🤯 LIFE CHANGING + Dollar Tree Hacks you NEED to know this Summer! ☀️

Hey Craft Buddy, Summer is officially here and I am so excited for today's video. I've packed it full of my absolute best Dollar Tree Hacks perfect for Summer. Hey there and welcome, this is Whiskey and Wimp. My name is Whitney and a huge welcome back to my Whiskey Craft Buddies who are here each week to DIY with me. If you're not already a Craft Buddy, no worries, you just hit subscribe down below so you don't miss any future videos and you can craft along with us. And a quick friendly PSA that all of these items are Dollar Tree items making them Dollar Tree Hacks. But if your Dollar Tree is not fully stocked or it looks a little rough, don't worry, most of these products can be found at many other stores. Just use the ideas. Up first, we're grabbing some of these Jot Ring Holders to use in our car. Summer is the time for road travel and also with a toddler, I've got bags wherever we go. So I'm just taking them, looping them around the headrest. You get two for $1.25 and you can either put your bags in the front of the seat here or flip them around to the back for extra storage. Great for diaper bags, purses and everything in between. Up next in the stationary aisle, we're grabbing one of these Jot Zipper Document Bags. This is great to organize all of your important paperwork for those road trips. Put everything inside just so then that way you know exactly where it is. We're going to zip it up and we're also going to grab some of these travel toothbrush containers because I love to use these in my car for pens. Not only do they make it easier to find them because it's a bigger object, but it's also going to help in case those pens explode in the heat. It's not going to get all over your important documents. Pop it right into your glove box and shut it and it's going to be right there waiting for you when you need those documents or a pen in your car. Lifesaver. Another must-have for the car are these sponge brush sets. I like to keep them in my glove compartment and I also buy them in bulk so they're much cheaper. They're great to get out during any downtime and dust off your vents and keep them clean. Dollar Tree's Junkshare brand has some really cute bandanas this year. I grabbed them to use as napkins. I recently saw my friend Shannon over at the Daily DIYer do this with some patriotic napkins so I decided to grab some for my table as well because we influence each other as you know. To make these fun bows, you're going to take a bandana, fold it in half as a triangle, fold it in strips like this, flip it over like a cancer support ribbon, and then we're just going to slide the napkin ring over two sides and then fluff the little pieces with our fingers. That creates a really fun little bow to put on top of these chargers which also came from Dollar Tree and it's just a fun way to add color to your tablescape. Because the bandanas were so cheap, I spent a little bit more on these Target napkin rings from Hearth and Hand and they are so beautiful and they make it look awesome. Now if you don't want to go the bow route, you could easily just do a traditional napkin ring scrunch, grab the center, slide it down, and this looks really cute on these plates as well. The smaller circular plate is also from Dollar Tree so you can get really affordable but really pretty centerpieces for your summer table. Another quick and easy way to decorate if you don't have a ton of time but you want to look festive is to find any container in your house, I like to do this in vases, and just put in some of these smaller stick flags. You can get a pack of three for $1.25 and I like to put them in areas where I don't have a ton of seasonal decor, it just adds a little bit of color and it looks like you tried really hard without having to do so. This next one is inspired by my mom because she likes to bring a green salad as her dish to pasta parties. I decided to grab some muffin tins to help take any of those toppings that you want to take to the party. So I'm adding cheese, some cut up boiled egg, cucumber, tomato, croutons, even some olives, you can put whatever you want in here, and then you just bring it to the party with a bowl full of chopped up lettuce of your choice, and then the guests can grab with the little tongs any toppings that they want to make their salad. This is also great for taco bars, for baked potato bars, and you can also fill this with toppings for hamburgers, hot dogs, and brats to make it easy for people to self-serve and everything stays in its own container. Another barbecue must have are coffee filters because they are the perfect holder for brats and hot dogs. You just put your bun right in there, it makes it easy to put all of your toppings on, and then it is easy to go. If you have double header sports events this summer, especially baseball, softball, this is great for less waste and it takes up a lot less room in your bags. Just throw it in there, $150 for $1.25. Another great use is to use it on your dessert table, especially when you're outside by the pool. Folks can just grab those, use them kind of as a napkin, but you can do it a lot cheaper and it's also going to take up a lot less room in your garbage, especially for parties than a traditional plate or napkin would, which is really nice when it comes to those parties because you know you always have a party a couple days after garbage day and your garbage is overflowing. At least that always happens to us. I always feel like I'm at a store and remember I need something when I've got about six more stops in the summer, so I like to keep this thermal bag folded up in my trunk. Then that way if I need something frozen or perishable, I