MAGNETIC ALPHABET SWITCH-UP

Posted by Lori~

Do you have sets of the magnetic leapfrog farm animals or alphabet?  Well, we do.  I love the toy, but I just hate how gross it gets in the kitchen.  YUCK!

First, we tried the fridge. Then, we moved it to the dishwasher. 

Finally, I decided it was time for an all together new solution outside of kitchen.

First up, I pulled the farm animal set, cleaned it, and discovered we were missing 1/2 of the duck.  Why is it there is always one piece missing?  Honestly, Mur-Man is 4 and a little advanced for this kit, so this will go into storage.

Then it was time to wash the alphabet.  Mur-Man is still working on his letters, so keeping the alphabet kit was a MUST.  

I decided to move them to Mur-Man's red metal (and magnetic) bed.  We practiced his letters as we went and of course are missing just one letter in this set too.

 

Much more organized and much cleaner!

Mr. Clean does it again (and I'm still sick).

Posted by Ethne~

Well, now KD and I are both sick.  Outstanding.

Lori’s hasn’t had a chance to do any blog activities either.

I did think of one quick thing I could tell you.

Shaun and I use those Green Pans, a gift from Thrifty Nana.  They are very nice pots and pans, but if you burn stuff on them, it does not come off. 

TN got our set from QVC, though you can get them at Target - I like not having to worry about teflon rubbing off on my food.

That is, until Shaun tried scrubbing with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.  So, if you have dishes you can't get clean, try the magic eraser.  It's AMAZING.  All the brown, burned-on stuff just wipes off.  (NOTE: Follow the directions, as I know the eraser does harm surfaces if it’s used dry; must be used wet.)

They even make them for dishes now - and you know I like Dawn dish soap - if it's good enough for saving animals from oil spills, it's good enough to get gunk off my dishes.

Meanwhile, we’re all going to try to get better.  See you around, pals.

The Pintester Movement - Homemade Jewelry Cleaner!

Posted by Ethne~

Holy $h*tsnacks, dudes, Pintester is having a challenge!  It’s the Pintester Movement, y’all. 

You know Lori and I love a challenge; as a matter of fact, we love finding Pinterest challenges, like here and here, and reporting to you guys about it.  Our husbands also love when we do these projects.  Like, they throw up in their mouths when they hear a new craft is afoot.

This is a dramatic reenactment of the look Lori and I receive from our husbands when we tell them we have a new project to do.  Gracias to this tiger from the Omaha Zoo for his mad skilz at husband-facial-impressions.

But unlike normal challenges, Pintester practically begs you to FAIL at pins.  That’s not the full truth.  I’m fairly certain she said she’d take successes and failures from us Pintestes, but since lots of her tests are flops and I enjoy laughing at her flops, I figure TEST FAIL is a fine goal range for the Pintester Movement.

I wanted to keep in the spirit of Pintester – my interpretation anyway. She tests stuff she pins that is either so stupid she has to try it on our behalf or stuff that we all wish we were already trying ourselves.  Throw in a whole lot of substitutions (she doesn’t go out of her way to buy ingredients for tests), some alcohol and (my fave) a lot of cussing and you’ve got a winner.  So for picking my test, I wanted to use something I had already seen/pinned on Pinterest and wanted to try; and I didn’t want to have to go out of my way to procure ingredients.  Also if the test failed, that would be totally rad.

I looked at a few baking options and narrowed down to these delicious-looking sugar cookies or homemade peanut-butter cups, but I’m not total crap at baking, so there wasn’t enough of a window for failing.  I therefore decided on a few projects related to cleaning (which I am crap at) with baking soda.  One involves making homemade jewelry cleaner, originally pinned from here.

I wear my Pandora bracelet, wedding ring and a right-hand ring every day.  I never take my rings off unless I’m making meatloaf.  They could use a cleaning; the Pandora silver is pretty tarnish-resistant (they made their own sterling silver concoction apparently, no lie) but I still wear it everyday so it's probably loaded with germs for starters.  (I didn’t clean the charms because the reviews for this cleaning recipe said that it can remove the intentional oxidation/black shading on stuff like my charms and I didn’t want that to happen.)

I cooked 1 cup of water for 2 minutes in the microwave, and prepped my cereal bowl with a piece of tin foil to fit in it.  When the water was ready, I put it in the bowl, added the 1 T salt, 1 T baking soda and 1 T Dawn dishsoap and stirred it around till it was mixed up.  Then I put the tin foil into the bowl and placed my jewelry pieces on top of it.

 

I let things sit for the full 10 minutes.  While it worked its magic (and it worked, check out the pictures), Shaun said, “why do you always do stuff that smells like farts?”  He wasn’t kidding.  Whatever was going on in that bowl smelled like a$$. 

That black stuff on the cloth rubbed off the bracelets.

Pretty!

So, since this test totally worked, and I completely recommend it, I’m sorry to report that it’s not a fail.  To make up for any disappointment, I’ve attached this here link to when I tested that homemade leg wax on myself.  That was proper failure.

Crash My Pantry (again)~ Kitchen Organization Time!

