We’ve had an email from Sally:

Hi. My eldest collected lots of those gel awareness bracelets when they were all the rage a few years ago but now she says she doesn’t want them any more… What can I do with them?

I imagine like other rubber-ish items (like rubber gloves), they could be used to provide extra grip on sometimes slippery or cold surfaces – like metal handles of shovels.

Is there enough give in them to be able to use them as very strong elastic bands?

Any other suggestions?

As I mentioned the other week, we had a woodburning stove fitted a few weeks ago. Because of some previous thoughtless building work, the chimney stacks are damaged – smoke leaking all over the place – so we had to have them properly lined.

The liner is a double skinned metal tube that is dropped down the chimney and attached at the bottom to the stove’s fluepipe. It’s also blooming expensive – and the fitters left the end-of-roll offcuts with us. We’ve got one piece about a metre/yard long and about 18cm/7″ in diameter, and a second slightly smaller piece (in both length and diameter).

What can I do with those leftover bits?

My first thought was the old reusing favourite – plant pots in the garden. We’ve got some old chimney tops already (left by the previous owners, currently home to my garlic) so it could be a bit of a theme. But that seems to be a bit of a waste of their potential – another thought I had was to save one of them to use when we finally get around to making a rocket stove.

Any other suggestions?

(Pic to follow when my camera is charged and I’ve put some shoes on ;) – still rather disorganised after being ill I’m afraid…)

(Hi! Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I’ve been ill and have mostly been slumped on the sofa in a heap. Feeling a bit more human now so without further ado…)

We’ve had an email from Lesley and Julia, explaining:

We have a pair of scissors at work. There’s nothing wrong with the blades, but the rubbishy plastic handle has broken off. Any ideas?

I remember a pair of all metal scissors breaking at the hinge when I was in my teens, and I kept the blades to use instead of a craft knife — but the individual blades were nowhere near sharp enough or thin enough to do that well.

So any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Yvonne, asking:

I have a small vinyl accordion door (single door size). One of the vinyl folds are tearing. How can I fix?

There seem to be a range of vinyl repair kits available for fixing small holes in furnishings, which might do the job.

Searching around for general advice on repairing vinyl, it seems there is a difference between fixing it and fixing it neatly. It some places the latter is seen as important but it can be a pain to find vinyl to match the colour of your aged/sun-bleached stuff. On an accordion door, you could make a feature of the repair by using a contrasting stripe of colour – and uses more stripes to reinforce the other folds to stop their tearing in the future. That would probably take more vinyl than you’d get in a little kit though.

Any more detailed fix suggestions?

I came across the recipe the other day and thought mmm – potato crisps made from potato peelings rather than the potato themselves – the skin contains loads of fibre and it’s usually the tastiest bit of the ‘tato too, so win all around.

Our potato peelings usually end up in the stock box in the freezer – although when we finally get chickens, they might end up in their treat bucket instead (there seems to be some disagreement about whether you can feed chickens raw potato – some say yes, some say no, although everyone says don’t feed them green bits).

What do you do with your potato peelings? They’re a welcome, quick-to-rot-down addition to a compost bin if nothing else. Are there any practical rather than culinary uses for them, like how banana skins can be used to polish leather? I suspect the starchy residue will get in a way for a lot of things but you never know…