just throw it in there and it will prolong the time I have to get home without it spoiling. I tend to wear more jewelry in the summer months and this hack for bracelets has been a game changer. I can never hook these dainty ones myself, so you can grab either masking tape or just some regular scotch tape and you're going to take it and hook that bracelet right to your wrist. Then when you go to hook it, it's not going to move on you when you pull the other side, so it makes it so much easier to just go ahead and clip it yourself. More often than not, Alex is busy when I want to put my bracelet on so now I can do it myself. Another jewelry hack that is great for summer travel is grabbing one of these pill organizers and just taking a little bit of acetone and removing all of the words on the front. That way you can see directly into each of the compartments and you can use it as a jewelry organizer for travel. You can put one item per container, then your necklaces will not get tangled up, your earrings will stay together, and it's got a really good sized profile that you won't need to have a ton of space to put it in your bag. And if you have any slots left, you can add things like medication or any other small items you don't want to lose and keep organized. I've seen these buckets pop up all over TikTok because people have been using them for yard games. Once I saw them, I knew I had to grab 12 and I also grabbed two of these balls from the dog aisle. I grabbed it because I wanted a giant game of bozo buckets for Finn, but on TikTok, people have been using it for yard pong. So to set that up, you just need six per side and you set them up in a triangle and then you can go ahead and play with those balls. I ended up getting the dog toy version because I wanted them to be a little bit more waterproof. So I added some water to the bottom of the buckets just so they wouldn't fall over as easily when we were playing the game. My assistant decided that I was not doing it correctly, so he wanted to fix it for me. And I said, you know what? Go right on ahead. That's why mom bought these in the first place. Speaking of being a mom and having a toddler, this is something I just learned this year and I know it's not new, but I had to share in case you didn't know like me. I like to add dish soap to his water table. The bubbles add just a whole nother level of fun for him. He will play in that thing for literal hours and it's a car wash. It is so many things all in one. So just add the soap to the water table and keep them busy for a long time. This next hack is totally out of necessity because last weekend we couldn't get into the pool right away because we had a chemical balance issue. So I grabbed one of our pool noodles and poked some holes in it to see if maybe I could shoot some water out of it as a faux sprinkler because the one we had was way too intense and hit him in the face. I ended up putting the holes in one end and then using some tape. I found duct tape would be better on one end, but the packing tape worked and then I used my screw from the garage again to poke any holes and open spots. It worked in a bind and it's great if you don't have a sprinkler and you want a quick fix. If you've got a sandbox or you're heading to the beach this summer, grab some of these dog food scoops. They are the perfect size for little hands and you can scoop a ton more than the cheap scoops that you can find in the summer section. I grabbed this one for Finn and he absolutely loves it. Does your pool area or deck look anything like mine? We don't have a ton of pool things, but the ones that we do are all over the place and every time there's a little bit of wind, I go running out there so they don't blow away. I had one bungee cord and I wanted to get some more at Dollar Tree. They didn't have any, but they did have these dog leashes that looked like bungee cords. I thought they might be stretchy. They ended up not being, but it worked out just fine. I unhooked them from their package and I looped them around these large inner tubes that we had. I then moved the two loops close enough together that I could slide our pool noodles right on through and then any other openings I slid in any other Finn inflatable toys that I had. This is a great fix. Now things don't blow away in the wind. I just clipped it around to the handle portion and it was good to go. And if the five foot dog leash is a little bit too much for the items that you have, you can also clip it underneath the handle, shortening it just enough to keep things taut. To help with drying your pool items in the summer, grab one of these over the door hangers. I decided to put it on the wood chairs that I recently built, but you could also put them on your deck, a ton of other places. It adds so many hooks for things to dry. I've got his life jacket, his hat, his swim stuff, and it allows it to get dry outside before I bring it in. It keeps everything in a small space and it just is so much better than trying to fling it over the fence and having it fall. Now we also have a fence to our yard that it hooks perfectly on. I also really like that it is coated metal, so it's not going to get rusty with the water touching it. And there's so many different places you can hang it. It fits on so many different surfaces. For this next one, grab some hangers from Dollar Tree, or you can grab them from your own closet. I'm going to take some tin snips here that I got from Amazon, and I'm just going to cut a section out of the bottom of this hanger. Then you can pop it on either side of a paper towel roll, and this makes it easy for so many different use cases to keep paper towels handy. It's great for a campfire. It's also great for camping, or