Spring Housecleaning The DIY Way!

For my semi-annual rip-the-house-apart-and-clean-everything-behind-it-and-put-it-all-back-again cleaning, I decided to try some earth friendly and homemade cleaning products. I've always wanted to try it. They're cheap, easy to make and better for the environment than the store bought chemist-made stuff. But do they work? Well, let me tell you how it went down...

After some extensive research, I decided to go with baking soda, white vinegar, castile soap and some essential oils. Obviously, you can find baking soda and vinegar at the grocery and everybody knows what they are (and if you've answered no to both, maybe you shouldn't be trying this). Castile soap is a plant based soap that is good for the environment and tough on dirt (haha, I sound like a cheesy commercial). You can find it in the organic aisle of your grocery store and in some stores in with the cleaning supplies. Mrs. Meyers and Dr. Bronner are two good brands and they have some wonderful scents. I got Mrs. Meyers lavendar this time around, but I'm thinking next time I'm going with Dr. Bronners almond. My grocery store carries essential oils in the organic aisle, but you can also find them online. Amazon has TONS of them. I picked sweet orange and spearmint for this because the were two of the cheapest and I wanted to be sure this worked before I tried the more expensive oils. One of them was $25.00 for a 1/2 ounce! It will be a cold day in the underworld before I ever spend that! I do not care how fantastic it smells!

Let's start with castile soap. I've been using castile soap for a year now as a countertop cleaner and I love it! Castile soap is concentrated, so it needs to be diluted. About four tablespoons to eight ounces of water is a good ratio. I also used it to scrub down my cabinets, floors, walls, bathroom counters, microwave, fridge, outsides of the toilets and my wooden bannisters and railings. Mix it with a little baking soda to make a paste and scrub down sinks, tubs and tile showers. This stuff smells great and everything is so clean! 

I used the vinegar in a spray bottle with some newspaper to clean my mirrors and windows and they looked amazing! And the vinegar smell really doesn't linger too long, so you don't feel like you're living inside a pickle jar. You can also use 1 part vinegar to 1 part water as an all purpose cleaner, but you need to be careful as to which surfaces you use it on, because vinegar can damage some surfaces. Me, I prefer my castile soap. It smells soooo good.

I cleaned and freshened my sink and tub drains by pouring some baking soda down the drain (I'd say a couple of tablespoons), then pouring in some vinegar and watched it bubble and foam. Which was so cool to watch. You let it sit for half an hour or so then you rinse with hot water. It seemed to work. My kitchen drain smelled better. 

Next I tried apple cider vinegar in the toilets. You just pour it in and let it sit, then swish and flush. This is supposed to leave your bathroom smelling like apples. I was really skeptical about that. And guess what? My bathroom smelled like apple cider vinegar! Color me surprised. And it cleaned ok, but for the toilet bowls, I'm sticking with chemicals. 

I made my own vacuum-up carpet powder with baking soda and essential oil. Just mix together one 16 oz. box of baking soda with approximately 20-30 drops of essential oil. Mix it well and make sure you do not have big clumps. I put mine in a mason jar and used a hammer to pound holes in the lid. I liked that part. Stress relief. Sprinkle generously all over your carpet and let it sit for 15-30 minutes, then vacuum it up. It worked great! I couldn't smell dog! As much as I love my fuzzy huggable puppy dog, I am not all that thrilled about dog smell. It also works great on your mattress! Just sprinkle and vacuum as you would the carpet.

Finally, I made my own Febreze. I like Febreze, but my kids go nuts with it. Really nuts. As in I get a bottle Saturday and by Tuesday, it's gone. Just mix two tablespoons of baking soda with 20 drops of essential oil. Mix it very well, then put it in a spray bottle with 2 cups of hot water. Shake to dissolve and BOOM, you've got yourself some DIY Febreze! I used it just like I would the store bought stuff. Now, the scent of the sweet orange oil didn't really last that long, but odors were gone. The spearmint lasted longer. And the house smelled minty fresh, like it just gargled with Scope. But I liked it.

So, my experiment with DIY cleaners turned out pretty well (except for the apple cider vinegar toilet). I'm going to keep on cleaning the DIY way because it's cheaper and environmentally friendly! And I like a minty fresh house. Except I then crave a stick of chewing gum.

Until the next project, 

Chris :)

A Penny Saved Is A Penny Urned...A Vase Upcycled With...Pennies!

I really, really, really want my kitchen backsplash tiled with pennies. I have seen pics of floors and backsplashes tiled with pennies and I love the different shades of copper, from a muted, aged copper to the bright, shiny glow of new pennies. I love the way it glitters and glows and changes, depending on the angle. It would look perfect with my counters and cabinets. But, alas, my husband does not share this passionate love for penny tiling. In fact, I believe the words "Hell no!" were used. So, I decided to try to cover a beat-up vase. At least I might get some sense of gratification. 

Now, this vase has seen better days. It's dinged, scratched and just looking sad. And I hate to blow money on a new one, because I'm cheap frugal. Besides, why buy a new one when you can pimp out an old one? This is a metal vase painted to look like hammered copper, which looked good when I first bought it, but, like a die-hard sun worshipper, isn't aging so well and could use a face lift.

