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Show It Makes Cents BY VI JUDGE Dear Vi: I have a money-saving idea for gift-wrap bows. I make my own out of colored facial tissue. After our July Fourth parade, I couldn't bear to throw away all those pretty carnations I'd spent hours making. Instead, I'm saving them for bows. You can color-coordinate the wrapping paper and bows, too, since tissue comes in many colors. You can even put two different colors together in the same bow. Each takes about five minutes to make but lost less than a pennny, so for people like me, with more time than money, they're ideal. I enjoy your column. Keep up the good work. Loreen C. Sorensen, Gunnison, Utah if Dear Vi: A pair of rubber-handled, needle-nosed pliers is invaluable for those of us who have arthritis in our hands. I use mine to open milk jugs and boxes with a "press here" type of opening, to pull off the tabs on pop cans, to pick up small objects, so many ways. Also, a rubber band wrapped tightly several times around a pop bottle or other small lid acts as a gripper that makes it easier to twist off. ImogeneE. Dear Vi: If you have a door that sticks or jams, determine where it is too tight, top or bottom, glue on rough sandpaper where it sticks. Open and close the door a number of times and it will sand itself exactly where needed with no guesswork or oversanding or) your part. Douglas Schweppe, Idaho Falls Dear Vi: In response to Linda's experience with gasoline for removing chewing gum from her shoes, I'd like to suggest that gasoline is not safe to keep or use inside the house, especially when friction is to be applied. You've also suggested ice to make the gum ball up so that it can be scraped off; cleaning solution; and peanut, butter or cooking oil especially for hair. I've found that egg white will sometimes soften gum so that it will come out when the garment is laundered, but we've had the best success with turpentine. It's especially good for knits or upholstery anything with a porous or pile surface. Just recently we used some on our car seats with excellent results. Marva Brandon, Richfield, Utah (Take care, though. Try any of these remedies on an inconspicuous spot first to determine whether or not the fabric will be stained, damaged, or the color affected.) Dear Vi: I dislike the odor of moth balls, so, before storing my woolens, I either wash or dryclean them if needed or hang them in the sun for awhile, first with the right side then the wrong side out. Finally, I pack them in tightly closed plastic bags to which I've added cedar chips from a lumber yard. That's an odor I don't mind wearing. Inez Fillmore, Las Vegas Remember, Readers, the resourceful young bride-to-be who chose a chest of less expensive wood for her trousseau, converting it into a cedar chest (in effect) with cedar shavings? We've sugested, too, nylon bags of cedar shavings hung in closets to impart that nice, clean smell we find pleasant but moths dislike. Does anyone have a good repellent for those equally voracious silverfish, who have a taste for all fabrics and even paper? Dear Vi: Almost everyone knows how to draw a circle with a string and a pin or nail, but I find that this doesn't give you an accurate radius when you want a large circle or two just alike. A strip of peg board about IV4 inches wide |