Cleaners that Work

Over the past year, Pinterest has led me to so many interesting blogs and ideas that I would have never come across otherwise.  So many of these ideas have been so helpful around the house.  I thought I would share my very favorite finds.

Magic Shower Cleaner (source here)

I used this last night for the first time, and I am converted.  We have a tub with a textured bottom and it always looks so dirty.  The only thing that has remotely worked in the past is a magic eraser, but I had to scrub so hard, I would be sore all over.  This recipe just calls for a cup of vinegar, heated in the microwave for a couple of minutes and a cup of blue Dawn dish soap.  I sprayed the shower down and let it sit for a few hours.  When I started wiping it down with a wet sponge, the grime lifted off without any effort.  It was really astonishing!

Miracle Carpet Spot Cleaner (source here)

I hate carpet.  I wish I had hard-surface floors in every room of my house – like my parents home – where you can see every bit of dirt or dust instead of it hiding down in layers of carpet and rug pads.  That said, I do have carpet and I do have cats, one of which is broken and doesn’t always find the litter box to be convenient.   I have tried tons of different carpet spot cleaners, all of which leave a residue that then attracts more dust/dirt.  My carpet cleaner does an okay job and makes me feel better about pulling the dirty water back out of the carpet.  But this trick seems to be where it’s at – even if it is by far the stinkiest remedy.

I just fill a spray bottle with one part hot water and one part ammonia. Spray the spot and lay a white towel over the sprayed area.  Use a hot iron over the towel and the spray turns to steam and is absorbed by the towel, stain and all.  The ammonia smell dissipates very quickly and I have had no problems with the cats being interested in the spots I clean.  The spots are gone and there is no residue left to attract more dirt so the spot doesn’t reappear after a few days like they have when I’ve used store-bought cleaners.

To remove dust and hair on lampshades, I use a lint roller.  It wouldn’t work well on pleated shades I am guessing, but all of our shades are straight-sided and this trick works wonderfully!

Stainless Steel Cleaner (source here)

I don’t have stainless steel appliances, but I tried this trick on my Simple Human trash can.  It gets pretty spotty from things inevitably spilling down or splattering from items we throw away.  My all-purpose spray never gets all of that off of it.  I mixed a tablespoon of Cream of Tartar with a few drops of water and coated the sides of the trash can.  I used a sponge to rub it in and then washed it off with a wet rag.  All of the spots and streaks were gone!

Garbage Disposal Cleaner (source here)

This house is the first place I have lived with a garbage disposal.  I am still a little shy of putting things down it sometimes.  I usually clean it with vinegar and baking soda or occasionally squirt some cleaner down the drain that is specifically for the disposal.  Then I read about sharpening the disposal blades by putting ice through it.  This recipe accomplishes both at the same time.  I filled an ice tray with a small slice of lemon and vinegar and froze it.  When they were frozen, I put the cubes in a freezer bag because the vinegar is strong smelling.  Now I can just pull out a cube and send it down the disposal for a quick refresher.

Self-Disinfecting Toilet Brush (source here)

I have written about this before, but it is worth including.  I hate having to leave the toilet wand under the seat  to dry, so when I saw this idea, I knew I had to make it.  I used a Marvicide jar with diluted Barbicide from Sally’s Beauty Supply for the base.  The toilet wand came from Target and perfectly fit the jar without any modifications.  No more nasty toilet wand floating around in the bathroom cabinets.

Laundry Cleaning Tricks

I’m not obsessive about our laundry, but I have picked up a few helpful tricks.  The first is using peroxide to remove blood from clothing.  It is amazing how well this works.

Another is using dish detergent to remove grease stains.  Someone in our house has a penchant for getting food stains on his shirts a lot and this trick works even if it has accidentally made it through the washer and dryer undetected.

I also never use fabric softener when I wash our towels.  Evidently it builds up on the towels and makes them less absorbant and a little funky even.  I have started using straight vinegar in the fabric softener compartment in the washer.  I also add a couple dozen drops of lavender essential oil to the bottle of vinegar to add a hint of the fresh scent to our laundry.

Now for a few tricks that I did not find to be all that useful for me:

  1. Using car wax on the stove top to make cleanup easier.  I didn’t really experience any difference after the wax, but maybe I did something wrong. (source here)
  2. Homemade ring cleaner using powdered laundry detergent.  I have yet to try other homemade recipes, but for whatever reason this one did not work for me.  (source here)

Eco-Friendly Home

I have been researching ways to substitute earth-friendly products for chemical-laden ones around our home.  I have been using Seventh Generation toilet cleaner, laundry and dishwasher detergent for a while now, but now I want to go even further.  I have decided to try Vinegar as a weed killer and had Bradley use Miloganite to fertilize the lawn this year.  I also plan to start shifting over to vinegar for cleaning, as well as baking soda, cream of tarter, Castille soap and Borax.  I may try my hand at making my own laundry detergent and hand soap as well.

