A loose clasp on my tea balls

If you drink loose-leaf tea, you know the frustrations of a tea ball whose clasp will not stay closed.

You fill your aging tea ball with tea leaves, close the clasp, drop it into a mug, and then pour water over it.You can't dunk the tea ball up and down, as it comes open too easily. And even when the tea ball is just resting at the bottom of the mug of water, the ball manages to open itself, just enough to allow leaves to float out and into your tea.

Yes, this is my frustration, with not just one tea ball, but with both of my tea balls. I tried using pliers to tighten the clasp, to no avail. I considered buying a new tea ball. But it bothered me that 2 tea balls that otherwise work for steeping tea, would no longer be used, simply because of a loose clasp.

My rather crude fix involves a rubber band from a bundle of radishes. The rubber band must be somewhat food-safe, if it's been holding my produce together for several days, right? Anyways, after I fill my tea ball with loose-leaf tea, I wrap a rubber band around the outside, holding the whole thing together. Found my fix. It's not pretty, but it does the job!

I wanted this to be as effortless as was promised

Getting labels and their adhesives, off of glass jars with baking soda and vegetable oil

After I soak and peel the label off of jars, I'm left with that white adhesive on the glass jar. I can scrub and scrub, or I can try a short-cut.

There are commercial solvents on the market to remove labels and stickers. But if you don't happen to have any, or you wish to use something totally harmless, and that you have in your pantry right now, this may work for you.

Using a paste of baking soda and veg oil has worked on a couple of jars, but not on all of them. This was one of the stubborn labels, on a jar of peanut butter.

I peeled as much of the label off, as possible.

Then I spread a mixture of 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil, generously onto the remaining label.

As advised, I let it sit for about 30 minutes.

I used a clean, dry, rough rag to rub the label off. Not much came off, so I used a table knife to scrape the rest of the paper off. But it left the adhesive residue.

So, again I generously wiped the paste onto the jar and allowed it to sit.

When I came back, I used the same, dry, rough rag to wipe the adhesive off. I will say, almost all of it came off. I had to rub vigorously in places.

Then I washed with soapy water, dried with a towel and it did come pretty clean.

It just wasn't nearly as effortless as the other jars I had cleaned. So, just one of those things that sometimes works very well, and sometimes you have to put extra effort into it to get it to work.

Overall, I did much, much less scrubbing than just with soapy water, on these really stubborn labels. So, it did work well, in that sense. And it didn't cost me any extra money, buying a commercial product. And it didn't dry my skin out or require me to wear gloves. So, yeah, it was worth it. Just not totally effortless.

I've been keeping this dish of baking soda and oil paste in the cupboard, and using it for a month or so. I had to use some the other day, when I discovered a piece of chewed gum was stuck to the kitchen counter. I pulled up the bulk of the gum, then spread this paste onto it, and wiped it up with a clean rag. On chewing gum, stuck to the counter top, this was brilliant.