If you’re into making home remedies, you’ve may have a stash of herbs, clays, syrups, tinctures and essential oils.

Once you’ve had some experience making and using your own remedies to heal illness, wounds and improve ailments you discover little “tips and tricks” that aid you in your efforts. Here are some of the things that I’ve found work well.

Administering herbal syrups and tinctures:

One of my favorite ways to administer herbal syrups and tinctures to my kids (otherwise known around our house as “drops”) is to use these nifty little measuring cup shot glasses. You can measure out the dose and your older ones can drink it themselves. If you’re concerned about letting your kids drink out of a glass cup, you can look for stainless steel condiment cups at Walmart and use those. They don’t have the measurement markers on the cup but they aren’t breakable. These little cups are also nice for mixing remedies as well.

Injuries, wounds, scrapes, cuts, skin abrasions and irritations:

Figuring out how to apply herbal salves, poultices, creams, clays, compresses can be challenging. Band-aids and gauze bandages will only go so far at holding those herbs in. I’ve found that my husbands old t-shirts cut into strips work the best for applying dried herbs, compresses and clays. You can roll the herbs into the cloth and then tie it around the affected area. It works especially well on arms and legs as a bandage and application for homemade herbal remedies. For injuries or issues on the hands and feet the cuff of an old sock actually is an excellent way to cover a wound or irritated skin with a salve, clay or poultice. You don’t have to tie anything and it holds everything in place. So save all those mis-matched socks and save the ones with holes too. Just cut off the foot saving the cuff. Kids socks work great around the hands and feet since they are smaller. Cuffs from adult socks are good for arms and legs.