Here’s an easy step by step process with pictures explaining how to clean a glass top stove burner or ceramic stove top with items you already have at home! (more…)
Category: Cleaning
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Cleaning A Textured Shower Floor
Try these ideas for how to clean a textured shower floor. Because of the texture, it can be difficult to get shower floors clean, but these tips will help! (more…)
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Homemade Window Cleaner Recipe
Save money with this easy homemade window cleaner recipe that is rated by consumer reports to work much better (and cheaper) than most commercial window sprays.
Homemade Window Cleaner Recipe
1/2 cup ammonia
2 cups rubbing alcohol
water
1 tsp. dishwashing liquidIn a one-gallon container*, mix ammonia and rubbing alcohol. Fill almost to the top with water. Add dishwashing liquid and mix. Top off with water. Rated by Consumer Reports Magazine to work much better (and much cheaper) than most commercial window and kitchen sprays. Alcohol is the secret ingredient – it’s what commercial window washers use.
*Safe on most, but not all, household surfaces.
*You can use a washed out gallon milk carton and fill with a funnel or just half or quarter the recipe to fit in your spray bottle.
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How To Reduce Holiday Cleaning Stress – Cleaning For Company
Here are some easy ideas for how to reduce holiday cleaning stress with specific actionable items to make it easier to keep the house clean and organized during the holidays! (more…)
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Scented Ironing Water Recipe
Scented Ironing Water is one of the easiest things to make and it can add just the extra touch to your clothes to make them smell extra fresh! This scented ironing water is just 2 ingredients and takes about 1 minute to make so make some up today. (more…)
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How To Get Kids To Help Around The House
“How can I get my kids to help?!” scream the mothers of the world! In all the years I have been a mother, almost every bit of advice I have studied say to motivate your kids using charts with stickers, allowances and various forms of bribery. I have personally used all of these methods. I believe in using them because I have found they work great. -
Recipe For Washing Clothes
Recipe For Washing Clothes
I never thought of a “washer” in this light before.. what a blessing! — Imagine having a recipe for this !!! Years ago an Alabama grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe: (This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook – with spelling errors and all.)
WASHING CLOTHES
Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water
Set tubs so smoke won’t blow in eyes if wind is pert.
Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water. Sort things, make 3 piles 1 pile white, 1 pile colored, 1 pile work britches and rags. To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water. Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don’t boil just wrench and starch. Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch. Hang old rags on fence. Spread tea towels on grass. Pore wrench water in flower bed. Scrub porch with hot soapy water. Turn tubs upside down. Go put on clean dress, smooth hair with hair combs. Brew cup of tea, sit and rock a spell and count your blessings.
Paste this over your washer and dryer. Then, the next time you think things are bleak, read it again, kiss that washing machine and dryer, and give thanks. The first thing each morning you should run and hug your washer and dryer and also your toilet—those two-holers used to get mighty cold! (For you non-southerners: wrench means rinse.)
photo by:ericskiff
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Things to Do While the Water is Boiling
You know the old saying, “A watched pot never boils,” so here are some things to do that might help it boil faster or at least to seem like it will.
Things to do while you’re waiting for water to boil:
- Clean out a shelf or two in the fridge.
- Wash some dishes.
- Clean out a drawer.
- Clean out a shelf.
- Cut up some vegetables for another meal.
- Plan another meal.
- Wipe down the fronts of the dishwasher, fridge and stove.
- Clean out the toaster.
- Take out the trash.
Use the small minutes to get big things accomplished!
-Tawra
Photo By: Jamiesrabbits
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Useful Household Tips and Kids’ Tips
Useful Household Tips and Kids’ Tips
Here are a few miscellaneous useful household and kids’ tips from Dining on a Dime and our e books. (more…)
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Clean Smarter, Not Harder!
Try these easy cleaning ideas to make your cleaning easier and faster, so you don’t need to procrastinate! Use these tips and have a cleaner home today! (more…)
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Picking up Toys
Picking up Toys
From: Kay C
Cleaning tip – The most helpful thing I was told was when my kids were little and toys would get everywhere – Just use a grass rake to gather them all to one spot to be put away. It will bring in the smallest lego from under the TV cabinet and is easy to store with your brooms – hours saved each week!!
