, make barbecue sauce, prevent an asthma attack, relieve constipation, prevent diarrhea, condition hair, fertilize azaleas or gardenias, clean eyeglasses, clean tarnished pennies, strip paint off metal patio furniture, get rid of fruit flies, boost a compost bin, prevent flatulence, relieve an upset stomach, kill slugs or snails, mousse hair, sooth a jellyfish sting, clean blood stains from clothes, soothe a sore throat, neutralize skunk odor.
Add uses for duct tape and you’ll be up to 1000!
@kstone
or Glue lol..
Coke to clean the toilet? i would rather drink it!
These seem like nice ideas, but unless you’re on welfare (trying to move on up) then why not buy the intended item in the first place?
This is so cool. I didn’t even know that so many things you can do with beer. I guess I have to drink it more oftern. :))
Thanks for including me in this great roundup! I love the instant stamp manicure!
Best Wishes,
Sharon
I like the tennis balls…
You can use bleach to immediately stop the pain and swelling from bee and hornet stings. dab a little on with a cotton ball and the effect is immediate.
i feel stoopider (SEE i spelled stupid wrong) for looking at this. although the chop stick thing is cool if you dont know how to use them.
So, I’m pretty sure Mythbusters killed about 15 of those Coke “uses.”
Heh it’s funny about the coca cola, it is such a good solvent that it can clean rust and even blood stains, and people actually drink that crap.
Great article. You need to fix your RSS feed link. It points to the wrong address.
99 Extraordinary, Creative and Unusual Uses for Ordinary and Everyday Objects…
Quite like that tea bag in the toilet trick…
I have a use for tea bags.
Damp tea bags put on bleeding gums after having tooth pulled.
They will work on a cut or scrap when you need to stop bleeding.
Tea has a natural blood clotting agent .
McGuiver can work with half of the items here
[...] Sadly I’m cherry-less this afternoon so I didn’t get to give this technique a try myself. What other neat stuff do you do with paper clips? Give it up in the comments. 6 Unusual Uses for Paper Clips that Will Boggle Your Mind! [Associated Content via The Life Hackery] [...]
Most of the uses for Coke as a cleaner or solvent have been thoroughly debunked. Pyro had it right - Mythbusters did a whole show on Coke legends, and Snopes has a wealth of pages on the so-called uses and properties of the stuff (it’s useless against grease, rust and blood stains, but it does soothe [note the spelling] an upset stomach if it’s not too bad). If you reprint that old tripe, I find it hard to see credibility in anything else on this site.
99 Extraordinary, Creative and Unusual Uses for Ordinary and Everyday Objects…
If you’re like most people you’ve got a ton of things lying around that you have no idea what to do with. You don’t want to throw it out or give it away, but you don’t really know how to make use of the items either. Or maybe you’d jus…
I agree with Noitalll
Hair makes great dental floss, if its long enough.
toothpaste can also be put on a zit… dries it right up
[...] Unusual uses for ordinary things [...]
Actually I think it is the seltzer or carbonate in Coke that degreases stuff. McDonald’s uses the carbonated water to degrease their floors especially by the fryers.
Toothpaste also gets rid of zits. (Just happened to read that on a previous stumble today–wash off zit after 15 minutes though.)
Coca Cola does NOT prevent flatulence.
The carbonation makes you burp and fart.
Chug a 1 liter and tell me how your bumhole feels then.
Oh… and another good use for toothpaste (plain white mint kind), it polishes silver jewelry nicely when used with an old toothbrush.
[...] 99 Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Objects another great ‘themed’ post built around items that everyone has in their home - what [...]
I don’t see how coke can ‘prevent flatulence’ when the bubbles in it(the soda) are what causes it in the first place.
[...] may remember the often-discussed tennis ball headphones. Those were pretty great, but it makes you wonder what else these little bundles of latex and wool [...]
[...] Check out this list of unusual uses for very common very day things. I love the CD light idea. [...]
[...] may remember the often-discussed tennis ball headphones or these 99 extraordinary uses for ordinary objects. Those were pretty great, but it makes you [...]
[...] 99 Extraordinary, Creative & unusual uses for Everyday Objects The title definitely explains it. Short and fun read about some interesting uses on items you use everyday. [...]
