3 Tips for Tricky Stain Removal

Image from Organizeit.com

Happy Friday everybody! Last week we shared a recipe for dishwashing soap, but today we want to share some tips or simple recipes for removing 3 common summertime stains: wine, grass, and mustard. Hopefully equipped with these three techniques you can attend summer BBQ’s without fear of ruining that new sundress of yours!

Removing Wine Stains:

Ingredients: Water, lemon slice, glycerin, corn starch, eucalyptus oil

1. Rinse with COOL water immediately.
2. Then rub the stain with a slice of lemon several times. If the stain has had time to sit apply glycerin to it and wait 30 minutes before rinsing.
3. If this doesn’t take care of that stain combine a heaping tbsp of cornstarch, 1 tsp of of glycerin, and 2 drops of eucalyptus essential oil with just enough water to form a paste.
4. Apply the paste to the stain and put the garment in the sun to dry. Repeat until the stain is removed then wash as usual.

Removing Grass Stains: 

Ingredients: Vinegar, baking soda, water

1. Soak the soiled garment in vinegar.
2. Then combine baking soda with water to form a paste and apply it to the stain.
3. Wash in hot water.

Removing Mustard Stains:

Ingredients: Glycerin, laundry soap

1. Apply glycerin to the stain and let it sit for 30 minutes. This helps break up the turmeric which gives mustard it’s yellow dye.
2. Gently massage laundry soap into the stain and launder as usual.

What stains plague your laundry during the summer months?

 

Clean While You Sleep: Your Electric Kettle

Contemporary Coffee Makers And Tea Kettles design by Other Metro Macy’s

Happy Tuesday everybody. Today we’ve got another addition to our Clean While You Sleep Series! This time it’s a small kitchen appliance—your electric kettle (or a non-electric kettle for that matter). It’s an appliance whose inner workings often go neglected when it comes time to give the kitchen a scrub down. But calcium and lime deposits and dirt can build up quickly! Fear not though, we have a simple solution. Behold the simplest recipe & instructions

Ingredients:

• Vinegar
• Water

Directions

1. Fill your teakettle with equal parts vinegar and water.
2. Turn it on (for electric kettles) to bring it to a boil. If you are cleaning a stove top teakettle go to step 3, otherwise head to bed and wake up to step 4.
3. Once it starts boiling just turn off the heat (for stove top kettles) and go to bed!
4. When you wake up, the lime and calcium deposits and dirt should be gone. Just pour out the residue and rinse out the kettle.

How awesome is that? Just one more thing that you can clean while you sleep!

 

The Clean Fridge Routine

Image from the Container Store.

Perhaps staying on top of cleaning is part of your New Years Resolution? We’ve got plenty of advice and tips for accomplishing that goal! But we recommend taking on any new challenge is small measurable goals. So rather than say I will keep my house spotless why not set aside a month or week to focus on a cleaning routine for each part of your house. Or for a part of your messiest rooms?

The kitchen comes to our mind when we think of rooms that we spend a lot of time in and might need to the most attention. It is the heart of the home, where you cook (and usually eat) meals, where you sit and catch up over coffee, where you heal after a fight. So the kitchen seems like a logical place to start tackling. We’ve already covered how to organize your cabinets (see our tips here), speed clean your kitchen in 15 minutes (read the post here), how to clean your oven (read here)… and your small appliances (read here). So today we wanted to share some tips for cleaning and organizing your refrigerator!

When it comes to cleaning out your fridge we’ve got some general tips:

• Clean your fridge at least once a month, maybe give it a light bi-weekly clean as well.
• When you do clean up your fridge do it right before a big grocery trip when it is closer to empty.
• Pull out everything and check all the dates. Be sure to compost all truly expired or bad food.
• Make a list of goods that started to go bad before you ate or came close to finishing them. Take this list with you to the store as a reminder not to over buy!
• Pull out as many drawers and shelves as you can and wash them in your sink rather than trying to wash them in your fridge.
• Save energy while cleaning your fridge out and turn it off!
• Pick an organizational system that works for you. These posts by Goodbye House Hello Home and Organizing Homelife are amazing inspiration! Organizing Homelife’s tutorial even includes free printable labels! The Container Store and Bed Bath & Beyond have great organizational systems!