Posted by Ethne~

I determined that my pantry had had it.  Or…I had had enough of my pantry.  Either way.

This is a DRAMATIC REENACTMENT of me being totally over my messy pantry.  {It's actually me waiting for the girls to fall asleep on Christmas Eve.  I was totally over that as well.  KD said she was going to sit up with Shaun's phone Santa-tracker app and a flashlight to catch Santa in our house.  No dear.}

Shaun and I live in a great rambler that was completely gutted a few years ago, and the guy who re-did it DIY’d the whole thing himself.  The only thing Shaun and I have done is add on a deck, and I really haven’t wanted to do another thing besides art and family stuff.  I like the wood floors, the carpet, the tile, the paint colors.  I really wouldn’t change a thing.

 

The VERY BEST PART is the entire house has awesome storage space, which is unheard-of for ramblers of the 1950’s and 1960’s era.  At least in big city, MN.  It was bizarre the thinking back then.  Anyway, I have super storage, including my largest of 3 pantries in the kitchen (I know, it’s out of control). 

 

But the thing is, when you have that much storage, you can take it for granted.  Shaun and I kinda-sorta put things in certain spots when we unpacked groceries, but kinda not.  And pretty soon, the pantry was a mess, with cereal and chips here, there and everywhere, and my candy stash right where the girls could get at it – OY-VEY!  (That’s German to the Norwegian UFF-DA!)

 

Here’s a picture of the mess as I began to take it all out of the pantry.

Stuff here, there and everywhere - and snacks right at kid-grabbing level.  I had lost control.

And then here are all the pull-out drawers (I know, ROCK ON) now.

 

Snacks, chips, crackers, candy and granola bars on top – the hardest place to reach for the girls.  I put the candy in a snapware plastic container, in the back, so the girls really can’t see or get at that at all.  For a while at least.

The view from up top - my candy is sealed tight in the top left corner.

Next shelf down has bread, cereal, oatmeal, my cork jar (where Shaun and I collect our wine corks), sugar, flour, a spare bag of chips (since it was jumbo) and goldfish (I don't mind if the girls snatch those).

The third shelf down has our dried goods like pasta, mac-n-cheese, couscous and so on.  It also has my Sodastream drink flavorings which I put in a heart-shaped tin that Shaun had given chocolates to me in a long time back and I found in my office at work, collecting dust.  That is also Shaun’s keurig coffee pod shelf, but he was really low on the day I took these pictures, so there weren’t many to see.

The back right snapware container has rice, ramen, Mrs. Grass soup and similar items.

At the bottom, there are paper plates, cups, napkins and the like (let's face it, I only keep the mini Dixie cups around for Jello shots, but who can dispose of such a useful item?!).  We don’t use them often, but want them accessible when we do.  We mostly use cloth napkins which I’m a big proponent of.  Also down there are potatoes, onions and a miscellaneous item or two.

Room to spare!

Now since I did the organization, I could pretty easily keep this sorted out.  But Shaun wouldn’t do as well; not for lack of intention, but it just would fall apart after a while.  I’ve discovered that on the whole, Shaun is a far better and more frequent cleaner in our marriage, but when I clean, I tend to be a better and more thorough organizer.  As in, when he cleans up the girls toys, he throws them in the toy box.  Sure, this cleans the space up; but when I clean the girls’ toys up, I sort the toys into their respective stations, like Barbies, babydolls, kitchenwares, books, drawing/crayons, and then only the random miscellaneous leftover stuff goes into the toy box.  But I love him for cleaning up after us.  I’ll just keep organizing up after us.

I made this baby station (which extends to the left) for the girls, so there is a specific spot to put baby stuff.

ANYWAY, in order to keep this new pantry organization going for as long as possible, what I did was use the new (to me) 3M post-it labels that are sticky across the back of the entire label.  How awesome is that???  I labeled each shelf twice, and hope it does the trick!

This is as close as I could find on the 3M website - same brand, mine just must not be online.

Of course I did not dispense with my candy...just hid it better.

I keep my bread & cake flour in there - Shaun could go blind rolling his eyes that we have: regular flour, whole wheat flour, cake flour and bread flour.

Candy = for me; Chips = for Shaun; Fruit bars = for the kids.  Life isn't fair.

I’m impressed with myself anyway.  And best of all, no little KD or Easy-Mac have been sneaking candy from the pantry either.

Fall Pinterest Challenge: Shower Scrubber

 Posted by Ethne~

It’s Fall Pinterest Challenge time on Lor’s and my fave DIY blog, YoungHouseLove!!

I pin a lot of great things these days (click on the Pinterest tab here on the blog and you can follow WOM-MOM’s pins), and I actually do a lot of the things I pin.  I’ve been crocheting, and styling my hair, and putting together outfits like the fashionista that I consider myself to be (in my head only I’m sure).

Be mindful that I only look like this when Whitney razzle-dazzles me.

But since YHL is a house DIY blog, I wanted to do a house DIY project.  I pinned this super cute coffee table made out of crates from Michael’s/JoAnn.  The coffee table we have in our downstairs living room had partial glass top pieces and the girls took them out and broke them to irreparable pieces; thankfully no bloodshed. 