I did this very thing with the broom the other day and it worked great! With a toddler running around destroying everything and since I’m sick, I just can’t keep up. One thing we do is divide rooms. Each evening I say, “BJ, you pick up the living room AND PUT EVERYTHING WHERE IT BELONGS. Elly, pick up the Dining Room and Hallway, David, pick up the kitchen”. Then we rotate each day. This way, everyone can help and I don’t break my back cleaning up their mess.
The trick is to say “put everything where it belongs.” Otherwise, they will just dump everything in one spot in the room.
Another idea is to say, “Everyone pick up 20 things and put them where they belong” or “Everyone will pick up for 5 minutes.” The last one never worked for us because they would just stand around saying “I’m done” when it hadn’t been picked up (just waiting for the time to pass) so we moved to the “each one doing a room” routine, which seems to work much better.
Tawra
One thing that always helped me was staying on top of the picking up. Each morning, the kids had to leave their rooms picked up before they left for school. Each evening, the different rooms were picked up before bed and if things seemed to be getting out of control during the day we would have a pick up time. At other times, like if we were going someplace, things had to be picked up before we left.
Make it easy for the kids to put their toys away and have a good place to store them. As an adult, I get frustrated trying to smash something into a closet or shelf if it is full and messy. Can you imagine what a child feels like?
Also like Tawra said when dealing with children you have to be very specific in everything whether picking up things, eating and everything in between. If you tell a child “Eat your beans” trust me they will eat one and then say they did what you told them to do where what you really meant was for them to eat all of their beans. The little stinkers. Don’t we love them anyway. :)
Jill
photo by: beeep
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Fall and Spring Cleaning
We received an email from Nancy asking how to get Fall and Spring cleaning done like her mom used to do. She said it was hard enough just to get regular cleaning done.
Originally when people did Fall and Spring cleaning they had no choice but to do it. They had used wood or coal burning stoves all winter. Their wood stoves weren’t like the air tight ones we have today so there would be black soot everywhere and on everything. There would be soot on the windows, curtains, walls, baseboards, knick knacks, rugs and furniture.
They would also use this time to prepare for the next season. For example, wool rugs would be rolled up and put away for the summer or taken out for the winter. Windows were washed one last time before winter set in or cleaned from the soot that had accumulated on them from the winter.
We don’t notice such drastic seasonal changes in our homes now with thermostats, which provide almost the same temperatures all year round, and air filters, which give us a dust free environment, but old habits die hard.
I have never really done one or two days of heavy cleaning each season because, like you, I didn’t have the time. What worked best for me was cleaning something each week that would normally be done at Spring cleaning time.
For example, one week when I am vacuuming if I see that the baseboards are getting dusty, I will dust them. If I notice my kitchen curtains need washing, I will toss them in with a load of laundry. If there is one wall the looks dirty in the bathroom, I will clean it on the day I clean the tub.
Anything that is broken down into smaller sections is easier to do. It seems to be easier to find 10 minutes to dust the baseboards than to find one or two days to clean everything.
If you like lists, you could make a list of things which need to be done and pick one or two from the list to do each week. There are 52 weeks in a year. That means you could have a list of 104 things to do and at two per week, you could get most things done easily.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t do a little deep cleaning now and then but usually it is only because I want to and not because I have to. I don’t know if it is some ancient thing built into me or what but I get the urge to start nesting this time of year. I have a strong desire to clean, pull out the winter bedding, clean my closet and get out next seasons clothes.
I want to get my home winterized and ready for the cold so that, when the first snow comes, I can curl up with a good book and read guilt free.
-Jill
photo by: redjar
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Happy New Year Everyone! Or is it?
Happy New Year Everyone!!
Every year on New Year’s I always remember one special New Year’s Day. That is really unusual for me because New Year’s has never been one of my favorite holidays. I can’t remember ever staying up to ring in the New Year and I have only been to one or two New Year’s parties. I left those early and was home about 10:00, so for me to remember a special New Year’s Day is something.