But we’ve also got a cleaning routine to get you started:

1. Pull out everything from the fridge, all the food, condiments, shelves, and drawers. Turn off the fridge to save energy.
2. Use an all-purpose cleaner to mist the inside surfaces. Close the door and let it sit for a few minutes.
3. Start a sink (or heck use your bathtub) of warm soapy water and soak the shelves and drawers in it. Or if you don’t have a bathtub or a large sink fill the drawers with soapy warm water and mist the shelves with all-purpose spray. Let it sit while you sort food.
4. Using a trash bag, recycling bin, and composting bin sort your food. Food that is expired or bad gets composted. Containers that are recyclable go in the recycling bin, and all else gets trashed (hopefully this is little).
5. For condiments you are keeping wipe off sticky residue with a damp sponge or towel.
6. After sorting take a soft sponge or cleaning cloth and wipe out the inside of your fridge. If you need a little more elbow grease you could use a sponge with a mild scrubbing side or make a paste of baking soda and water to scrub out hardened food (yuck!).
7. Take a damp cloth and give the inside of the fridge another pass over removing excess cleaner and food. Then take a dry cloth and dry off the inside.
8. Wash the soaking shelves and drawers of the fridge. Dry off the shelves and drawers and place back inside the fridge.
9. If you are using some organizational bins fill those with their proper contents before putting them away in the fridge. Group items in an orderly way as you put them back in your refrigerator. Check out these tips for storing food logically!
10. Wipe down the exterior of the fridge, paying special attention to the handle.
11. Relax and enjoy a sparkling clean fridge! We recommend doing this cleaning once every month or two, and maybe just spot clean weekly or bi-weekly!

Pretty simple right? Well once it becomes part of your routine it will be. Fridges are so hard to clean because often we let an entire year go by without wiping them down. Periodic cleanings will reduce your time spent on your fridge in the long run! What is your New Year’s resolution?

Speed Cleaning Your Bathroom

A bathroom in the Beamish Museum near Durham, United Kingdom (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bathrooms are one of those rooms in the house that can be tough to keep tidy especially if you let too much time go between cleanings. It’s also a room that most people want to be clean! So we’ve got a routine for you that will keep your bathroom clean and will require just 5 minutes a day, and a deeper shower cleaning every 2 or 3 weeks.

Directions:

• Clear off the countertops putting everything in it’s place (~1 minute)! We recommend organizing your bathroom with bins and baskets that keep closets and drawers looking tidy and makes finding what you need a cinch.
• Mist the mirror, countertops, and toilet with all-purpose spray (~30 seconds). Check out our recipe below. If your toilet needs a little deeper cleaning add some homemade sot scrub to the bowl.
• Wipe down all the surfaces in your bathroom (~1 minute). We like to start up high with the mirror and make our way down to the countertops, handles, and hooks/toilet paper holders.
• Straighten up any towels, shower curtains, or bottles in your shower, closet, or shelving (~1 minute). Don’t spend too long on this, but just a quick tidy.
• Use a dust pan to quickly clean up the floor(~1 minute). Don’t worry about a deep floor cleaning, just sweep up some of the hair and dust that can accumulate. Do this every 2 to 3 days. Keeping a small dustpan under the bathroom sink makes this super easy and effortless.
• Scrub the toilet (~30 seconds). Now that the spray and soft scrub have had time to sit, give the bowl a quick scrub.
• Empty the trash (~30 seconds). This is the last step, as you are leaving the bathroom empty take the trash with you (every few days, or as needed).

Doing this routine for 5-7 minutes every morning or evening will keep your bathroom tidy and reduce the need for deep cleanings. Every 2-3 weeks give your shower a deep clean with homemade soft scrub or your favorite cleaner.

Do you think this routine is doable? Have any suggestions—share them with us?