Cookie Scoop Apple Snack

It’s time once again for another fruit life hack!

I did some double-dipping this week. Not only did I find a cool new life hack but I also made myself a nice snack. What can I say? I got hungry while wandering through the endless digital corridors of the internet for life hacks.

Basically, I found a picture of small round pieces of apple dipped in peanut butter with toothpicks sticking out. I thought to myself, “How did they get the round apple slices?” Then I saw the most ridiculously amazing photo of a cookie scoop carving out a spherical apple slice.

(This is sort of what the photo looked like but I took this picture.)

I knew I had to try it.

I grabbed an apple and a cookie scoop and went to work. The first scoop of apple was beautiful. It was perfectly rounded on one side. At this point things were going well. There is something incredibly satisfying about using a cookie scoop to cut apple pieces.

Now, I don’t really understand how but the second scoop cracked my apple into two pieces. I guess I’m just really good at breaking apples in half. Fortunately, it doesn't really matter what happens to the apple you're carving. The round apple slices are the important part.

I ended up using two apples for my plate of six apple sphere snacks. I was only able to get three full scoops out of each apple. I would recommend using larger apples to get more scoops.

After I carved out some apple pieces, I inserted the toothpicks into the side of the apple spheres with the skin on it. I used standard toothpicks but I also think lollipop sticks would work well.

Then, I found a jar of peanut butter and dipped the apple pieces in. It worked really well. The toothpicks were long enough for the apple pieces to reach the peanut butter in the jar.

I would definitely consider this life hack a success. It is a unique way to serve a peanut butter apple snack. It would make a good appetizer at a house party.

Unfortunately, I did end up wasting the parts of the apple that I couldn’t scoop out. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. You can just eat the left-over parts of the apple or feed them to a pet.

What’s your favorite toothpick appetizer? What kind of food pastes do you like to dip your apple slices into? Leave your answers in the comment below!

 

Car Phone Holder Life Hack

It’s time again for another week of Life Hack Lab!

Something magical happened while I was testing the life hack this week. For the first time, I’ve found a hack that I actually intend to keep using.

I don’t mean to make it seem like the life hacks on this blog up to this point were all bad. Whether it’s been breaking apples in half, poking holes in strawberries or even organizing charger chords, I have certainly tested a few good life hacks so far on Life Hack Lab.

However, none of the previous passed life hacks compare to the simplicity and usefulness of this week’s life hack.

Now that I’ve sufficiently overhyped this hack let’s dive in.

Car Cellphone Holder:

I’m a millennial. I’ve never used a paper map while driving before. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if you handed it to me. I use my IPhone GPS app to go anywhere I haven’t been before.

Sometimes using my phone to navigate gets tricky. It’s not like I can hold my phone the entire time I’m driving. Usually I set it don on the seat next to me and listen for instructions on where to turn next. This is a problem because the phone has this annoying tendency to slide all over the place while I’m driving.

I suppose I could get an IPhone holder that clips to an air-blower in my car. Or, I could use this simple life hack.

All you need for this one is a rubber band, a phone and a car to drive. You wrap the rubber band around one of the blower shutters and slide your phone in the two loops that form. This will hold your phone in place perfectly.

I won’t lie. It took me a minute or two to get the rubber band through the shutters but once it was there everything worked just right.

No longer will I have to risk my life fishing for my phone on the floor while dodging traffic on the highway. With this life hack the GPS is at eye-level to the driver for a hands-free navigation experience.

Maybe this hack is specifically useful for me in my life but it will work for anyone else who struggles while using their cellphone GPS in the car.

This week I’ve found a couple school-related life hacks.

Write Multiple Lines at Once:

 

This first life hack is for all the 1^st to 5^th graders who totally read my blog. Are you tired of suffering through writing line after line of how you will never do that one thing you did wrong ever again? Don’t put up with this cruel yet not-so-unusual torture! Stick it to the man with this fantastic hack that will multiply your efficiency and have you finish your sentence of sentences in a fraction of the time.

