HOUSEHOLD TIPS + TRICKS
It’s all about the elastic band!
Try using an
elastic band around
jar lids for better
grip and ease
of opening.
With a little help from your
wine bottle or paper towel
holder, elastic bands can hold
a phone up so you can read
your recipe while cooking.
Keeps the phone off the
counter too (cleaner).
Make beautiful and simple
flower pots by covering them
with elastic bands and then
painting... makes a great gift!
Elastic bands make the best bookmarks!
They’re also great for keeping both sides of the
book open while reading.
Use them at the edges
of coat hangers for
slip-free hanging.
8
Planning a Thanksgiving dinner?
Paint any old glasses with enamel
paint and rubber band designs
to turn them into beautiful
flameless candle holders.
Rubber has been around for centuries. Aztecs,
Olmecs, and Mayans were making rubber
thousands of years ago, by mixing a milky-white
sap (latex) from the Hevea brasiliensis tree, with
juices from the morning glory vines. But it wasn’t
until Englishman Thomas Hancock turned this
rubber into elastic to create suspenders, gloves,
shoes and even waterproof socks.
A few years later and while in jail for failure to pay
debts, Charles Goodyear (American self-taught
chemist and manufacturing engineer) began to
experiment with this same material by adding
sulfur, to result in the hard, elastic, non-sticky,
Lots more online! www.silvergoldmagazine.ca
Perfect for
mess-free painting!
and strong material we know today. Charles took
out patents in the States in 1844, while Hancock had
already done so in England in 1843.
In the 1850s and after much battle, the courts sided
with Hancock and granted him the patent, costing
Goodyear a fortune. When Goodyear died in 1860
at age 59, leaving his family with $200,000 debt - or
the equivalent of about $5 million dollars today.
Goodyear’s company would later be purchased by
American businessman and inventor, Frank Seiberling,
who would be the first to grow the company into the
multi-million business it is today.