Saving Crayon Stained Clothes

Last week I washed and dried a load of my daughter's laundry that contained a purple crayon.  I didn't realize that every single piece of clothing had purple crayon stains on it as I transferred it from the washer to the dryer.  So all the waxy crayon stains were melted in for good - or so I thought.  I quickly searched Pinterest and realized I wasn't the only one this had happened to.  Several other people had done the same thing.  The best part was, they had also found a way to save their laundry.  

I used our regular laundry detergent, some vinegar, and some dish soap.  I didn't bother measuring it out, but most recipes called for 1/2 cup vinegar and 5 tablespoons of dish soap.  

I set the washer on the hottest setting and let the clothes soak for 2 hours.

You also want to clean out your dryer.  If there are any crayon stains in there, just use a magic eraser to get wipe them off.

Here's the culprit, or what remains of it.  All the crayon is gone and only the paper cover remains.

Here are some before pictures of the clothing.  A tee shirt and a bathing suit:

A pair of light pink shorts and a tee shirt:

After soaking the clothes for 2 hours and running the wash like normal, I repeated the process because a few marks remained.  

Here are the after pictures.

And here are the before and afters for comparison:

The tee shirt is completely stain free and the bathing suit stains are much less noticeable.

Only one stain remained on the tee shirt and two lighter stains were left on the shorts.

These tan capris were only left with two light stains.  

You can see that the stain remover solution didn't take out everything, but it took out a lot.  I was surprised at how well it worked without me having to scrub anything.  Out of a full load of laundry, only 7 items had stains that didn't come out.  That's much better than loosing a whole load of laundry. 

Anyone else have this problem?

What stain removers did you try? 

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How to Clean Ballet Slippers

My older daughter has been taking ballet lessons for several years.  Right after school let out, she had her dance recital and of course wanted to look her best.  The ballet slippers she'd been wearing all year have gotten pretty dirty.  Rather than buy her new ones, I tried to clean up the old ones.  I didn't even bother checking Pinterest or Googling "how to clean ballet shoes", I just got out my Magic Eraser and went to work.

Here is what her shoes looked like before:

And after: 

Here's a close up before and after for comparison.  They aren't totally clean, but they are noticeably cleaner and it took very little scrubbing on my part.

Now she's picture perfect for her performance.

Anyone else had to clean ballet slippers?  How did you do it?

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DIY Foaming Hand Soap

Here's an easy and inexpensive way to make your own foaming hand soap.  I got the original idea from HERE and just had to try it for myself.  It really does work.

I love the foaming hand soaps.  With 4 kids, 3 of which can wash their own hands, the foaming hand soap means less soap is wasted per washing.  So when I heard of a way to make your own foaming hand soap for so much cheaper than what you can buy it for at the store, I just had to try it.

To create you own foaming hand soap, you can use any kind of regular hand soap, water, and an empty foaming hand soap dispenser. 

I received these awesome hand soaps as a Christmas present.  But they are not the foaming kind.  I loved the smell of them and thought they'd be even better if they were the foaming kind, so this is what I used to create my own foaming hand soap.  

Most of my foaming hand soaps were almost empty, so  I just compiled them all into one dispenser.  That left me with several empty foaming hand soap dispensers to work with.  I filled each foaming dispenser with several squirts of the regular hand soap.  I didn't measure the amount.  I added enough to cover the bottom.  A little really does go a long way with this stuff.  Then I filled the rest of the dispenser up with water.  That's it.  I haven't noticed any difference in my DIY version compared to the store bought version.  They both work great.

The regular hand soap is cheaper than the foaming kind, plus you only use a little bit of it.  I filled up all my foaming dispensers and still had lots of regular soap left over.  I'm sure this will last me several months if not a year.  The great thing about the soap I used is that it's colorless so it will match no matter what sink it's next to.   My next step is to take off the store label.  Maybe I'll even create my own label.

