29 Smart Sponge Life Hacks & Uses To Blow Your Mind

Sponges are a fantastic option for mess-free painting. If you’re getting tired of paintbrush-splatters, try using sponges instead. 

If you’ve always liked the idea of growing your own herbs, you’ll be happy to know that with the help of a sponge, it's easier than you might imagine. Simply take an old plate and place a damp sponge in the centre. 

Pop your seeds on top, being careful to leave them enough space between them to grow. Then position a glass bowl over the top, and place it on a windowsill or other surface that gets a lot of light. Your little seeds will sprout in no time.

If you use an object frequently enough to get callouses, you’ll know how painful they can be. Luckily, it’s easy enough to avoid the build-up of rough skin by attaching a kitchen sponge to the handle of the object you're using with an elastic band. 

You can try this on pretty much anything, including the handles of knives, shovels, and exercise machines.

Sponges make a great substitute for bubble wrap, so if you’re moving house or taking a road trip, why not pad out your valuables when packing? The bouncy, cushioning texture of sponges make them highly effective for this purpose, and they'll keep all objects, however delicate, perfectly intact.

If you’re the owner of delicate vases, you’ll know that while they look so pretty, they're not always easy to clean out and dry. You can make cleaning a little less stressful by attaching a sponge to a chopstick and pushing it into the smaller space.

Does your bar of soap seem to run out far too quickly? You can use a sponge to help you get more use out of your bar and prevent waste. 

Just cut out the centre of your sponge and pop the soap inside. The sponge will soak up any soapy residue, and also mean you're able to continue to reap the benefits of your bar of soap, no matter how small it gets.

Decorative objects such as vases and bowls make the house look lovely, but they can leave unsightly scratches and stains on your woodwork. To resolve this issue, cut a thin layer from your kitchen sponge and attach it to the undersides of such items. 

This will stop them from marking your surfaces.

Wallpaper can be a real nightmare to remove, but you can make things easier with a kitchen sponge. Soak your sponge in a diluted solution of fabric softener and hot water, then squeeze out the excess water and wipe over your walls to break down the adhesive and make the wallpaper easier to remove.

Unless you're a pro-gardener, it can often be difficult to know how much water your plants need. A great trick to get past this is to cut a sponge the size of the base of your plant pot, and place it at the bottom. 

It will soak up any excess liquid, so your plant's roots will stay moist, but won't be left drowning in a puddle of water.

Pedicures are a bit of a nightmare without one of those nifty toe-separators. Luckily, you can easily create the same separation between your toes with a few cuttings of an old sponge. 

You’ll be able to keep your toes the perfect distance apart while you put on your polish and ultimately avoid smudging.

Weeding and scrubbing floors is hard work, and you may end up putting too much strain on your knees. If you don’t have a fancy kneeling stool, you can attach a couple of sponges to your knees using an elastic hair band to keep your knees comfy.

We may love our pets, but the hair they leave lying around the house is far from fun to clean up. If you're sick of the sight of hairy furniture, use a dry sponge to wipe over the offending surfaces. The sponge will pick up hair in no time and leave your home looking spick and span.

If you’ve owned indoor plants for a while, you’ll notice that they need cleaning from time to time. You can keep them healthy and looking great by wiping them over with a damp sponge every month or so.

Anyone who owns children will know that one great money-saving trick is to recycle an older kiddo’s clothing for their younger brother and sister. But shoes are a lot harder to achieve a perfect fit! 

If your child doesn't quite fit into their older sibling's shoes yet, you can push a sponge into the toe to make them fit nice and snug until their feet grow naturally.

If you don’t have a spare cloth handy for applying shoe polish, another great way to apply it is with a dry sponge. The polish will go on super smoothly and evenly thanks to the spongy texture.

Umbrella stands are great until rainwater drips right through them and leaks out the bottom. A subtle way of preventing this is to place several sponges at the base of the stand. 

They'll soak up any drips and keep your front entrance nice and dry.

Wooden building blocks are fun for kids to play with, but they’re not the quietest of toys. You can solve this by making your own DIY building blocks out of sponge. 

Just cut a selection of different coloured sponges into strips, and your children will be able to use them as building blocks for creating all sorts of masterpieces.

Sponges make great reusable dryer sheets, so if you haven’t got any to hand, here’s your solution. First, soak a couple of sponges with fabric softener and keep them wet. 

Whenever you want to use one of these dryer sheets, squeeze out as much of the water as you can and throw it in the dryer.

Cold makeup sponges can do wonders for tired, puffy skin in the morning. Just soak one of your sponges in a mix of water and rubbing alcohol, and put it in the freezer for a couple of hours in an airtight bag. The rubbing alcohol will make your makeup sponge pliable and will prevent it from freezing altogether.

Window blinds are definitely a pain to clean, but you can engineer a perfect blind cleaner yourself with just two sponges and a food clip. Cut two gaps into sponges and make sure that the food clip fits right inside. Then get to work cleaning between your blinds.

Nobody likes to deal with oil leaks all over their flooring, and it’s better to prevent than cure. Grab a plastic bag and a large sponge, and place it directly under the dripping oil until the leak can be fixed.