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Haha great list, my favorite is the 10 uses for beer.
99 Extraordinary, Creative and Unusual Uses for Ordinary and Everyday Objects by The Life Hackery…
You know all of those helpful kitchen-related suggestions that old-timers are so willing to share with the younger generations? These little tips and tricks might be called “kitchen hacks” these days, but they’re still the same good old nuggets o…
the use of ball is great, i am going to make this thing right now…
@pissed
The chopsticks thing if by far the dumbest thing up there.
I hate seeing devices to aid the use of a chopsticks….thats what an f***ing fork is for.
These devices are not going to help you learn, and you look dumb using them
For the loose-leaf tea with tissue, make sure the tissue is not sented; some of them can taste horrible.
my tip: coffee grounds can be put on flower beds to keep the cats away
@neednewbed
Holy crap! I can’t believe that work, thanks a deal!!
“10 Unusual Uses for Beer: marinate *meet* in it” No, please no!!
It’s “meat,” not “meet”. You’re hurting my brain!
Mythbusters on Discovery channel busted the cleaning uses for coke thing quiet a while ago.
Yeah, mythbusters are so accurate.
I’ve watched the cleaning staff at the Wilmington train station clean their brass railings with soda for decades. Starts out greasy and lightly oxidized, one pass with a cloth wetted by whatever soda the cleaning guy is drinking, and it’s all shiny shiny.
I have seen this in meatspace many times with my own eyes. But mythbusters’ pseudo-scientific joke of a test regimen disproves reality, of course, everyone in cyberspace knows that!
We did a science test in class, and Coke actually cleans and refines dirty pennies.
Very interesting and creative but just a warning……NEVER put tooth paste on a burn…..no matter how minor it may be! It will irritate the skin and cause even more pain. As for rashes use calamine lotion! Trust a first aider.
I like the Coca Cola one!
99 Extraordinary, Creative and Unusual Uses for Ordinary and Everyday Objects by The Life Hackery…
Imagine all of the silly old stuff you have sitting around the house that is simply going to waste and hasn’t been used in years. Think it’s all junk? Perhaps not. Here are ninety-nine creative ways you can use things you thought had only one purpo…
Fantastic
muchos de los usos de la coca cola mostrados, los cazadores de mitos o mythbusters dieron por falsos….
[...] June 10, 2008 I have generally been browsing around the internet and cam accross this really cool website called Like Hackery. It’s the sort of website that you can easily get sucked into reading and before you know it three hours have passed! Anyway, I particularly love this post 99 Extraordinary, Creative and Unusual Uses for Ordinary and Everyday Objects. [...]
I really didn’t know that Coke can be used to clean toilet and as hair mousse. I don’t know can this work? I am imagine if you clean the toilet with Coke, you will wake up at a colony of ant in the bathroom. Now about the mousse hair, please anyone try this and tell me if it works. I would think that coke would make the hair stickier instead of smoother.
“I’ve watched the cleaning staff at the Wilmington train station clean their brass railings with soda for decades. Starts out greasy and lightly oxidized, one pass with a cloth wetted by whatever soda the cleaning guy is drinking, and it’s all shiny shiny.”
Are you sure the railing wasn’t just dirty? Coke could clean off dirt and a little oil just fine and that’s most likely the worst thing on those railings unless they rarely clean them.
dangg if coca cola can remove rust off ur car, IMAGINE wat it does to ur INSIDES!!!!!!!!!!!!
try putting vinegar on sun burns it helps and doesnt sting at all unless you have little cuts on your fingers
hair makes soy sauce????? thats like the most disgusting thing i’ve ever heard of. add uses for chuck norris and you’ll go up to infinitie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
my dad puts tea bags in lyke this 100 yr old plant he has…says it helps em grow? O-o
how did you guys forget packing a bowl for a paper clip?
White paste toothpaste can be used to erase scratched or skipping cd’s.Just put a little dab of the plain,old-fashioned type toothpaste on your finger,and gently rub on the scratched surface of cd.Then rinse off will cool water,and dry with soft cloth.The scratch will no longer skip.
Tips From A Grandma:
White toothpaste can be used on white walls to patch small holes.
