Have spilled soda and drops of pizza grease taken up permanent residence between the buttons of your remote control? "Accidental Housewife" Julie Edelman shares her techniques for cleaning sticky remotes and other hard-to-clean items.

• Baby wipes are a great way to clean your remote controls. There's so little moisture in the wipes that they won't harm the remote.

• Use a lint roller to dust off a lampshade. Lint rollers -- they're not just for couches and clothes anymore!

• Use vodka to clean scuff marks on your patent leather bags or shoes. Take a pad and use a little vodka. You can also use vodka to clean jewelry, but only platinum, gold and nonporous types.

• Denture tabs will clean small vases and bottles. It can be difficult to reach the gunk in the bottom of those tall vases, and sometimes you can't even get a bottle brush down in there. Fill the vase with a little water, drop in a denture tablet and let it fizz for a few minutes. Dump out the water and rinse! You can also use denture tablets in big mouth vases and toilet bowls.