Hats and handbags

• Polish leather with a potato

 Rub a cut potato across the surface of your dull leather handbag, give it a buff with a clean, soft cloth and it’ll look good as new.

• Steam your suede

 To clean stains and spots on a suede handbag, first lightly rub the spots with fine-grained sandpaper or an emery board. Then hold the bag 15cm away from a kettle or saucepan with steaming water until the stain gets a little warm, making sure the steam doesn’t saturate the bag. Brush with a suede brush or toothbrush, repeating the brushing once the suede is dry.

• A space-saving handbag rack

 Recycle an old, tall, wooden stepladder by using it to store handbags — an especially helpful trick if you are short of shelf space. To make the ladder more attractive, paint it in similar tones to go with the rest of your furniture, or cover the steps with adhesive shelf paper, or just glue on a few decorative fabric swatches.

• Re-size a special hat

If you’ve found a perfect hat at a garage sale charity or vintage shop, the type that’s worn with the brim low on the forehead, but it’s just a little too big for you, buy it, then wear a sweatband under the hat to fill in the extra space. If the sweatband is too thick and makes the hat too tight, try using a more stretchy, thinner headband — one of them should work. Just remember to take the band and the hat off at the same time or you’ll reveal your little secret. For a more permanent fix, lightly tack the band that fits inside the hat, using long tacking stitches.

• Restore shine to straw hats

 Over time, many straw hats lose their crisp, shiny look. You can spruce up yours in time for its summer outing by spraying it with a light coating of hairspray and letting it dry thoroughly before wearing the hat again. Always be sure to spray in a well-ventilated area or outside.

• Stuff hats to save their shape

Milliners know that brims resting on shelves will flatten out, so they overstuff the crowns with tissue paper to let hats rest on the paper instead. If you don’t have any leftover tissue paper, use bubble wrap, dry-cleaning plastic, plastic shopping bags, old socks or pantihose, or an old woollen jumper as stuffing for hats.