Handy Cleaning Tip

A fall feeling is in the air and makes me think of a crackling fire in the fireplace with me all snuggled up with a cup of coffee (cider, tea, hot chocolate or whatever you want) and some soft music playing in the background. Now this is a lovely picture but how about tomorrow when you need to clean the soot off of that beautiful glass fireplace screen. The picture turns not so pretty unless you use this tip.

First, make sure all the ashes are cold before you try this.

Take a damp paper towel or rag and dip it into the cold ashes. Now smear those damp ashes all over the sooty glass and interior frame (wherever you want to clean off the soot). Let is stand for a couple of minutes and then take a wet rag and clean off the ash mixture. Most or all of the soot should be gone but if any remains, repeat the damp ash treatment. Once all of the soot is gone, either clean with your glass cleaner or just polish with crumpled newspaper. Your fireplace glass screen should be shiny and ready for another good book and crackling fire.

Now if you want to keep your tea warm while you are either cleaning or reading, how about this tea cozy I have listed in my shop?

Removing Smells from Books & Paper

I've had a question on how to remove smells from old books or papers.

Here are a couple of suggestions that I found that work:

1. Cedar Oil Spray:

I have had some success in removing odors from old books by spraying the sides and lid of a cardboard box with cedar oil (used to refresh cedar blocks to place in closets)by putting them in a box being careful not to let the oily parts of the box touch the books. Then close up the box and leave for a couple of days. Your books or papers should be odor free or almost so. If not completely free of odors, repeat treatment.

2. Kitty Litter:

I have had moderate success with burying a book or magazine in kitty litter (clean and unused of course!!!) that is in a plastic bag. Close up the bag and leave book or books for a couple of days. Don't over-fill the bag.

3. Freeze it:

Our librarian recommends treating smelly books by sealing them in a plastic bag and putting them in the freezer for a couple of days. I haven't tried this one but I frequently see books stashed in the library freezer so it must work or they wouldn't keep doing it!!!

As you can see, none of these methods are rapid but at least they are fairly safe for the books or papers involved.

If you have a method that works -- and especially for large quantity of books, please post it. Our Friends of the Library group is constantly running into smelly books -- some we discard, some we clean, some we isolate and let others worry about it. We'd like an easy method to clean them all.

Removing a Musty Smell from Fabric

I've recently received som items that had been my grandmother's and they had a very musty odor to them. Now from past experience, I knew that this odor is difficult to remove so I finally put a query on Y!Answers and got some very good advise. Here are a couple that I've tried that worked very well.

1. If you can wash the item just add about 1/8 cup of ammonia with the soap to the tub of laundry and the smell will magically disappear. CAUTION: Be sure that there is NO clorine bleach in your laundry detergent before adding the ammonia or you will produce a deadly gas.

2. Some of the things were skeins of yarn and I didn't want to handle them to wash so another suggestion was to put cedar wood into a box with the item for a couple of days and the odor would disappear. Since I didn't have any cedar, I purchased some of the cedar oil you can use to refresh cedar items and sprayed it on the sides and lid of the box being sure to protect the yarn with an old towel. After a few days the odor was mostly gone.

3. Since another suggestion was to hand items out in the sunshine and fresh air for a day, I threaded a small rope through the skeins of yarn and hung them in the sunshine for a day and they now smell fresh and ready to use.

Next I plan to use the box and cedar oil spray method with old books and see if it will remove the odor from paper without damaging it. I'll let you know if this works.