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How to Clean Your Washing Machine

I've been in a cleaning, and organizing mood these last two weeks.  While I was taking a break from organizing Sweetie Pie's room (more on that in a later post), I found THIS tutorial on Pinterest for how to clean your washing machine.  I just had to try it out.  We've lived in our house 8 years and I've never cleaned our washing machine so I was surprised it wasn't any worse.

I didn't even know there was a lint catcher in the washing machine.  The first thing I did was to take off the top, ours just snapped off rather than screwed off.  Underneath was gross.  At first I thought it was mold so I got out the bleach and my favorite cleaning tool (a toothbrush) to scrub it clean.  But it turns out that it was just wet lint so wiping it out with a paper towel was easiest.  

I also soaked and cleaned the top parts of the lint catcher.  Some of the wet lint was in hard to reach places and a knife worked good to scrape that out.

Once each part was clean and lint free, I just put it back together.  I also ran the washing machine with just water and bleach to clean the rest of it out, plus I wiped down the rest of the surfaces.  I made sure my next load of laundry was 'whites' in case there was any bleach left over, it wouldn't ruin anything.

Anyone else clean their washing machine?  Did you even know it had a lint trap?

For more cleaning tips, be sure to check out these posts:
How to clean marks off walls
Homemade carpet cleaner
How to clean the ice maker
Get rid of that toilet bowl ring
A rusty red shower no more

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How to Clean Pen and Colored Pencil off Walls

The other day, I put The Babes down for a nap.  To my surprise, she didn't try to escape.  That should have been my first clue.  And she was very quite.  That should have been my second clue.  However, I had the two older kids to deal with and didn't think much of The Babes going down for a nap unusually well.

She woke up from her nap and came out of her room.  Later in the day her brother went into her room and noticed the 'artwork'.  I couldn't believe it.  She wrote on the wall above her bed, another wall, and the door - with a blue pen and a blue colored pencil!  My first thought was to clean it with a Magic Eraser.  But, we didn't have any.  And I wanted to clean it up ASAP.  

So I quickly searched online for how to clean pen off walls and found several articles that said you can use toothpaste.  I used white Colgate toothpaste and a damp rag and it did the trick.  

Here are my results.  I think she was trying to spell her name here:

And this looks like some sort of underwater creature to me, what do you think?

Anyone else have success getting 'artwork' off walls?  What did you use?

For another cleaning tip, check out my earlier post about a Homemade Carpet Cleaner that really works.

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Homemade Carpet Cleaner

We have light carpeting in our bedrooms.  It came with the house.  Obviously the people who lived here before us didn't have kids.  Needless to say, the light carpet gets dirty and stained from who knows what.

Being pregnant, I didn't want to use chemical laden carpet cleaners to remove the stains, so I turned to Pinterest to find a more natural solution.  I was pleasantly surprised that it worked.  Plus I had all the ingredients on hand so I didn't have to leave the house.

The recipe I used was from HERE.

I followed these simple steps to get rid of the spots.  There were actually two areas of stains and I only cleaned one area, thinking it probably wouldn't work and I'd try something else on the other stained area.  It worked so well and still looks great after 2 weeks, so I'll use the same process to clean the rest of the stains.

Here is the stained area before:

Step 1:
Sprinkle baking soda onto the stains and brush it in.

Step 2:
Pour some white vinegar on top. You can see it bubbling up. Brush that in.

Step 3:
Use a rag to soak up any moisture then let it dry.

Step 4:
Vacuum.

Here are the before and after results:

Have you ever made your own carpet cleaner?  What did you use and how were your results?  This was so easy I'm going to try it out on other carpet stains around our house, like that chocolate stain in the living room.

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How to Clean your Refrigerator's Ice Maker

I don't know what prompted me to look inside our refrigerator's ice maker with a flashlight last week, but I did.  I was not prepared for what I saw.  It was gross and I refused to use the ice maker / water dispenser until it was clean and mold free.  Yes, there was mold in there, Ewwww!  In fact the next day I sent the kids off to school without any ice in their water bottles.