It happened many years ago. I had gone to bed early as usual on New Year’s Eve and woke up about 5:30 the next morning. I was heating the house with our one pot belly stove and we were all sleeping and living in just a couple of rooms at the back of our house.
The kids were still sleeping so I couldn’t do much for fear of waking them. I sat quietly down at the kitchen table, started eating some leftover pecan pie (my breakfast of choice on Christmas and New Year’s morning) and thinking about the past year. That was also unusual for me to do because I never stew over the past year on New Year’s and I never give the next year much thought.
For some reason, out of the blue, I started dwelling on things. I started getting very discouraged and was feeling like having a pity party. I was shocked because I had been through so much the previous year and that whole time I hadn’t given in to self pity but all of a sudden I was wallowing in it.
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Holiday Cleaning – Preparing Now For The Holidays
Holiday Cleaning – Preparing Now For The Holidays
Halloween is over, which means it is now officially time to kick it into gear to get ready for the holidays and to get your house ready for company. It really helps to get your house in order now because if unexpected company comes you won’t get caught off guard. Then you can concentrate on baking, finding gifts and organizing activities without having to worry about deep cleaning your house again until after the New Year.
Hopefully by now you have been inspired to start getting things done a little at a time so this won’t be too big of a job. Here are a few things to work on:
- Get your closets in order. Put summer clothes away and take winter clothes out, tossing as you go.
- Don’t forget your linen closets. Get your guest towels, sheets and extra blankets aired out and put the linens in a handy spot so they are easy to grab when you need them.
- If you have a guest room, get it cleaned and prepare everything for your first guests.
- Get your holiday linens prepared. Wash them if necessary and make sure they’re ready to go.
- Hopefully you have cleaned your pantry. Now you need to make sure it is stocked with everything you need for your holiday recipes, for some quick and easy to fix snacks and dinners for unexpected company or food to take to social events.
- Make sure your fridge and freezer are in order. The refrigerator and freezer are going to work overtime for you over the next couple of months so make sure they’re cleaned, organized and prepared.
- I don’t worry about cleaning my oven at this time. I use it so much for baking that it’s silly for me to clean it right before having a baking fest. I usually wait and give it a good cleaning after the holidays. If it’s really bad or you have company coming and it looks awful you may want to go ahead and clean it anyway.
- This week and next week is the time to do any deep cleaning that you don’t want to have to mess with again until after the holidays– things like washing your windows, deep cleaning rugs and carpets and dusting mirrors, picture frames, lampshades or ceiling fans.
If you have been keeping up with your cleaning you may not have to do any of these. Basically just clean your house enough for company. Then you’ll know it’s done and you will be prepared for the unexpected.
Part of the stress that comes at the holidays is the result of not being prepared, especially for the unexpected things that always seem to come up. Think of it like being prepared for a disaster. If I have a wood burning stove, firewood, lots of candles, blankets and food prepared, I am not too stressed if we lose power from an ice storm. If I wasn’t at all prepared, I would be in a total panic if an ice storm hit.
If you are prepared, you have something you can whip up for company in just a few minutes or if the kids need treats for school, you have dough frozen and ready to be baked in the freezer. I’m not saying that I have everything prepared like Martha Stewart but I do try to have everything together enough so that I’m reasonably prepared for the unexpected. My idea of the perfect woman is a cross between Martha Stewart and Erma Bombeck! Some days I am more one than the other and on other days I totally miss the mark, but that’s okay, because I tried. :-)
-Jill
For more easy cleaning and organizing tips, check out our How To Organize And Clean Your Home e-books.
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Bathroom Etiquette – Respect Yourself And Others
Bathroom Etiquette – Respect Yourself And Others
Here are a few things to do out of consideration for the next person who will be using the bathroom. Each one of these takes only seconds and will leave the bathroom neat and tidy for the next person. Make them habits.
- Remove all dirty clothes or place them in a hamper as you leave.
- Hang up used towels.
- Put up the bathmat. I lay a 100% cotton rug on the floor beside my tub, where is stays all the time so there is one less thing for my family to worry about.
