Can't wait to try the onion slicing one, never heard of that before!

I never heard of the onion trick either...please chime in if this works/doesn't work for you.

@yul - IMO you are a candle person if you light a candle for any reason other than company is coming over/it's a special occasion and you want to set a mood or create ambiance. Like if you come home from work and light candles for "no reason at all" other than you like them (smell & look), you are a candle person.

I don't think it is either a good or a bad thing to be a candle person. It's just a thing.

yeah can't wait to try the onion one

These are great tips! Re. the shipping label - I've always covered labels with thick, clear tape. That seems to be the safest option.

Genius! I will definitely be using these.

@yul - you are a candle person if you light a candle for any reason other than a birthday cake.

Candle Person:
1. A man or woman that lights a candle for any reason besides power outages, birthdays, evening guests.
2. A man or woman that purchase new candles, based on new scent/shape/style/oh-I-got-to-have-one-of-these.
3. A man or woman that has enough candles, so that during a state of electrical outage, the said person's residence looks like it has never lost power.
4. A man or woman in definition 3, that when said person's residence burns down for all those candles lit during a power outage, will fill the neighborhood with various scents from said candles.

you have lovely hands

This elderly and very wooden house we live is generous with built-ins so reluctant drawers have been commonplace. From direct experimentation, candles not only do better than soap but the more we waxed, the more infrequently it was required. The old adage of "once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year, then once a year for life" is apparently due to some of the wax working its way into the wood grain.

Because some of the wood here is very nearly petrified, we've also learned to scrape wood screws in candle wax for how much easier they screw in with less risk of sticking, misdirecting or chewing up the wood around it. This works well with regular wood too.

I just love my Grandmother's clever candle tip. She saves all her candle ends, and keeps them in a covered jar until jam-making season. Pop the jar of ends into a warm oven until melted, whilst you make the jam. When your jam is ready, pour it into jars and whilst the jam is still hot, pour (using a warm spoon) a little of the melted wax onto the surface until covered. A 2 cm layer is fine. Hey Presto! you have the perfect seal. Note: the wax sets as a flat disc on the surface. It does not contaminate the jam at all. Save the disc of wax; you can re-use it for your next jam making session.

All the windows in my house (and a couple large glass doors) have metal frames that you slide along a metal track to open, and since they're rather old, they tend to stick. My husband discovered my stash of plain white tealights that I buy in bulk, opened each window or door all the way, and rubbed the side of a tealight (removed from the metal cup, of course) back and forth across the inside of the track several times, until he could feel a thin coating of wax on the bottom and sides of the track. Our windows and doors open and shut effortlessly - and much more quietly! It only took a minute or two for each window or door, and he's only had to reapply once in the past 6 months.

I've tried the onion trick but it didn't work for me. I do have a candle tip though, if you have candles that are looking dull you can polish them up with pantyhose. They'll look brand new.

RE : onion slicing. A small bowl of water placed nearby works very well to absorb the sulfur and doesn't run the risk of an open flame. Have used a candle for all the other things and works great. Also...use for cleaning the surface of your iron of things like spray-on starch or random polyester remnants. Heat the iron up, place it on a folded paper towel What ? ? ? You don't OWN an iron ? Hahahahahaaaaaaa

I occasionally wax the top of my shower curtain rod to reduce the screeching sound of closing the curtain.

The trick to lubricating with a candle is to wipe off the excess and polish whats left, like car wax. Excess wax is messy and collects dust.

I'd never heard that adage.

The label trick is a new one to me. I usually put clear packing tape over addresses. Will have to try the 'emergency' candle next time; it's taking forever to use up.

I heard the onion trick doesn't work. Only two things have ever stopped the tears for me while cutting onions: Cutting underwater (which... who wants to cut underwater?) and wearing my contact lenses. I don't know what it is, but if I'm wearing contacts, I have like super eyes that are impervious to the power of the onion.

Another onion cutting trick is eating crackers, I can't even be inside the house when someone is cutting or cooking onions unless I'm eating crackers.

My favorite use for a candle stub is to wax the metal runners of a sled. Much faster!

Contacts totally work for me too, I don't ever tear up while cutting onions and wearing them. They also help with the wind, I think. But without contacts my eyes sting terribly!

My mother used to seal her grape jelly with wax, and no matter what I did, I would always end up with wax in my jelly. Blech. I've also bought marmalade at the farmer's market that was wax-sealed, but the seal was broken and the marmalade was moldy.

tl;dr: I hate wax seals. But if you don't, that sounds like a nice, thrifty way to do it.

Thanks for the confirmation and the saying. I'll be trying all over my thrifted furniture now that I have an endorsement from someone for whom this has worked over a longer period of time.

Wooo..Thanks for providing such beautiful house keeping tips.Its wastage of my money if I can't maintain my luxury home.

Regarding the onion thing, I do this, however, I do not recommend using scented candles for this task.

If you're a snow person, you can also use the old candle stubs to lubricate the bottom of any snow toys, such as snowboards or sleds.

@jenniepez. That is so odd--I was thinking the same thing.

Marigold - in response to your grandmother's tip about using melted candle wax to form a seal on jelly and jam. I am assuming this would be plain, unscented candles only? It seems like scented candles would make the jam or jelly taste or smell like the scent.

I might give this onion trick a chance. I have never tried this. Thanks for these great tips on other uses of old candles.

- http://www.conniescandles.com/

Florida Joyce: Yes, unscented candles only! Scented ones will definitely taint your jam.