Shaun assured me that it’s too cold out to stain or spray paint the raw wood, but I was not deterred.  I rarely listen to reason when he speaks it to me.  It’s like I have some sort of Shaun Logic Blockade in my brain.  In absence of that, I was thinking I’d have the girls write graffiti on the crates.  But when I inspected the crates last week, I deemed them too small to make a satisfactory coffee table.

So next I thought I’d do a little home décor – my sis Whit had pinned these darling little crochet acorns that you put real acorn tops on.  I envisioned putting them into my vase of wine corks for a Thanksgiving table centerpiece, but even halving the instructions (amount of stitches used), yielded a crocheted acorn ball too big for the acorn tops I have.  *Apparently* the only acorns in Minnesota are pygmy size.  The one in the picture is the largest I found; I am not attempting to crochet a pygmy yarn acorn for the same reason I don’t make Barbie clothes – TOO &^%$&^%$ SMALL!

It would have to be A LOT smaller to fit in that little top

Finally, I settled on a Pinterest project I’ve been testing for our blog anyway.  I’m sure if you’ve been on Pinterest for 2 seconds you’ve seen the ka-zillion pins for making a shower scrubber with a kitchen dish scrubber, vinegar and Dawn dish soap.  Guaranteed.

I happen to use Dawn dish soap already.  I figure if it cleans oil spills off of animals, it’s the right thing for my dishes.  Plus, my purchases contribute to Dawn’s animal fund.  And I use vinegar ALL THE TIME for stuff, from making pickles to a substitute for liquid fabric softener (yes, that works and no, our clothes don’t smell like vinegar – no lie).  Only purchase necessary: kitchen scrubber.

I did as instructed in the pin and filled the scrubber ½ with vinegar and ½ with regular Dawn dishsoap.

It looks like one 'fill' will last about a month.  The scrubber will need to be replaced soon from wear and tear.

For the past month, I’ve been scrubbing my shower down with my vinegar mix – in a rotation.  I never seem to give myself enough time to get ready in the morning.  So instead of cleaning the entire shower with the vinegar mix each day, I instead clean one wall and the tub per day in a rotation.

The results?  Well, I think about 90% successful.  I feel like I’m bathing in a pretty clean shower after a month’s time.  I know vinegar is a disinfectant, so I’m not showering the girls and myself in filth, and the tub and walls haven’t gotten nasty.

After a month, that tile looks pretty nice and the shelves are not scummy.

But just this week I started to notice some small spots of buildup on the grout of the tiles, and some soap residue on the showerhead.  I think that next week when I clean the bathroom again, I’ll clean the shower with the harsher bathroom chemicals too.

See those couple of spots there?  Not too bad for a month, but I'll take Scrubbing Bubbles to it on Saturday.

It's hard to see but 3/4 of the way down the grout, there is an orangey spot that needs some stringent cleaner.

Suds residue, even after being scrubbed with Dawn and vinegar ~ 3 x per week

Will I continue to do this?  YES.  Where Lori hates to do laundry, I hate to clean my bathroom.  With a vengeance.  If I can cut the shower scrubbing with harsh chemicals to once a month rather than once a week (hence cutting down my weekly shower cleaning time in general), I’d say that’s success. 

As an aside, for some laughs, be sure to check out one of my recent fave blogs with loads of Pinterest fails – the Pintester.  The lady has a foul mouth and a great sense of humor – right up my alley!

MUR-MAN CLEANS!

Posted by Lori~

My two-year-old son is definitely into the helping stage.  Constantly saying, “Mom can I help?” or “Dad can I help?”  Of course we LOVE THIS and know this won’t last forever (we are hoping it will!).

Mur-Man loves to help clean and spray our glass-top table.  But of course, Windex (or other cleaners) are not child friendly.

And so, I made Mur-Man cleaner.  I cleaned out an old cleaning bottle—of course very well with super hot water.

And I loaded it up with ½ water and ½ vinegar.  And, of course labeled it with his name.

Mur-Man is helping, my table is getting cleaner, and it’s safe!

Total cost—NOTHING!

SPRING INTO STEAM!

Posted by Lori~

You probably are seeing a pattern…I have spring on my mind!  The weather is GORGEOUS!  I am lovin’ it!

And with spring comes spring cleaning (at least I grew up with spring cleaning).  As you know, Steve and I have hard wood floors and we LOVE our steam mop.  Ethne swears by the Haan Duo Steam Mop and I do like my Bissel Steam Mop.

The problem is that the mop came with two steam mop pads (and of course, I have misplaced one).  And that leaves me with one.  And, you guessed it, I HATE laundry, so it really doesn’t work very well.

NASTY!

I had a plan to make my own mop pad…I hit my stash and found fleece.  PERFECT!  And, I am saving money!

I simply traced the original disgusting pad and created a pattern.

I then cut the fabric out as well as a 2½ inch strip.  From there, I sewed the strip to the pattern base.

I then folded down the strip and sewed to create a pocket for my elastic. I then threaded it through.

And, it works perfect.  Total cost under $3.00!  And I plan to make more!

The pad in ACTION!