- Rinse the hair out of the tub or sink. Keep a plastic glass or container in the corner of the tub to use for this. If you have a shower head on a hose, that’s even better yet.
- Use a dampened piece of toilet paper to clean hairs off of counters.
- Put away toiletries— make up, hair products, toothpaste and toothbrush, etc. Time yourself. Once you have the bathroom clean this should take 30 seconds or less to do.
- Teach all male members of the family to wipe drips off of toilets. When you start potty training little boys teach them this. Better yet, teach them to wipe before the drip happens. Guys, be considerate of your wives and daughters. It’s the little things they appreciate!
I have a little saying for my grandsons that cracks them up. It goes:
If you sprinkle when you tinkle,
Be a sweetie, wipe the seatie.If you are saying, “There is no way I have time to do all these things,” think again. All these things take a total of only 2 minutes. Cut that 30 minute shower or the 30 minutes you spend on your hair and make-up down to 28 minutes and there is your extra time.
You will also find that you will be saving time because you aren’t stumbling over everyone’s dirty clothes or pawing through the counter trying to find the toothpaste, lipstick or brush. Even the seconds it takes you to push things aside to find a place to lay your curling iron could have been used to put those same things away the day before and you would have saved time today.
Most importantly, you are teaching your family respect and consideration for someone else. How do you think people really learn to give respect and, in turn, gain respect? It is by making it a habit daily to be considerate of others in millions of little things that they do– always thinking, “How do I want to be treated?” and, in turn, treating others that same way. It’s an old fashioned truth from the Bible called the golden rule.
We have got to start loving and caring more for our own family members and treating them with consideration. You or your kids don’t need to sit down and read another book about How to gain Self Esteem and Respect. Just start cleaning up the bathroom after yourselves!
-Jill
photo by: joanna8555
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“The Best Homemade Cleaners” Kindle e-book
Get Our NEW Homemade Cleaners Kindle e-book!
Get the The Best Homemade Cleaners e-book here!
Is buying cleaning supplies mopping up your cash? Cleaning supplies are a huge expense for the average family, but Tawra Kellam and Jill Cooper spend less than $10 per year on cleaning supplies!
The Best Homemade Cleaners e-book explains how to use cleaning supplies effectively to clean and save money. You’ll learn which cleaners work best for various jobs so you don’t have to keep a closet full of different cleaners that you never use.
The Best Homemade Cleaners e-book also includes easy recipes for making your own cleaning supplies.
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10 Steps To A Cleaner House, part 2
10 Steps To A Cleaner House: Preventing Messes, Part 2
This post is Part 2 of Preventing Messes. Read Part 1 here.
Today, I’m sharing some more useful tips for preventing messes around the home. Any mess you can prevent is one less thing to clean up later!
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When feeding babies, don’t lay sticky messy food all over their high chair trays. I have had enough children and grandchildren to know that there is no way you can feed a baby or toddler without having some mess but there are a few things you can do to help keep it under control.
- Feed gooey, extra messy things to babies yourself. Let them practice feeding themselves with the less slimy things first.
- Start teaching them to use plates or bowls as soon as possible. That doesn’t mean to give them Spaghetti O’s the first time they use a plate. Instead start with something like a cheese sandwich.
- When they first start feeding themselves, start out with things like dry Cheerios and continue to feed them the chocolate pudding yourself.
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Save Money – Organize Your Refrigerator
Save Money Organizing Your Refrigerator!
Here is an excerpt from our Groceries On A Dime ebooks about organizing your refrigerator:
Organize your fridge.
There is a difference between cleaning and organizing. When you clean, you get rid of the “nasties” and wipe down the shelves. When you organize you place things in a certain order to make it easier to use them.
For example, I always keep my milk, my cheese and lunch meats in the same spots in the refrigerator. The eggs go on one side.The fruits go in the fruit bin and the vegetables go in the veggie bin. If I have room, I try to keep all the leftovers on the same shelf or in the same area in the refrigerator.
Why is any of this important and how can it save me money? Because we can save huge amounts of money by not wasting food. Food is wasted because we didn’t know we had it and it spoiled or we didn’t know we had it so we bought more of it and then it spoiled.
