$5 Gift Card

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Happy Wednesday!

Faux Bois Prints

Who's lovin this style????

Make Your Washer Look Like New

8 years is my washers age. When we sold our house in November, the new owners offered us an additional $500 for the washer and dryer. We spent $600 when we bought them new. SCORE. The new owners are using the house as an investment property and since I was having a baby in 2 weeks and we had no where else to go yet, we decided to stay and rent. Baby is happy and healthy and growing and growing and we are still here! The house we are trying to get is...well...a mess but we are still hopeful it will somehow work out. That's another story....maybe I'll post someday on that.
Anyway, I'm particular about A LOT of things and I really want to have this place sparkling whenever the day comes that we get to move out. I like the boy scout motto--something about leaving things better than when you found it. Well that is certainly true for all of the renovations we've put into this place but I want it to be PRISTINE! I saw on pinterest how to clean a washer. I looked at the post and it took the lady several HOT loads, hours of soaking AND still scrubbing on top of that. I didn't feel like wasting that kind of time...so armed with an arsenal of chemicals and natural ingredients I tried to come up with a better solution but honestly--no luck. Then I grabbed a Magic Eraser and woila! Instead GRIME BE GONE. I put in a good 5 minutes of scrubbing the ring around the top and the thingy in the middle. Then I got a little crazy......I used the scrubber shone in the picture ($1 at IKEA--if you don't have one of these gems GET ONE! - you can find them in your local grocery store too. I also use these with a little Fels Naptha on my hubbies white collars and the icky discoloration comes out). The lady in the post I read used Q-Tips to clean all the little areas. I've done that before but have never been able to get everything--and it took forever. I used this scrubber and my the new owners washer looks BRAND NEW. No Joke! I couldn't believe I was able to get all the grime and annoying lint. I spent 30 minutes but I'm a little OCD and I wanted to see if it could really look like new. I cleaned the dryer too. I used the scrubber again and it worked like a charm.

The other tool I used was a crocheted dish rag. LOVE THESE. If you don't know someone who will lovingly make them for you then find one! My Grandma and my Sister both make these and I always think of them when I'm wiping my counters or kids faces.

TIP: So I'm kind of dumb sometimes. The first rinse with my rag I walked all the way across the basement to rinse it out in the bathroom sink. Then I realized--duh! The washer has water. I just pulled the knob anytime I wanted to rinse. Don't make my mistake! :) So if you want to clean off the grime and dust it will take you about 5-10 minutes. If you want to be able to eat off of it, plan for another 20!

I'm Addicted to Prettiful Designs - You can be too!

Get my new button for your blog. I bet you've all been loosing sleep waiting and waiting for this button to come out! :) It's on the right sidebar. Check out my new Moroccan prints too. Oooo and the bugs and the mustaches and....the list feels endless. :)

Oatmeal Pool

Last winter I was trying to help beat the winter boredom blues. I had a one year old who put EVERYTHING in her mouth. Playdough, painting, moon sand and any crafts were out. We were seriously BORED. I was going through my food storage and noticed I had a TON (well, really only about 15) canisters of oatmeal and they all tasted old-ish. I grabbed 4 canisters and the kiddie pool and dumped. 

My kids played for over an hour. I figured clean up would be horrendous. It WASN'T! I took their clothes off right there in the kitchen, poured the oatmeal from the pool back into the canisters and then swept up the rest and threw it away. It took about 3 minutes to clean up. It was worth 1 hour of giggles & smiles. 

Attention Germ-a-phobe Moms: I too am a germ-a-phobe but I realized I had a 1 year old who put EVERYTHING in her mouth (I've found her eating out of the trash can and licking up things off the floor!). I figured this was a heck of a lot better than many of the things she's put in that cute little mouth of hers. She ate oatmeal to her hearts content for about 10 minutes and then played the rest of the time. I actually re-used this oatmeal about 4 times for the same thing. They didn't really eat any the next times--just had tons of fun. Our pool got broken this last summer so we haven't done it since :( . I will be purchasing another pool this summer solely for this purpose: