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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Lengthen Pants Without Sewing

This is a great trick to lengthen pants without having to whip out the sewing machine.  Not only does it make your pants look longer if they are too short, but it makes your legs look longer too.  Let me explain......

The other day my daughter was about to leave for school when I noticed her pants were too short.  Now I suppose she could have changed pants, but they matched her shirt and she didn't want to.  So I came up with a way to make them look less short.  

Here are some before and after shots so you can see how dressing in all one color makes her legs appear longer, and her pants longer since there isn't a different color to break things up.

More before and afters.  This not only works for kids, but can work for adults too - even if you're wearing a skirt or dress (just keep reading to find out how)...

You can also use this trick to make your legs look longer.  By dressing in all one color for pants, socks and shoes, it doesn't break up your legs, thus creating a lengthening effect.  Don't believe me, check out THIS article which has fashion tips to make you look taller.  #7 is about the all one color look.  Or THIS article about how to get longer looking legs, the 2nd thing mentioned is to match your shoes to your pants or your skin tone if you're wearing a skirt.

So has anyone ever tried this trick before?

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How To Stockpile Kid's Clothing

Of course I went to yard sales over the weekend, and this time I stocked up on some clothing for the Babes.   I'm not ashamed to admit that most of my kid's clothing comes from yard sales or hand me downs.  

I also don't like to pay more than .25¢ for clothes either.  I will spend more for a dress or outerwear and as the older two kids are getting bigger their clothing does tend to cost a little more.   However, I've found that it's pretty easy to spend .25¢ for clothing up to size 6.  The easiest way to do this is buy it in bulk.  Most people will give you a better price if you buy a lot.

Sometimes you can get lucky and buy it by the bagful.  One yard sale was selling their clothing for $2 a bag.  The bags were the size a grocery bag.  If I found at least 8 things that would make it .25¢ per item.  Turns out I was able to stuff 22 items into that bag making each piece cost about .09¢!