if you're in an RV, you can hook it on a ton of different things. And we really like it for our back shed because it's nice if you're working out there, something gets greasy, you can easily grab paper towels. We had a roll out there, but it kept falling off the table, so this keeps it up and out of the way. These garden flag sticks are also really helpful for keeping paper towels accessible, but out of the way. You can push it into the ground or into the sand at the beach. Just pop on that roll of paper towels, and it is easily accessible for everybody to use. This is perfect for around the campfire, for sticky s'mores hands. It's also perfect for camping, picnics, and for those doubleheader games where you're eating lunch, pop it in the ground. I'm a huge fan of Dollar Tree's selection of glow items this year. I just saw these balls, and they also have these great wands you can grab for fireworks so you don't have to spend a crazy amount of money if you go to fireworks. I also love to use them to do glow baths for Finn. This has been one of his favorite things. I threw a glow ball in there, as well as three of just these little bracelets, and it really lights up the bath, it makes it super fun, and it is a great summertime memory. Those packages of bracelets, I got 25 of them for $1.25. And speaking of illumination, I always like to grab a Dollar Tree nightlight when we go on a trip, especially when we go up to the lake. I like to turn it on, especially now that Finn is potty trained, and so I want to make sure that if he gets up at night or has to go, that we can all see what's going on. It's also nice for hotel rooms or when you're in a new place so that people don't trip over anything. I need you to do me a favor. Give this video a thumbs up, and then also head down to the comments and leave me a little sun emoji that lets me know you're loving this video and that you made it this far. Now also, while you're down there, you can opt into my email list so you won't miss a future video. I will not spam you, but I use it to send reminders because so many of you have told me that you aren't hearing from YouTube that I have a new video, and that is like a super bummer to me. So if you opt into my emails, I will send you an email when I post a new video. You can click it and come right over. So let me know in your comment if you came over from my email list because I love to know that it's working. Fingers crossed. Now let's get back into the hacks. Another summer must-have for me are these cupcake baking cups. You can either get the pretty ones for a 50 pack, or you can just go with these regular ones for 90 for the same price. I love bomb pops in the summer. It's just so nostalgic for me, but my fingers get so sticky and so do fins. So I like to grab these cupcake liners. You can go ahead and just pop a little hole in the center. I push it through the stick, but I flip the cupcake liner over so then that way it's going to protect your fingers, and if anything drips, it's going to get on the cupcake liner, not your fingers. It makes it so much easier to enjoy your popsicle because I just hate getting that on my fingers. Another way to beat the heat when you're entertaining is to grab two of these lasagna pans. I shared this last year. So many of you said you did it for your summer parties, so I wanted to make sure to share it again in case anybody missed it. You're going to keep them doubled up and fill up the top pan about a one inch, eh, inch and a half layer of water. Throw it in your freezer. I like to keep this in my deep freeze so it's ready to go when we have people over. And once it's frozen solid, you have a really nice way to keep things cold when you're serving food outside. Now you can either put items directly on the ice or you can put the other pan on top and put food in that. I like to put items just right on top of the ice like fruit. It keeps things really cold. You just pop it right on there and as it melts, it's just really going to keep those items cool, especially with that foil on the outside. Now you're probably wondering, Whitney, what did you put that potato salad in? I like to grab these containers because they are perfect for keeping bugs out of your food. I love that the lid is on quote unquote tight, but you don't have to twist it or pull too hard to get it off. So it makes it easy for kids or anybody with their hands full to get in there, grab a scoop of whatever and keep the bugs out. I also really like that these large ones hold an entire bag of party size chips. So these are party size Cool Ranch Doritos, party size Wavy Lays. They are actually very big. They hold a lot. And this is another thing where you can keep the bugs out. People can grab what they need and then put the lid back on. I recently shared on my TikTok about these cool kids cups in the kitchen aisle at Dollar Tree. That video went viral. I have no idea why the video I spent two seconds on went viral, but you know, it's the nature of the beast. So I'm going to show you a fun hack to keep water colder in those. You're going to remove the straw and you're going to fill it up about halfway with water. Put the lid back on again without the straw because we don't want the ice to freeze to the straw. And then we're going to put the bottle in the freezer horizontally. Then when it freezes, it's going to freeze on one side of the bottle. And then you're going to be able to put the straw back in there along with the water. And your kid's going to be able to drink. It's going to be water that stays cold, especially if you're going to the zoo, you're going on a walk, you're going to the park, you're going to the beach, whatever. And then as the water melts, they've got more water to