Money Saving Monday

We've all seen them...the FABULOUS posts about making your own laundry detergent, and saving "LOADS" of money. I fully support that type of thing! Unfortunately, my time manager, does not. This little money saving trick took me mere minutes to complete... and that, my friends, is all the time I have for "projects" these days. I gathered my supplies: My "DELIGHTFUL~touch of softness~ detergent" that I LOVE!! My cheap-o, store brand detergent, and a large empty container.

I just mixed them up together (2 cheapo scoops, per one lovely scoop).

I printed out a cute label... though I wanted color...our ink is out.

Adhered my label to my plastic container, and ended up with this...

Not too shabby for 5-10 minutes of work. It still smells like lovely lavender, but I have twice as much!!

Tidy Tips: Protecting Your Sofa

Having a toddler is doing major damage to my sofa.  I finally decided to be brave and throw the cushion covers into the washing machine on the cold, extra delicate cycle.  I let them hang dry and it took all the spots out, HOORAY!  The only problem was that nakie baby in the background, we didn't want him ruining the cushion in the interim of the washing and hang drying process.  My husband had a brilliant idea.......

He grabbed one of our extra crib sheets and it fit perfectly over the cushions.  I loved the idea so much, I almost want one on there all the time, LOL!  The sheet is from IKEA and it measures 52"x28".  As for the spots on the sofa that I can't throw in the washer, I saw this post on Pinterest, great idea!

How to Remove Hard Water From A Faucet: Tidy Tips

So this tidy tip is courtesy of my husband, he did all the hard work! We have started to notice that our faucets were spraying all over the place. One look at them and you can see why, the gross hard water build up around the tap. Seriously looking at this makes me sick!

I have sold my husband on vinegar and it's many wonders and he thought he would put it to the test to try to remove the hard water from the spouts. Here they are in all their gross glory.....
He put the vinegar into a normal drinking glass, and stuck it in the microwave until it was boiling.
One he pulled it out of the microwave, he dropped all the parts in, and it was like Alka Selzer, the hard water started to bubble right off! Look at how amazing the difference is. Clean and shiny, good as new.
As you can see the water is now flowing freely without any crazy splashing going on.
Oh vinegar how I love you!

My Favorite Cleaning Supply...

We ALMOST made it through the winter without getting sick...then BAM a nasty cold has hit our house hard this week. First it was the baby, then me, now my hubby too. All I have done this week is wipe noses, wash hands, and try to keep my house disinfected to prevent spreading any more germs. The other day I mentioned I am trying to go more of a natural route when it comes to cleaning, and a few months ago, you may even remember a post about home made cleaners. We have fallen in love with vinegar in my house! You may think "Yuck the smell", but as soon as it is dries the smell is gone.

The other day we bought a giant 2 gallon box of white vinegar from Costco and it listed a bunch of uses for vinegar. I am going to post my favorite 10, there are far more uses than this though!

1: Toilet Bowl Cleaner- Clean & deodorize your toilet bowl by pouring undiluted white distilled vinegar into it. Let it stand about 5 minutes, then flush. Stubborn stain may require a gentle scrub.

2: Ants- Ant invasions can be deterred by washing counter tops, cabinets, and floors with distilled vinegar. This is a lot more pet and child friendly than ant poison!

3: Grass or Weeds- Kill unwanted grass on sidewalks and driveways by pouring on vinegar. Love the alternative to poison.

4: Irons- Remove burn stains from your electric iron by mixing one part salt with one part vinegar in a heated small aluminum pan.

5: Glassware- 1/2 cup of distilled white vinegar added to a gallon of rinse water will remove soap film from glassware and make it shine. I just add it to my dishwasher, no need to buy Jet Dry.

6: Vegetables- Liven up slightly wilted veggies by soaking them in cold water and vinegar.

7: Meat- A marinade of 1/2 cup of your favorite vinegar and a cup of liquid bouillon makes an effective meat tenderizer.

8: Cheese- Keep cheese moist and fresh by wrapping it in a cloth that has been damped with vinegar and sealed in an air tight wrap or container.

9: Onion Odors- Quickly remove onion odor from your hands by rubbing them with distilled white vinegar.

10: Flowers- Add 2 TBSP of vinegar plus 3 TBSP of sugar to a quart of warm water to keep fresh cut flowers blooming longer.

What do you use vinegar for?

Organizing Your Cleaning Supplies: Tidy Tips.

My baby became mobile about a month ago and is now zooming around the house getting into whatever he can find! He had been somewhat mobile for about 3 months scooting around, but didn't really start crawling until about a month ago. We have started the child proofing and the first thing we did was get all dangerous things up high. Here is what I did with the cleaning supplies to keep them out of babies reach, yet still easy to use.

I bought a couple cleaning caddy's at Target, one for the bathroom supplies, one for everything else. Before having a mobile baby I had the cleaning supplies on lazy susans underneath the sinks in each room, but I like this even better!

I have the caddy's far out of reach, up high in my laundry closet, then I just grab the caddy I need for the room I am going to clean. Easy and convenient.
We are trying to move toward more natural, non chemical cleaners in our house, and are slowing phasing out buying new cleaners at the store. Now if only spring would hurry up and get here, but this weekend we got another few inches of snow. :(

Have you had to baby proof? What are your tricks?

