15 Clever Uses for Aluminum Foil!

1. Make a Funnel – Curl a section of foil into a cone shape, secure it with tape, and start pouring.
2. Shine Silver – Line a glass pan with foil, add several spoonfuls of baking soda, fill the pan with boiling water, and drop in tarnished silverware for a quick cleaning.
   
3. Keep matches dry – Wrap your matches in aluminum foil to keep them from getting damp or wet on camping trips.
4. Make a light reflector – Perfect when photographing food, still life or portraits. Cut a sturdy cardboard box (can be as large or small as you like), cover cardboard with aluminum foil and voila, an excellent and inexpensive light reflector.
5. Shield a Muffin Tin from Grease and Burned on batter – Cut a piece of foil slightly larger than the muffin pan. Lie the foil on the pan, pressing down slightly. Snip an X over each opening and place a paper liner in each cup.
6. Re-attach a loose vinyl tile – Place a sheet of foil over a loose self-stick vinyl tile, and press a hot iron over the foil until the adhesive backing melts and sticks to the sub-floor.
7. Protect knobs & hardware – Wrap doorknobs and hardware with foil to protect them from splatters when painting.
   
8. Television and DVD player stacked on top of each other? If your picture quality seems to have static, place a piece of aluminum foil between the two electronics. They both put off electromagnetic fields that might interfere with each other; the foil will block the transfer between them.
9. Make a tray – I have done this a couple of times to accommodate large birthday cakes that I have made. All you need to do is
   cover a piece of doubled cardboard (tape cardboard together to secure) or a wooden board with aluminum foil.
10. Sharpen Scissors – Fold a sheet of foil several times and cut through it with a pair of dull scissors to sharpen the blades.
    
11. Clean barbecue racks – Ball up a square of foil, and use it to scrub off black bits.
12. Protect tree trunks – Moles, rabbits, mice and other small animals will often feed on the bark of young trees during the winter. An effective deterrent is to wrap the tree trunks with a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil in late fall. Make sure you remove the foil in spring.
13. Keep pie crusts from burning – I do this all the time. If your crust is becoming too brown and the filling is still not baked, slip a piece of aluminum foil over the pie to prevent further browning.
14. Make a reflector oven when camping – This looks very cool and I’m going to try this on our next camping trip! You can find instructions the web.
15. Create special-shaped cake pans – Using a double thickness of aluminum foil, form the foil into whatever shape you want; heart, star, tree or whatever. For support, set formed pan inside a square, round or rectangular pan to bake.

UPDATE – I’m adding another tip that I was reminded of from one of website visitors. A reader told me she wraps carrots in foil to keep them fresh longer…for years we have wrapped celery in foil before putting it in the crisper; it lasts for up to two weeks!