If you're a hobbyist like me, then you'll surely appreciate some of these hints that I have for you:
To keep your brushes from stiffening up after multiple uses with paints or glue, you may want to clean them up with your hands after every use with just a little bit of soap and warm water. If they're already hardened, a good way to soften them up would be to put them in a cup with some water mixed with a little bit of fabric softener. Leave it for a couple of hours and your brushes would be as good as new.
If you do a lot of painting, you might want to spread out some pieces of newspaper on your working table to keep paint from getting all over your furniture. This is also a good way to clean up easily after every hobby session. If you're going to use newspaper for this purpose, try placing several layers of it so the paints or glue won't bleed through.
A good way of removing glue stains from any surface is to use ordinary rubbing alcohol. The alcohol is a good solvent which can easily dissolve hardened glue. You can use this in case the glue gets to your clothes or any other thing that you, otherwise, wouldn't want to have glue on.
Try placing a little piece of plastic wrap on your paint bottles before you screw them on. You'll find that the next time you open them for use, the paints won't crust out, you'll find it a lot easier to unscrew, and your materials would be considerable more fresh than ever.
If you're painting really small objects, try making a masking tape loop and putting it on the small eraser on a pencil. You can use the sticky tape to hold on to the small object you're painting on and then you can use the pencil as a handle for it. If you want to dry it, just put the pencil in a pencil holder or a cup.
