Spring Into Spring with Simple Life Hacks

Spring is the season of budding and new growth; it’s also the season to get back on track with simple life hacks. Just a few simple ideas can make your life happier, more creative, fun and easier.

Spring Cleaning & Organizing

Time to tidy up all those random cables and cords. Bundle and secure them with hair clips, then tuck them neatly into empty toilet paper rolls. Done!
Need a discreet place to hide your keys, cards or a little cash? Clean out a lotion or sunscreen bottle to disguise and store small things – but don’t forget where you tucked them away!
Ready to retire mismatched, hole-y socks or bedraggled oven mitts? Run them through the washer and dryer, then repurpose them to clean cupboards, baseboards and crevices. Just spray those socks with a cleaning product and clean away. No mop? Put on those repurposed socks instead, turn on some music and have a floor dance cleaning party like in Pippi Longstocking.

Health and Healing and Beauty

Add a lemon wedge or round to your green tea to maximize the health benefits, and combine black pepper with turmeric to improve absorption and boost bioavailability.
Add cool tea (try green or herbal) to a spray bottle, then spritz, refresh and rejuvenate your face and body. Revitalize your hair with a light spray of tea-riffic nourishing nutrients.
Synthesize vitamin D3 the natural way. Having enough vitamin D is essential and beneficial in multiple ways, including strengthening the immune system, improving brain function, boosting mood, lowering blood pressure, maintaining weight loss and helping prevent cancers. Without sunscreen, too much exposure to sun can be detrimental and damaging, so limit your time in the sun to just 10 to 30 minutes and no more than two or three times a week.

Gardening and Nature

Attract more pollinators naturally. Bees, butterflies and birds, including hummingbirds, thrive in a harmonious habitat of diverse plants, flowers and trees. Do your research on specifics, like providing the milkweed plants that Monarch butterflies need for growth and development. Try to provide at least three nectar-producing plants native to North Carolina that can feed many. You can be a pollinator haven.
Save those coffee grounds and tea bags. Composting naturally with tea and coffee can fertilize and nourish plants and flowers to accelerate growth of a glorious garden.
Avoid chemically laden pesticides and insecticides whenever possible. Go green and substitute DIY pure products with organic and natural ingredients instead.

Kitchen Fun

Make it pretty: Freeze teas, coffees, juices and edible flowers in ice cube molds to complement cocktails, mocktails, smoothies and other beverages.
Pour batter in a squeezable plastic bottle (like an empty ketchup or mustard bottle), then get playful and crafty writing letters and words with your breakfast pancakes.

Arts and Crafts

Whether you’re a wine, beer or hard liquor drinker or prefer kombucha, juices and sparkling drinks, collect the beverage bottles to repurpose into decorative vases. The mediums, colors and options are unlimited, and there’s no need to limit imagination or creativity either. Use acrylics, oils or nail polish – try matte, opaque, shiny and glitter. Montage, decoupage or collage with papers, print outs, photographs, pressed flowers and/or stickers. Rhinestones, confetti and glitter are always fun ways to glam and glitter it up!

Forget those tiny nail art brushes, and pull out your stash of Sharpies to create beautiful nail art instead. Yes, it is considered safe to paint your nails with Sharpies. Start with a solid base coat (white works well) and then draw intricate line art with narrow Sharpie pens. Flowers, hearts, stars, dots and doodles hit the high marks. Leave as is with the basecoat showing through, or fill in your outlines with solid color. Wipe away any stray marks from your skin with rubbing alcohol. When dry, be sure to add a top coat or two to preserve the art. When you’re ready to move on to your next canvas, the design is easily removed with nail polish remover. Your masterpiece will be the hit of the show!

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Susan B. B. Schabacker

Forsyth Magazines writer since 2018. Susan Schabacker was blessed to be adopted as a baby and made her journey from South Korea to Massachusetts where she arrived safely into her adoptive mother’s loving arms. She later moved to New Mexico and, after a few years, moved to Winston-Salem, NC, to study classical ballet at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts from the eighth grade through high school. Susan has lived in the Piedmont Triad area for nearly 20 years and had the opportunity to travel to Budapest, Hungary; London, UK; and Beijing, China, where she studied abroad through Elon University. In Stockholm, Sweden, she had a marketing internship at Hachette-Filipacchi, publisher of Elle and other magazines. She graduated with a B.A. in Corporate Communications and a minor in Dance from Elon University. Susan loves writing and is pleased to have written for Winston-Salem Journal’s "Teen Page," Triad Living, KernersvilleMagazine, and of course, Forsyth Mags. She is a co-author of a children’s book, Huckleberry Robin, based on a three-generation true family story. Susan is grateful for her faith, family, and friends and is happy and excited to be part of the Forsyth Mags team. She spreads the word about Forsyth magazines and enjoys reading and sharing them with her family and friends every month.

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