Tidy Tips: Storing and Organizing Blankets

Fall brings cooler temperatures and growing up in the desert; I have a pretty low tolerance when it comes to cold. Once November hits, I break out all my blankets and quilts, so that I can bundle up without having to break the bank with our heating bill. Blankets can be a tricky thing to store, but you don’t want to have them strewn about your house either.

Baskets are the perfect way to store blankets in plain sight, so they are readily available for use. I have a blanket basket in my family room for all of my quilts and available for the sofa bed when guests are staying (sorry there is no photo; my family room is not currently in a photo worthy state). I also have one in my son’s room, since you tend to need a lot of blankets with a baby. Even if the blankets are just thrown in, it still looks nicer than having them strewn about.

Easy Dishwasher Magnet

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, my husband and I had just sat down for breakfast. I had grabbed 2 bowls out of the dishwasher, we ate our cereal and I went to put away the rest of the dishes from the dishwasher. I pulled out a glass, and to my horror, realized that the dishes in the dishwasher were NOT CLEAN! My husband could see on my face that something was wrong, and when he asked what, I didn't want to tell him. He was mortified, which was actually surprising to me since he had lived in the ghettos of Brasil for 2 years. To prevent this from happening again, I decided to make a dishwasher magnet.

I had just downloaded the new kit, the PLENTIFUL collection, from shabby princess, and it had the cutest journal paper. I knew this would make the perfect dishwasher magnet! I was printing some photos to Costco, so I decided to print off my magnet on photo paper. I thought the photo paper would be a bit more durable in the kitchen.

After cutting out my templates I found one of my more powerful magnets, so that it would work from both sides, and used a little hot glue to secure it in place.

I glued the magnet onto both sides, and now have a cute magnet, that flips over from clean to dirty. I hope this will prevent any more incidents like the one above!

Homemade Cleaners

I don't just get the "Spring Cleaning" urge in April. I also get it once the kids are back in school. (Let's face it, the summer was just too fun to spend time cleaning). I wanted to share a quick post about making your own household cleaners, and some things I have learned over the years.

1- White Vinegar is your friend. Seriously, I buy this by the gallon and go through it like you wouldn't believe. It is a great all-purpose cleaner, and because I live with hard water (bleh!) I know that vinegar is a wonderful cleaner for all those pesky hard-water deposits and build-ups and gross what-nots. Since I have a house full of kids, I don't like to use a lot of the harsher cleaning products, and I find that vinegar works wonderfully.
Vinegar also deodorizes. As soon as it dries the vinegar smell is gone and so is the 'what-on-earth!' smell. To make an all-purpose cleaner add equal parts vinegar and water to a spray bottle. Kitchen cleaning, bathroom cleaning, this is even safe enough for hardwood floors.

2- Baking Soda. I use baking soda in place of "scrubbing" cleaners. Just wet your sponge, put a small amount of baking soda on the scrubbing side and clean away! I use this all the time for my kitchen sink, because I don't need to worry that a residue of chemical is left from a harsher cleaner.

3- Alcohol. No I don't mean to take all the cares of cleaning away. Alcohol is a great evaporating agent. So, to make a glass/window cleaner: 1 cup water, 1 cup rubbing alcohol, 1 Tablespoon White Vinegar, and a few squirts of dish soap. Put it in a spray bottle and you have a great 'Windex' alternative.

Well, I hope that helps get you in the "Fall Cleaning" mood. Let me know if you use any other homemade cleaners and your recipes in the comments, share and share alike right? ;)

Tidy Tips: Organize Your Medicine Cabinet

I decided a few months ago it was time to tackle my medicine cupboard. I was sick of all the bottles falling out, and I really needed to go through it and dispose of expired medication. While doing this I kept thinking to myself “there has to be a good way to organize this”. I was also in an organizing mood, so I was going through a few of the cupboards in my kitchen. If you anything like me you have oodles of Tupperware. I never am using all of it at once, and I have found that there are certain sizes I rarely use. I then decided that Tupperware would be the perfect way to organize my medications. I divided up the medications by category and then found the Tupperware that would work best, which also is the sizes I rarely use. I then used a dry erase marker to label the outside of each container for easy finding when you need it. The best part is I can always change the label by simply wiping it off. I no longer brace myself for a bottle eruption when I open that cupboard and I think it looks very neat and tidy.

Tidy Tips: Organizing Your Changing Table or Dresser

I grew up in a very clean and tidy home, and in my younger years I didn’t appreciate it. When I hit High School I started to realize that I had inherited this wonderful trait from my Mother. While most high school kid’s bedrooms are a mass of clutter and clothes, mine was quite clean and neat. The older I get the more this becomes a blessing and a curse (sometimes I can get too crazy about it). I love to organize and wish I had more time to do so, but who doesn’t? I am the newest Mom of the bunch and when I started a baby budget, I just couldn’t see the point in getting a changing table. It didn’t make sense to spend money on something you would only be using a short time. My husband and I opted to make our own and IKEA was having a killer deal on the MALM 3 door dresser, it was a steal at only $39! We bought the dresser, attached a changing pad to it and “voila”, instant changing table! A dresser is something that can grow with my child, now the only challenge was how to organize it? I am quite the IKEA lover, they are so good at organizing, and I had bought the KOMPLEMENT drawer organizers ($9.99) for my bedroom dresser. A light bulb went off, wouldn’t they be great to organize all of your changing table supplies! Really, this is a way to make your drawers look amazing and it takes all of about 5 minutes to do. I keep a refillable box of wipes and diaper rash cream on the top on the dresser and everything else is in the top drawer, easily accessible, and ready to use!