drink. I was recently perusing Pinterest and I saw these beautiful images from down Shiloh Lane of how she used vintage tins to decorate. I don't have those. It takes time to collect them. So I decided to dupe them with Dollar Tree items. I grabbed some of these Father's Day tins as well as some different food items. And I started by measuring the height of the container as well as around the outside. So I knew how big I needed to make my labels. Then I made a custom size in Canva and I started to recreate the vintage images that I wanted based on the images I could find online. I really wanted a campfire marshmallow traditional like vintage looking tin just because that makes me really think of summer. I love s'mores. Once I got them to where I wanted them, and don't worry, these will be free printables over on my blog for you so you can go download them. I put them into a Google Doc and then I clicked image options up at the top. Then I go to the right and I select size and rotation. And then I'm going to size it to what I needed to fit those individual containers. I'm going to flip it to its side. And then with the image selected, I am going to go down to the bottom here and select the option all the way to the right. Then I'm also going to select fixed position on page. And that's going to allow me to move it around in the size that I need it to fit it right on the page. I get so many questions from you guys on how do I print the printables to size. This is how I do it and it works every time. I ended up having to print on some yellowish cardstock because I was out of white and it actually worked just fine. But just FYI, that's why it's kind of yellowed, but it added to the vintage vibe. I use my Fisker slice cut to cut everything out. And then I use some double sided tape to apply it around the container. For this bigger breadcrumbs one, the circumference around the container is bigger than an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper. So I had to just cut an extension, which I made this in Canva as well. It'll be over in the folder if you want to cover a Dollar Tree breadcrumb container as well in the same size. And we're just going to stick it right on the container. I also made my own scrapbook paper that I cut out. And this was another case where I had to do two of them and overlap them just because the size of my container is bigger than the size of my paper. These are so fun. And I love having these in my entryway as kind of part of my Americana setup. I did a tomato paste can, I have a strawberry can, I did a can for the campfire marshmallows. And you could also put this on some just regular tin cans, like after you have soup or veggies or whatever, just clean it out, measure it and add it to that. If you're hosting a 4th of July get together, this hack is for you. It's going to make your display table or even a fun photo prop picture area so much better. I grabbed red, white and blue tablecloths for the 4th of July, but you could do this in any color. And you're going to start by opening your tablecloth and cutting directly down the middle. Once you have your two pieces, you are going to fold both of them in half longways or hot dog style. And then we are going to fold them again down to a square. So you're just going to fold, fold, fold. This makes it a lot easier to cut the fringe for this backdrop because you don't have to cut so many times, you can kind of double it up. Now here the key is to have very sharp scissors and you're going to cut fringe all the way to the top and leave about a 1 inch seam. Also while you're cutting, you want to make sure that the fold from when you folded it longways hot dog style is at the top so that you've got a nice strip for how we're going to attach it to our jute twine. Now I repeated that on all of my colors. I did two tablecloths of each color. And then to get them onto the jute twine, I kind of did this handlebar method. I used my thumb to separate them down the fold and that made it so much easier to add it to my jute twine. Now this is super official. I put the jute twine underneath two lamps in my living room just so it was held up for me. And then after I had everything kind of scrunched up like I showed you before, I'm just laying it over the top and using a stapler to staple it so it stays onto the jute twine. You're going to do that for all of your different strands and then we're going to tie some loops in the end of the jute twine, stick a command hook to the wall, and then I'm just using those loops to hook each piece onto the two command strips. I ended up doing three on each side, so six command strips total. And I worked my way down the line with the different colors. I did red, white, and blue in a stripe motif, but you could cluster all the red, all the white, and all the blue. You could really do whatever your heart desires for this. Now I wasn't going for perfect. I was just going for full. And then to add a little bit more fun and festiveness, I added this Dollar Tree Popsicle banner that I also found in the patriotic section. How cute would this be behind a food setup? It would also be super adorable for photos. And there are so many different options for what you could use this for, but I think I'm going to leave it up and have a table of fun-themed desserts in front of it. It'll also make really great photos and memories. Whew! I told you this video was going to be jam-packed. That was so many hacks, so now I need you to let me know down in the comments which ones are your favorite, which ones are you going to implement this summer. A huge thank you for watching. Be sure to opt into the email list down below if you want those reminders, and I will catch you guys in the next one. Bye!