Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew

About a couple months ago I shared about the amazing book I discovered in The Anthropologie Experience post.  How to Sew a Button has been a very helpful and humorous book and I thought I'd share a couple things I've tried from it so far.


How to Make Blueberry Pancakes
{p. 3-4}

So the first time I tried this recipe, I didn't have any blueberries, so I threw in chocolate chips instead.  Oh my, are these the best pancakes I've ever had, made from scratch!  They are so fluffy!  The second time I made this recipe I did have blueberries and they were the biggest ones I've ever seen!  I guess I've only seen fake little blueberry pellets in blueberry muffin mixes or canned ones that have shrunk.  Honestly, the fresh blueberries were a little too big for me and I didn't care for them too much.  Plus they stained Leala's clothes which I'll get to.  But they were made as a special treat for my husband and he liked them.

This is the pancake recipe I'm going to use unless I find a better one, substituting the blueberries for chocolate chips, 'cause that's the way my grandmother made them and that's how we like it!  View the recipe here when you "LOOK INSIDE!" the book on Amazon.com and click on the "First Pages" link.


How to Remove Berry Stains
{p. 113}

When I think Leala's meal is going to be messy, I'll take her clothes off to protect them even though most of them are hand-me-downs, but really cute ones.  This was one such cute hand-me-down and when I saw the blueberry juice that dripped on her top I was mad at myself for not knowing better.  In the back of my head I thought I remembered berry stains having the potential of being permanent.  That's when I remembered that there was a section in How to Sew a Button on how to remove stains.  So I tried it.  I spread the top over a bucket, boiled some water on the stove, and poured it at about what I thought was a foot over the stain.  I didn't have a kettle, so I will say that pouring boiling water from a pot got pretty messy.  I had to use the handle of the bucket too to help hold the garment in place.

If you click on the image above to see a larger view, you'll notice that the berry stain didn't come completely out.  However, this method got the stain mostly out.  Spraying the stains (there were three different spots) with stain remover and running the garment through the washing machine I hoped would take the stains completely out.

And how pleasantly surprised I was when I pulled the top out of the dryer to find it looking like new... well, except it needing to be ironed.  =P


How to Curl Your Hair Without Heat

Did your grandmother know how to do this?!  While I was blog browsing, I found this tutorial on how to curl your hair with just an elastic headband on Soul Singing Liv's blog.  Since I didn't have a hairband, I just grabbed a piece of elastic from my sewing stash, cut it to the length that would fit around my head, and tied it off.  My husband said it looked like a real headband with a cute little bow on it.  As was suggested on both the video and the blog for those with thick hair, I let my hair dry almost completely before tucking it in around the elastic hairband.

As Olivia mentioned in her post, "The key to smooth curls that will last all day is PRODUCT."  However, for our budget, hair styling products are considered an extra, so I didn't get the tight curls the lady in the video and Olivia got.  But the elastic hairband method did make my hair curly and since I have naturally oily skin, I didn't need to use a hair product to take the frizz out of my curls.  I could maybe use something to tame my fly away frizz in the front though.  =P

Q.  What have you learned from your grandmothers?
        (Please post your answers in a comment below.)