By having things organized, I can see at a glance if I need milk or cheese.If someone comes home for a quick lunch and I’m not there, they can look on the leftover shelf and know they can eat any of those leftovers for lunch instead of having to paw through the fridge to find something to eat. Keeping my refrigerator organized also helps me know if I need to have an extra “leftover” dinner that week because leftovers are piling up.
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Preventing Mold In The Bathroom
Preventing Mold In The Bathroom
I frequently see advertising for cleaning products that kill mold and mildew in bathrooms. It made me think people must have a real problem with these based on how many products are available out there to address it. I could not figure out why I have never once had any mold or mildew in my bathroom (and since I am 60-something that is a long time). I also live in Kansas which is very humid. Not only that, I have never had a bathroom fan in any of my bathrooms.
I didn’t know what my secret was until yesterday. I read an article that said to prevent mold and mildew in your bathroom, take warm, short (5-10 minutes) showers, which I have always done. I took short showers to save on water but I didn’t realize that taking shorter showers would help prevent mold and mildew. Now that I think about it, I usually don’t even stay in the shower long enough for my mirrors to steam up. It must work because that is the only thing I do differently from a lot of other people and I don’t get the mold at all. I do clean my bathroom once a week. (When I had the kids living at home, we cleaned it twice a week).
I thought some of you might try this idea if you are having a real problem with mold, especially this time of year.
While we are on the subject of showers you might try taking one at night instead of the morning. This washes away the day’s grime and since you usually aren’t doing things in bed that cause you to get covered in dirt, you are usually clean in the morning and really don’t need another shower.
-Jill
P.S. This is another one of those examples of how using a little prevention and changing your habits can save you not only time but money on cleaning supplies.
photo by: osseous
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Out of the Mouths of Babes
I’m known in my family and with friends for “telling it like it is”. As a matter of fact when I was in Holland I got a plaque that said “Lord, Please help me to keep my big mouth shut until I know what I’m talking about!” That’s been my motto ever since but it still hasn’t kept me from just “telling the truth” most times. (Tact has never been a strong quality of mine!)
Well, the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree and now my kids tell are telling me the truth! Last night at dinner I asked Mike, “Am I a nag? There was this lady on TV who nagged her family to keep everything spotlessly clean and they were all sick of it. She wouldn’t even let her husband finish making something in the kitchen before putting away the stuff. She NEVER stopped nagging them and the family was very much stressed out because of it.”
My daughter Elly responded, “Of course not mom, you’re not a nag… Look at that big mess in the kitchen!” LOL We just couldn’t stop laughing! I have to say I wasn’t sure how to take that, especially since I had been working all day long to keep the house spotless in case we need to show it! It always amazes me how when the kids get home from school everything just seems to blow up! :-)
Tawra
I love it. One of the things I love about being a grandparent is I get to see my grand kids say and do all the things my kids did to me. :-D What comes around goes around. ;-)
Jill
Photo By: Mike McCune
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Homemade Fruit and Vegetable Wash Recipe
If you’d like an easy homemade fruit and vegetable wash recipe, you’ll find it below! You really don’t need a special cleaner for your fruits and vegetables. Just wash them with a weak solution of dish detergent and a scrub brush. If you still prefer to use a special wash, this is a good recipe that is the same as the “natural” stuff in the store.
Homemade Fruit and Vegetable Wash Recipe
Here’s an easy recipe for a homemade fruit and vegetable wash you can use to clean your fresh fruits and vegetables. This recipe uses natural ingredients and can help you clean your fresh produce thoroughly before you prepare it.
Ingredients
Units1 Tbsp. lemon juice 2 Tbsp. baking soda 1 cup waterInstructions
- Put ingredients in a spray bottle. Be careful because it will foam up.
- Spray on vegetables and let sit 5 minutes.
- Then rinse with a scrub brush.
[dining]
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84 Ways To Use Baking Soda
84 Ways To Use Baking Soda
Baking soda is one of the most versatile and useful products available. It’s like the “duct tape” of the homemaking world! ;-)
I was frantically helping Tawra clean her house one day before the reporters came and couldn’t get these red and black marks off her fridge.