*Flat* Coke or Coke syrup (at drugstore) is used for nausea
Put copper coins (like pennies) on bee & wasp stings.
Hair gel will fix scratches on CD/DVD discs better than commercial fixes.
Tea makes a great dye for craft papers.
Weak dish soap & water cleans house plants and keeps pests off them.
Uses for wax paper:
*use instead of cling wrap for microwaving; no harmful chemicals!
*rub on metal shower or closet rod to help hangers slide easily
*rub on playground slide for smooth, fast ride
*rub on retractable car antenna to keep it working smoothly
*pour salt onto wax paper, rub iron over salt to clean your iron
*put cake decorations on wax paper, then freeze a few minutes;
your decorations will slide off the paper and onto the cake
*make wax paper ‘envelope’ for sandwiches; it’s cheaper, moisture
resistant and odor resistant. To make, use square of wax paper,
place sandwich slightly lower than center. Fold up bottom, then
sides. Fold down top and tuck into place.
also .. If it moves and it shouldn’t .. duct tape! If it doesn’t move and it should … WD-40! (no harmful chemicals in WD-40, either .. plus it is a great way to remove adhesive from labels, bumper stickers etc)
With stamps being 40-some cents a piece, and i’m fairly certain as soon as you got your hands wet they’d start to peel.
Why don’t you just go buy the glue on kind for five dollars. They make designed ones and such now.
haha…LOL…everyone’s comments are REALLY funny!
I love coke, but now I know it has got hundreds of different ways that I didn’t know. Thanks a bunch guys.
If coca-cola can do all that to paint etc , then what the **** does it do to your teeth? (Personally I hate the stuff)
Coke can clean the loo?!
Just think what it’s doing to your insides.
WOW! These ideas are truly amazing! However, I was left with one question. What inspired the first person to use these items for these purposes? The world may never know.
The idea for the home made tea bag, I would take a coffee filter and cut it to desired shape and size and fill it with tea and staple. I think tissue paper would not hold up as well as a regular tea bag. Although it may take a bit longer to steep it won\’t risk the tea coming loose.
As for the stamps for nail art. .Some one posted that it would not stay on after it got in water. Not if you apply several coats of good top coat nail polish. Of course not as good as a normal paint nail art I suppose, but very unique.
[...] It is not the most creative thing in the world, but it is a good example for the creative use of a product in an unusual manner. If you want to see more, visit the homepage: http://lifehackery.com/2008/01/23/99-extraordinary-uses-for-ordinary-objects/ [...]
On the Coca-Cola; I’ve seen firsthand the uses as a cleaner- it really does work. Also, one summer me and the guys were shooting the breeze by his car on our just freshly paved street… one of us had a can of Coke that a bee got into… he got PO’d and poured it all out onto the week-old asphalt. I remember hearing about Coke’s acidic properties so just for fun I made a note of the spot he poured it onto… I followed up a couple of months later in the fall and sure enough, there was a small pothole in that exact spot. This was before the first snowfall and therefore before the first winter salting that street was exposed to, which usually causes the potholes around here (Chicago).
On the subject, my Dad swears this is true; he told me in Mexico he watched someone use Coke as an emergency fire extinguisher… he tells me they just shook the bottle up and let it rip- not a big fire, but it put it out nonetheless and worked in a jam… like I said, he’s swears by it and I believe him.
As for the flatulance, it sounds ironic, but citric acid has a way of lowering the acid levels in the stomach, which could explain the lessened gas… I’ve read on other blogs beans cooked in Coke reduces the gasiness people experience when eating the beans.
Lastly, about the teabag for the pulled tooth… a family I knew once told me of the way they treated toothaches back in the old country (rural Mexico), was to take a good pinch of a certain special herb that you’re not supposed to be able to get but is available nonetheless if you know the right people, and to put that pinch of said special herb on the gum next to the afflicted tooth… let it work and toothache’s gone…
toothache will be gone just in time to chomp on some Doritos that are suddenly being craved in a big way or some other munchables
Great ideas and uses.
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[...] may remember the often-discussed tennis ball headphones or these 99 extraordinary uses for ordinary objects. Those were pretty great, but it makes you [...]