And once the kids were off to school, I was determined to clean it.  My husband told me to use bleach and a toothbrush to scrub it out.  Well, I did and couldn't get it all. So I searched the Internet for how to clean an ice maker and discovered this blog post by Gina over at The Shabby Creek Cottage, where she so willingly posted pictures of her moldy ice maker.   So I'm not going to show you mine.  She had a very easy solution too.  Much easier than trying to get into every nook and cranny with a toothbrush, or cotton swab.  And much safer than using bleach, which I'm not sure is even good for the fridge parts.

So how did I easily clean all the mold and gunk off my ice maker......I used my little Bissell Steam 'N Clean.  (It's similar to this one on amazon.com - affiliate link -)  I used it in the past, to clean my shower, and it worked so I thought I'd give it a try again.  If you want to see how I cleaned the rusty red water stains out of my shower check out THIS blog post.

Here is the after.  It's hard to tell but the white circle at the top which hold the ice back, had black mold on it.  So gross, but now so clean.  I'm not sure the ice ever came in contact with the mold but I didn't want to take any chances.

Here's an ever closer look.

And it was so easy.  I just shoved the end of my little steam cleaner up the ice dispenser and let the steam do the work, turning it to make sure I got all the angles.  

So after flushing out the ice and water maker parts, I am ready to have a nice cold drink.  Cheers!

OK, so who's going to check out their ice maker now?  Go ahead, I dare you.

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Save Money When Using the Dishwasher

In my post about "Laundry Tips", I mentioned how I sometimes run the washing machine for an additional spin cycle after it is finished the regular washing cycle. I usually do this when the load in the dryer isn't done drying yet so I can't switch the laundry or if there is something really heavy in the wash like our bath mats. The extra spin cycle helps to dry the clothes faster when you put them in the dryer which saves time and energy (money).

I've also found a way to save energy (money) when using the dishwasher.

When it comes to washing dishes in the dishwasher, I never dry them.  I set my dishwasher for a normal wash cycle but no drying cycle / no heat.  When the dishwasher is done, I simply open the door and let it air dry.  And because I do this, I've never had any plastic dishes melt.

I usually wash the dishes after breakfast and since the Babes and I are the only ones home, I don't mind having the dishwasher door open.  But if that bothers you, you could run the dishwasher at night and leave the door open overnight.

Although, if the door is left open, this might happen:

Thanks for stopping by,
Christa

Get Rid of that Toilet Bowl Ring

OK, I'm going to talk about something gross.  That yucky ring inside the toilet bowl.

If you have hard water which leaves mineral deposits inside your toilet bowls, then you know how hard it is to keep your toilet looking clean.  I'm almost too embarrassed to post these pictures, but I just had to share this quick and easy trick to cleaning that ugly ring on the inside of the toilet bowl.

This is what my toilet looked like after I had cleaned it.  I just used some toilet bowl cleaner I picked up at the store, squirted it in there and scrubbed with a toilet scrub brush.  I didn't flush so the water level would be low.  See that nasty ring around the bowl.  No matter how much I scrub, it's still there.  Cleaning more frequently doesn't help with it either.

Motivating Kids to Clean

The other day my husband walked into the kid's bathroom and was disgusted at the state of their sink.

Globs of dried up toothpaste filled the sink and splatter was on the faucet.
He was so disgusted that he cleaned their sink.

I don't have a before picture.  I wasn't about to ask my husband to stop cleaning so I could take a picture, and he wasn't in the mood to have his picture taken.  But I'm sure you could use your imagination.

I didn't think it was that bad, but then again, I have a higher tolerance level for these things than he does.  Of course it's not entirely the kid's fault.  I haven't taught them that they should clean the sink.  And I'm obviously not keeping up with it.

So in my quest for a cleaner sink, I've come up with a pretty good plan.  We've been doing it for two weeks and it is still working out brilliantly.