Thrifty Thursday- Dryer Sheet Vents...Who Knew?

A while back, my husband told me about a little trick one of his friends had been doing at his house for quite some time.  He said he put dryer sheets in the vents of his house.  This not only filtered out dust and dirty air, but it freshened up his house since the dryer sheets were scented.  I decided to put this trick to the test myself.  (Side note: when I grew up in Texas, we didn't have air vents that were on the floors of our house.  All of our vents were on the ceilings, upstairs and downstairs, so this may not work in every home.)

First, I grabbed a handful of dryer sheets from the laundry room.  Then, I went to town placing them in all the vents upstairs.  I quickly realized you have to put the sheets sideways so they are slightly hanging out.  If you put them long ways into the vent, they will probably end up sliding down and getting stuck.

After placing one to two sheets per vent, I turned on the heater.  Yes, I said heater.  I know it's almost May, but here in Utah the weather is unpredictable and the heater was necessary on this particularly cold day.  I decided to take my dogs on a walk so I could get outside and I would be able to noticeably tell if anything had changed when I came back inside.  After a 10 minute dog walking session, I came inside to a surprisingly strong fresh smelling home.  It was wonderful.  It was as if I had done 100 loads of laundry but without all the work, and the smell of clean was filling the air.  Clean smells are my favorite. I used to practically snort Cascade dishwasher detergent as a teenager because I loved the smell so much, so having my house smell like a field of cotton and flowers was like being in heaven. 

Unfortunately, the fresh smell only lasted a few days.  I was a little disappointed the smell of the dryer sheets didn't last longer, but they were an older box so I think using newer sheets would have made the smell a lot better.  I will probably use this trick in the future, but it definitely won't be a weekly habit.  I think it is a great idea to use if you have company coming over and you need to quickly freshen things up in your home.  I left the sheets in the vents for a few weeks to test out how well they work for filtering dust.  I did notice they helped a lot in this department, and there was a thin layer of dust particles on the sheets when I took them out.  After trying the dryer sheet experiment, I was flipping through this book and found the same tip inside.

I bought this book about a month ago at Walgreen's.  I remembered seeing an infomercial on it, and decided it might be something fun to have around and I could learn a few things here or there on how to make life easier using simple things around the house.  I am so glad I got this book!  It's like every nifty thing on Pinterest all combined into a hard copy book.  I love it. Here are just a few of the 10,001 things I learned in the book:

• Ants hate oranges, so if you have an anthill, blend orange peels with water and pour it all down the ant hill
• At my house, I am always getting shocked when I walk around with socks on the carpet.  I learned if you mix 3 cups water with 1/2 cup liquid fabric softener and spray it on your carpet, the static electricity goes away.  It also helps deodorize the floor too!
• If you have a splinter, a little duct tape does the trick to get it out.
• Use cold cream or mayo to remove bumper stickers.
• Almost out of mascara?  Run the closed tube under hot water for 15 seconds, and the heat will warm up the sides and give you a few more uses worth.  (I also am guilty of running the wand through water when I am almost out of mascara.)
• Old mouse pads (the non-plastic ones) are great to use as hot pads, shelf liners, kid place mats, and knee pads for kids when they are outside playing with chalk.
• Toothpaste can be used on glasses to clean and keep them from fogging up.
• When your kids are throwing a fit, keep a bottle of bubbles around.  Start blowing them, and it will distract them just long enough for them to calm down so you can talk to them.  
• For a fun bath toy for kids, place those cheap happy meal or vending machine toys in a muffin tin, fill with water, and freeze.  Pop them out when your kids have a bath and they will get so excited watching the water melt away revealing the toy.
• Give a kid a popsicle before they take medicine to numb their taste buds a bit so they can't taste the meds.
• Make ripping off Band-Aids easy by putting baby oil over the bandage beforehand, and it will soak through making the bandage come off easily.

What are your favorite tips and tricks to make life a little easier?