I haven’t bought disposable cleaning wipes in years, because they are expensive and wasteful, but I do like the thought of having a quick and easy solution for wiping down the bathroom counter.  Then it dawned on me – I can make reusable cleaning wipes.  I purchased a plastic food storage container with a rubber seal and a set of flour sack towels.  I cut the towels up, getting six wipes from each towel.  I folded them to fit in the container and poured all-purpose cleaning solution on them. (At this point I use diluted Simple Green which is non-toxic and biodegradable)

In addition to household cleaners, I am also interested in making healthier health/beauty choices.  I have been using organic shampoo and conditioner for years now to get away from the sulfates.  Recently, I spent a morning making homemade lip balm using this recipe.  I ended up making 14 tubes – the price per tube was a little more than $1 (which is what you would spend at the store for Carmex), but I still have a collection of empty tubes and a good bit of cocoa butter left over to make another batch one day.  I have also substituted coconut oil for lotion some.  I am trying out homemade bug spray, using witch hazel and peppermint essential oil.  My next adventure may be making shaving cream.

Patio Planters

The new (and the couple older) plants I put in the patio planters have really taken off.  I am very happy with the Cyclamen in the small pot.  It is the perfect size and pop of color.  Now that I have finally given up on conifers for the planters, I find that the large grasses are great as thriller plants.  The Dianthus from previous years bloomed a little a few weeks ago.  Now it is the Golden Globes Lisimaquia’s turn!  They came back strong this year with tons of yellow blooms – but it hasn’t draped over the side of the pot like it did last year yet.  The Dichondra Silver Falls has taken it’s job as a spiller very seriously.  I definitely feel like I get better at filling these planters each year.

Also, a few weeks ago, on our way to a baby shower in Cumming, we stopped by Scottsdale Farms to check out all of their plants – loved everything!  I came home with a Bergenia – a shade-loving, evergreen perennial with fleshy green leaves and tall blooms (although the bloom had already come and died on mine).  I had been thinking of putting out another dwarf gardenia in a bare spot in the courtyard, but this plant looked like a lot of fun.  It is supposed to be good for beginner gardeners – so far, so good!

The asiatic lily I got from the clearance rack last year has put out it’s first bloom this weekend:

Another exciting event happening in our yard is the brood of Chickadees in the bird house again this year.  The babies are big enough to watch out the opening for mom and dad to come with food.

 

Helpful Hostess

I thought I would share a helpful idea I picked up from one of my sister’s wedding showers years ago.  It seems traditional for the hostess to write down the name of each guest and their gift as they are opened for the bride or mom-to-be to reference when writing thank you notes.  At my sister’s shower, the clever hostess had a pre-printed list with the name of each guest, including their address and a blank for writing what gift they gave, which she filled in discreetly throughout the shower.  This method saves the guest of honor a ton of time on the back end, not having to find the addresses all over again for thank you notes.  And how easy is it to go ahead and print a master list when you are sending out the invites for the shower?

Here is an example:

One unfortunate trend I have seen recently is hostesses asking guests to fill out their own thank you card envelopes.  I was always taught that this is very rude.  As a hostess, feel free to go above and beyond for the guest of honor, but asking guests to do the work for the bride or mom-to-be seems pretty tasteless.  Sending thank you notes is still good etiquette and often expected – I would hate to ruin the GOH’s opportunity to be gracious and grateful by offending the guests.

Bamboo Towels

Recently I came across a blog about running your bath towels through the wash with vinegar and then again with baking soda to help get rid of any smells or residual soap.  I tried it out and felt like it did help freshen them, but it seems that nothing will bring back the softness that our towels had over six years ago.  So I started the search for new towels.

After realizing the amazing qualities of bamboo sheets – anti-microbial, softness, moisture wicking – I thought bamboo towels might be the way to go.  Turns out, from what I can tell, towels are not made from 100% rayon from bamboo.  The ratio seems to fall right around 25% bamboo/75% cotton.  This gives the towels the softness and absorption expected from bamboo but the durability of cotton.

I purchased a set of towels by the same company that made our sheets at Tuesday Morning.  Initially, I am very excited about these towels.  They are really soft, but not in the way our cotton towels were when new.  It is kind of a silky soft rather than a fluffy soft – and supposedly will get softer over time like the sheet sets (although initially Bradley is not 100% convinced – he likes the fluffiness of nice cotton towels).  They seem to be very absorbent even though they aren’t as thick as high-end cotton towels.  Also, they seem to hold the heat from our towel warmer much better than our old cotton ones.  I plan to be diligent about washing them as recommended: wash in cold water and dry on low heat, use no bleach or fabric softener.  Time will tell.