Soap Scum Cleaner

Soap scum: be gone!!

Well, that didn't work so I guess I'll have to clean. Bummer.

A friend told me to try vinegar and Dawn dish detergent to remove soap scum. I'll admit: I l.o.a.t.h.e. cleaning our tubs and showers and had a LOT of scum on the sides. I wasn't sure this mixture would do the trick. She told me to microwave the vinegar for 2 minutes, put it in a spray bottle then add about 1/2 a cup of baking soda and shake gently. I'm telling ya, the vinegar smelled horrid!! Who knew vinegar smells so bad when heated? Oh, you did? Well I had no idea. You may want to wear a mask...the smell choked me up. Anyway, I sprayed the mixture on the sides and bottom of my tub and shower and let it to sit for about 2 hours. I was told the scum would wipe away easy peasy. I did have to scrub but not nearly as hard as I've had to scrub while using other cleaners. I was very happy with the outcome and my now sparkly, shiny shower and tub! Just use caution; I wouldn't use this mixture when little ones are around. The smell really is THAT bad.

 

Easy Carpet Cleaner

Stress is so not fun. We all deal with it; sometimes we deal with it daily, but it's still not fun. You'd think because I encounter it so much I'd have come up with some special remedy to make it go away or make it bother me less. But I haven't. Boy, do I wish I had the cure-all for stress. Oh sure, there are different things we're told to do to reduce stress: confide in a friend, take a hot bath, read a good book, take a nap, have a glass of wine, exercise, and on and on and on. But do these things really help you? For me, they're stallers...they put off whatever I'm going to have to inevitably deal with head on and I think I'd rather just deal with the stresser and get it over with. I've had two major, like take years off of my life, stressers this week. When I get stressed, I clean and purge my house. Hey! at least there is something positive going on around here...my house is looking GRRRRRR-eat!! Anywho, I could use some prayers and good karma.

Like I said, stress = cleaning for me. I've tried some great cleaning recipes I've found online and wanted to share in case you haven't seen them. Our house has hardwood floors everywhere except in two bedrooms (which happen to be the kids' rooms [soon to be hardwood]) and on the stairs down to the man cave (nasteeee).  I love you, Hub, but you are prone to nasty environment when left to your own devices. The landing at the bottom of the stairs has been home to a nice, large, black, greasy stain for months; yes, months. If I were smart, I would've taken a picture so you could see said nastiness...but who wants to show their nastiness? I should've for comparisons sake.... 

I found a concoction that claimed to eliminate stains and required nothing more than this:

and, of course, this:

(photo courtesy of absolutely-unbelievable.com)

I didn't have a spray bottle handy, but this little guy worked just fine. I put about 1/2 cup of baking soda in the bottle using a funnel and added hydrogen peroxide until it was full. Shake it well to mix the two (be sure to close the lid first or you will have extra clean counters like I now do). I squirted the mixture onto said nastiness, let it sit for about 5 minutes, then scrubbed with a scrub brush. Said nastiness was so nasty that the mixture bubbled up and got all foamy when it was applied to the stain. I don't know if that is the normal reaction or if my stain was just super stain. I'm telling ya, that stain was GROSS and I have no idea what it was from!

 

BUT IT IS NO MORE!!! 

This super easy mixture of ingredients that I already had on hand cleaned that bad boy right up! Now if only I can encourage Hub to prevent said nastiness from reoccurring...or keep a bottle close at hand.

 

 

 

Upcycled Nestle Quik Container

Our family drinks A LOT of chocolate milk, and when I say a lot I mean 

at least two glasses per day per person (minus my hub).

That's minimum 6 glasses of choco milk every day...we go through a lot of milk, too.

I've always thought the Quik containers would be great for storage, but they are not the prettiest things to look at. Today I decided to change that.

Need:

1 Quik Container (QC) - we had the oval shaped container

1-2 sheets of scrapbook paper

glue - I used school glue

ribbon

floral wire 

scissors

This is about the easiest project ever and took all of ten minutes max.

Wash the container inside and out to remove any leftover granules.

I just left the label on; I'm covering it, why go through the effort of removing it?

Measure 1 sheet of scrapbook paper against the QC.

I just held the paper up to the QC and cut the bottom of the paper so that

it would wrap slightly around the bottom of the QC (like wrapping a gift).

The paper wasn't long enough to cover the entire front and back of the QC so I made sure the front was covered in one whole piece of the paper and left about 3" of space uncovered in the back. If I have to piece the paper together, I want that to be in the back unseen.

There might be paper out there long enough to cover the front and back with one sheet, but I used what we had here already and it wasn't.

Glue the paper onto the front and sides of the QC.

Wrap the bottom of the paper under the QC as if you're wrapping a gift. Glue this down, too.

I held the leftover paper from my first cut up to the back of the QC and matched the patterns up so the piecing wouldn't be AS noticeable. I had to use 2 extra cuts of paper to cover the back portion that wasn't covered with the front paper.  Glue these on as well.

Now your QC should be completely covered minus the lid. I didn't wrap the lid because I want to be able to see inside and QC and I'm lazy. So I made a bow with ribbon I had and used floral wire to attach it to the lid. You could buy a bow for the top or cover it with the paper.

I made the bow and twisted a piece of floral wire around its base.

I punched a tiny hole in the center of lid with the point of my scissors and pushed

the floral wire through the hole. I twisted the wire around itself on the bottom side

of the lid making a wad that was big enough it wouldn't pass through the hole.

Like I said, you could totally eliminate the bow; your choice. I'm gonna use this QC for my 4yo's hair bows, hence the bow. These QCs would also be cute with chalk labels on the fronts for identification of contents...lots of options. I'm sure I'll be making more!

Have you made one of these or something similar? What do you store in it?