It turns out you can write multiple lines of the same sentence at one time if you use more than one writing utensil. I used four pencils to test out this life hack. I have to admit; my mind was blown when I tried out this life hack. This is a really cool trick. Is it practical? Not at all. Take a look at some of my attempts to make this hack work.

 

It was actually hilariously difficult to make a few sentences that looked somewhat decent. The pencils kept slipping and sliding in different directions. Sometimes some of the pencils would stop making contact with the paper halfway through a sentence and I would have to start all over again.

Even if you’re a grade-schooler whose teacher is forcing them to write lots of lines over and over, you aren’t going to fool your teacher with this trick. Even if you manage to get all of your pencils connecting to the page correctly, your teacher will notice that every four sentences look exactly the same. You’ll be forced to write, “I will not use life hacks to cheat on my punishments,” one hundred times.

This life hack is a fail. It technically works but it looks just awful.

 

Highlighter to Remove Permanent Marker:

This next life hack I found online says you can remove permanent marker from your skin more effectively by covering it with highlighter ink first. I put a line of permanent marker on both of my hands to test it out. The mark on my left hand received a coating of highlighter ink while my right hand did not.

After that, I washed my hands with soap. In the end, neither mark washed off any easier than the other. As you can see from the photo below, my hands were both left with basically the exact same ghostly permanent marker stain.

This permanent marker life hack is a fail.

Plus, this hack will totally wreck your highlighter.

 

 

I guess this was a tough week for life hacks. I ended up failing both of my attempted hacks. Come back next week to see if I can’t find some life hacks that actually work.  

Cord Management Hacks

 

This week on Life Hack Lab I found some cord-related hacks to test. It seems like we all have various cords lying around our homes. From cellphone cords to internet cables, cords are everywhere.



Cord Organizer Hack:

This first hack is a cool way to keep all your chords in one place. All you need to do is find some binder clips, a table or desk to put them on and some cords to organize. How is this useful? Well, you can place the cords in the binder clips right at your desk and plug in whatever you need.

Is this the perfect way to store your cords? Maybe not. While this life hack does work, I do have a couple of caveats. I can’t speak for every sized binder clip but mine didn’t fit on the edge of any surface that was thicker than one millimeter. If you have a desk with a thickness of one centimeter or less this isn’t an issue for you. However, I have a lot of desks and dressers in my house in locations where this hack would be perfect if it weren't for the fact that their edges are thicker than one centimeter.

My other problem with this life hack is that if you aren’t very careful while attaching the binder clip to your desk you might scratch the surface. I learned this the hard way. It wasn’t a horrible scratch by any means but I would still be more careful if I did this hack again.

While I had a couple of issues with this hack, this hack did work. This first cord hack is approved.

 

Cord Clip Hack:

Next, I have a simple life hack for keeping your cords nice and neat when not in use.

This one is very self-explanatory from the picture. All you need is a hair clip and a cord. I borrowed my sister’s hair clip. Simply role the cord up and place the hair clip around it to prevent it from coming loose.

There really isn’t much to say about this life hack. Just be sure the woman in your life whose hairclip your using is okay with you taking it. Just explain to her that you found a much better way to use the clip from this blog.

The cord hairclip hack is approved.

Cord Breaking Prevention Hack:

Lastly, I found a life hack that I thought would be amazing. Let me start with a little bit of backstory for this life hack. I have owned two iPhones in my life. In both cases after about a year I needed to replace the charger cord for the phones. The cord bends and breaks apart from being used too much.

So, when I found a life hack online that said it could prevent this from happening I leapt at the chance to try it out.

Take a look at the photo below for reference.

                                              Photo Curtesy of the Thumbs Press Website

In this hack, you place one of the springs from inside a pen around the cord to keep it from bending and breaking in half. It seems like it would work. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the spring onto the cord. I tried hard to stretch the spring enough to get it around the charger and onto the cable but I couldn’t do it. I have no idea how they got the pen spring onto the cable in the first photo I showed you.

 

 

 

The spring cord breaking prevention hack is a fail.

 That’s all for this week. Come back next time to see me attempt even more interesting life hacks!