Frontier Fridays: Economical Hints

One thing to be said for our ancestors - they wasted nothing.  Here are some old time hints on saving money.

Save small pieces of soap in the bathroom by placing a cup or small box and filling until you have a cupful.  Add a little water and boil a few minutes.  When nearly cool press with hands and you have a new cake of soap.

Do not throw the white papers around crackers.  They are good to clean irons and will save buying ironing wax.  If irons are dirty put a good layer of salt on newspaper and rub the irons back and forth.
Remember the irons they had back then were iron, not electric and care was different for them.
 
Save the strong string to wrap around packages going by parcel post.  Also fold nicely for further use your clean wrapping papers.  Make a bag of pretty cretonne hang it in the kitchen or cellar way to keep the string and wrapping paper in.  You will find it very convenient.

Do not throw away any small pieces of bread.  Save them for plum pudding, queen's pudding or dressing for fish or fowl.  If broken into small pieces and browned in the oven, it is nice to eat with soups.  Or dry well, roll find and keep in a glass jar to be used to bread pork chops, croquettes or oysters.

Frontier Fridays: Homemade Shortening

Do not throw away small pieces of fat from pork, lamb, or steak.  Put them on the stove, in a skillet or agate dish and cook them until there is nothing left but scraps.  Then pare a potato, wash clean, cut into thin slices and cook in the fat for half an hour to clarify it.  Strain through a cloth.  This will be good for frying doughnuts in and for all purposes where shortening is involved, except for pie crust.

Pieces of fat, not fit for shortening can be saved in some old utensil and made into kitchen soup. 

note...My mother used to save bacon grease in a can on the stove...but this was way before her time it seems.

Frontier Fridays: Preventing Bedtime Cold Feet

Prevent Cold Feet at Bedtime - Draw off your stockings just before undressing, and rub ankles and feet well with your hands for 5 to 10 minutes as hard as you can bear the pressure. (How about leaving our socks on?)

Other old ideas for warm feet included placing baked potatoes at the foot of the bed, and placing a hot water bottle at the foot of the bed.

No Central heat in those days!

How to Burn Candles Safely

How to Burn a Candle Safely

Candle safety is mostly about common sense. If you keep in mind that a candle is an open flame and take the proper precautions, then your candle burning experience will be pleasurable and safe. Here are some important safety tips:

• Never leave a burning candle unattended. Extinguish candles when leaving a room or before going to sleep.
• Burn candles within a one foot "circle of safety", free of anything that can burn. Be certain that drapes or curtains cannot be blown into the candle flame.
• Keep burning candles out of the reach of children or pets.
• Do not move a candle while it is burning or if the wax is still hot and liquid.
• Burn candles on a flat, stable, heat-resistant surface.
• Place candles at least three inches apart so they don't melt one another.
• Candles are a safe product when used properly. Burn them responsibly, and your candles will bring you hours of serenity and pleasure.

Frontier Fridays: How to Make a Mustard Plaster

How to Make a Mustard Plaster

How many people are there who really know how to make a mustard plaster? No one is a hundred at most, perhaps, and yet mustard plasters are used in every family, and physicians prescribe their application, never telling anybody how to make them, for the simple reason that doctors themselves do not know as a rule. The ordinary way is to mix the mustard with water, tempering it with a little flour, but such a plaster as this makes it simply abominable. Before it has half done it work, it begins to blister the patient, and leaves him finally with a painful flayed spot after having produced far less effect in a beneficial way than was intended. Now a mustard plaster should never make a blister at all. If a blister is wanted, there are other plasters far better than mustard for the purpose.
When you make a mustard plaster, then, use no water whatever, but mix the mustard with the white of an egg, and the result will be a plaster which will "draw" perfectly, but will not produce a blister even upon the skin of an infant, no matter how long it is allowed to remain on the part.

Frontier Fridays: How to Make Your Own Oil Cloth

How to Make an Oil Cloth

To procure an oil cloth as cheaply as possible, buy cheap tow cloth and fit it to the size and shape of the kitchen. Then have it stretched and nailed to the south side of the barn, and with a brush, cover it with a coat of thin white paste. When this is dry, put on a coat of yellow paint and let it dry for a fortnight. It is safest to first try the paint and see if it dries well, as some paints will never dry. Then put on a second coat, and at the end of another fortnight, a third coat. Then let it hang two weeks, and it will last, uninjured for many years. The longer the paint is left to dry the better. If varnished it will last much longer.

Frontier Fridays: How to Stop Squeaking Doors and Drawers

To Stop a Squeaking Door and Sticking Drawers

Both can be made to function silently and normally by rubbing the door hinges with dry soap, same goes for the drawers, rub with soap where wood contacts wood as they slide in and out.


Do you have an old household remedy to share?  Add as a comment below...

Frontier Fridays: Making the Family's Cologne

To make cologne for the family mix the following: 

Oils of rosemary and lemon, each 1/4 oz.,
bergamot and lavender, each 1 dram;
cinnamon, 8 drops,
clove and rose, each 15 drops;
common alcohol, 2 quarts.

Mix and shake from 2 to 3 times a day for a week.