The whole time I was taking the man’s name in vain who came up with the idea of finger proof fridges and put texture on the outside, which is even harder to clean! Dumb idea.
Anyway God showed me a means of escape before I sinned more by thinking more bad thoughts about the poor man and I remembered baking soda and used it on the fridge. Voila! Fridge clean and in a nick of time.
Here are several other ways to use baking soda to help you get everything clean and shiny from your hair to your sink!
Ways To Use Baking Soda
Here is my list of ways to use baking soda. Baking soda is one of the things that is practically a cure all for everything and it is so cheap! You can buy big boxes in the laundry section of your store so you can use it for everything!
Body And Health Baking Soda Uses
Use baking soda as an antacid and for heartburn. I mix ½ tsp. of baking soda with about ½ cup water, mix and drink. It really does work.
Use it for food allergy relief. This is not for an allergy that causes you to have a life threatening reaction You should avoid those foods entirely. If you have very mild food allergies and sensitivities, you can drink ½ tsp. baking soda in ½ cup of water and it will help reduce the reaction. I do this all the time when I eat something that makes my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome worse and it works like a charm!
Relieve skin itch from insect bites, bee stings and pain from windburn and sunburn. Make a paste with water and put on bite or burn.
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Organizing Kids’ Bedrooms – From The Kids’ Point of View
Boy, can kids’ bedrooms be a challenge! Trying to get kids organized can be tough and trying to get them to keep their rooms clean is even harder. I don’t have the secret to keeping their rooms spotlessly perfect at every moment but I do have a few tips that should make things more bearable for both parents and kids.
Make sure furniture is kid sized.
Every feature and piece of furniture in a child’s bedroom should be kid sized and kid friendly. So often, parents buy tall 3-4 drawer dressers and the kids can only comfortably reach the second drawer for the first 6-7 years of their lives. At the same time, parents expect the children to put their clothes away. This is setting a child up for failure.
Even adults have a hard time keeping our things picked up, even when we can reach the drawers and see into them. How would you feel if you had to put your clothes into a drawer a foot or more taller than you are?
Besides, tall chests can be dangerous in a child’s room. The kids, because they can’t always reach the top, will pull out the bottom drawer and stand on it to reach things. Some children who do this end up tipping their dressers over on top of themselves, which can seriously injure them. Another thing to consider is that if the drawers don’t slide easily, little fingers can get pinched.
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4 Things to Reduce Stress and Clutter
As much as we joke about it, living with clutter can be a serious problem that can significantly and adversely affect our lives. I have seen it in my own family’s life (when we were in the process of remodeling) and there have been many studies to prove that clutter can cause stress. I think that deep down most of us know this but for many of us it is so hard to get motivated to take care of the problem. Sometimes, we simply don’t know where to start.
Here is a simple list of four things that I hope will get you started in the right direction. For some of you, doing all four of these things at once may be too much at first so pick one (the one that bugs you the most) and do it every day for a couple of weeks. Once you have that one under control, then pick a second one. This should be easier because you will like the results completing of the first task so much you will want to try the second one. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. It’s better not to try to do too much at first if it is very overwhelming.
I don’t care what happens in your day– Before you go to bed, make sure you do your one thing. Some of you may have to start with tiny baby steps. For example, I say “Pick things up off of the floor.” I mean pick up the floor in the whole house but you may have to clean just one or two rooms at first and work your way up. That’s ok. At least you are moving in the right direction and for some of you you are at least moving. ;-)
1. Pick up anything on the floor.
2. Clear countertops, tables and flat surfaces
3. Wash dishes*
4. Wash the laundry. Follow through all the way from the hamper to putting it away in dressers or cabinets.
*One of the things I learned to do as a young bride to make washing dishes much easier was to fill my sink with hot soapy water and stack as many dirty dishes in the water as I could before I did anything else. Then, I quickly wiped down my counters and table. That way, if someone came to the house, it at least looked like I was working on washing the dishes and it made the room look neater.
Photo By: ShardsOfBlue – Roxanne Ready