All you need are a vase, some pennies and glue. I used Gorilla Glue super glue cuz I like Gorilla Glue. Just make sure your glue is made for bonding metal to whatever surface your vase is. This means reading the backs of many glue labels. And I used some wheat pennies too, after I made sure they weren't the valuable ones (unfortunately, none were).

Some of my pennies were kinda yucky, so I washed them in a solution of vinegar and baking soda. I didn't really measure; I poured vinegar into a bowl to cover the pennies, then dumped in some baking soda and watched it fizz. I think the vinegar alone would've worked fine, but I like to watch the baking soda fizz. I let them sit, then rinsed them with water. Some were still really yucky, so I cleaned them with Tarn-X. I washed my vase with soap and water and wiped it down with rubbing alcohol to make sure the surface was clean. 

And now, we glue...

I spread an old sheet on the floor so I would not get any glue on the carpet. I have never gotten super glue on the carpet, but it's not something I would like to experience. Read the instructions on the back of your glue to see if you need to hold your pennies in place. My glue said to clamp pieces together for 10 to 30 seconds. I just dabbed a drop on the vase, set the penny on and pressed lightly for a few seconds. I did have a few pennies I had to hold longer, but overall, it was pretty quick.

As you can see, there is a rim around the bottom of my vase, so I centered the pennies and glued them down alternating heads and tails. Then above the rim, I lined up the pennies with the rim and started alternating them too. And for all you idiots who say, "You have way too much time on your hands if you can sit around and do this!" I say bite me. While you're sitting on your butt watching your shows and snack-a-lacking away, I'm sitting on mine watching my shows and doing this stuff. And I'm not porking out cuz of all those sugary, fat-laden treats. I do crafts while watching TV cuz I love, love, LOVE my sugary, fat-laden goodies. A lot. And this keeps them away from me.

Seriously, this did not take long at all, once I got into the groove. Just one episode of Adam 12 and two Dance Moms. 

As you can see, if you turn your head sideways (!*#%$*! picture) I alternated the pattern. You don't have to be that obsessive. I'm just anal retentive like that.

As you can see below, the back of the vase is messed up, cuz the pennies don't go around the vase evenly. But I figured I'd just turn that part towards the wall and no one would see it. I could've cut pennies to fit, but seriously, I'm not that anal.

And now, she is done. I just sprayed it with a coat of acrylic sealer to keep the pennies from tarnishing. All the instructions for penny tiling floors and backsplashes use several coats of poly to protect the pennies, so I figured I would too.

I love this vase now! I love the way it glitters and glows when the sunlight hits it! But I still lust for a copper penny backsplash :(

Until the next project, 

Chris :)

Cheap and Easy Linen Tea Towels (Hand Towels, Whatever)

As I was idly roaming around the web one day, I found this fabric store (www.fabric-store.com) online that sells linen for really great prices and they sent me an email stating that for one day only, I could get a yard of their best-selling linen for $1.00. Now, I love a good deal. So heck yeah, I jumped on that! While I was on the site, I also discovered they have a "Doggie Bag" section where you can get pieces of linen in anywhere from tenth to half yard sizes (only caveat is it's often limited in weights and colors). So for about $30.00, I got 10 different pieces of linen in 10  gorgeous colors! The smallest piece was a quarter yard. Now I had all this lovely, lovely fabric to play with. I decided to try tea towels for my first linen project, cuz it looked so easy.

I used unbleached linen and a creamy beige called "cloud cream." Sounds like a paint color. The weight is a medium weight. The lightweight is too flimsy for towels and the heavyweight just didn't feel right for towels to me. When I first got the linen, it was stiff and I was wondering what, exactly, was I to make from this stuff? Ok, maybe I didn't say stuff :) I washed and dried it twice before sewing it to preshrink it. And, baby, did it ever soften up! I was a much happier puppy after that. 

I started by cutting out 27" x 17" rectangles. I used my rotary cutter and straight edge so I would get nice, clean straight edges. Then I folded over the longer sides 1/4", ironed them and then again folded and ironed 1/4".  I pinned it and took it over to my beloved sewing machine and stitched close to the edge. Well, the first time I didn't and it looked like, well, poo (or something less polite than that). So, I whined, complained, ripped out the seams and stitched it properly. 

Looks much better! I was impressed with myself and pretty darn happy at how well this was going. Then I did the corners...

I cut all corners at approximately 45 degree angles, then you are supposed to fold and iron 1/4" twice just like you did to the long sides. Didn't work as easily as the tutorial said it would. I got a little better with each towel, but I still had to fudge a few corners. Eventually, I got the hang of it. 

 Yes, I know this pic sucks.

After I stitched the short sides, I decided to be creative. My machine has decorative stitches which I have never used. So, I decided to put some decorative stitching across the bottom. This was a new experience for me. You can't mash the pedal to the floor and zip through this! You need to keep a nice, steady pace or else this happens...

I didn't even try to rip this out and start again. I just did it on the other end. This end will go towards the back, where no one will see it. Easy fix (or lazy, call it what you will).

Here are the finished edges. Next time, I'm using some nice cotton ribbon or fabric strips. It will be faster and easier.  

I'm happy with the way these turned out, after some minor trials and tribulations. I really like the way the look and feel and they wash up nicely. Now I have lots of linen left over and I'm going to search out some more projects. As if I don't have a big enough list already. 

Chris :)