Tip Tuesday: My favorite cleaning tips!

I've got a few of my favorite cleaning tips (or shortcuts) to share with you today.

I hate to clean.  I loathe it.  But, it's one of those things that must be done, so I do it.  I have a cleaning schedule that I do my best to keep up on, and it really helps.  I have several Pinterest recipes for cleaners that I've made, and they're all tried and true.  The only cleaning solution that I buy from the store any more is Windex.  I'm not sure how much I actually save making my own, but I know it's a lot.

Here goes: 

You know I make my own laundry detergent.  Here's the link to that post:http://envoguepogue.blogspot.com/2013/12/laundry-bombs_31.html

And my dishwasher detergent: http://envoguepogue.blogspot.com/2014/02/tip-tuesday-homemade-dishwasher-soap.html

I use Windex for my glass (of course) but thanks to Pinterest, I've found a new and amazing way to use it.  My dining chairs are upholstered with microseude.  Having three little ones, they get really dirty really quickly.  I've found the best way to clean them is with Windex!  Just spray some on, and use a scrub brush to wipe the grime off.  It's awesome!  Here's the link:http://makingtheworldcuter.com/2013/03/clean-microfiber-the-easy-way/

I've also been making my own Swiffer solution!  I bought some microfiber cloths from the dollar store, and cut them to fit my Swiffer.  They're machine washable, so no more wasting money on Swiffer pads!  And here's the link to remove the top off the Swiffer solution bottle.   http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-remove-the-cap-on-a-Swiffer-Wet-Jet-cleaner/

For the cleaning solution, I used equal parts vinegar and hot water, and about 20 drops of lemon essential oil.  It works every bit as well as the original solution!

My last tip is Liquid Magic Eraser.  Having kids around means dirty walls... Well, it means dirty everything.  But I came across this recipe, and it's AWESOME!  http://onetalentedmom.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/liquid-magic-eraser-homemade/

I've found that vinegar is one of my favorite things.  I love that it works so well, and it's inexpensive and it's not a chemical.  It's fabric softener, it's floor cleaner, it's great in the dishwasher as a rinse agent, it's just plain amazing!

I hope this post helped you!  These are simple recipes that take basically no time to put together, they save money, and they WORK!  Have a great Tuesday!

Tip Tuesday: Neutrogena Sonic Wave

This is not a paid review.  This is just a product that I love, so I've decided to share it with you.
I've been wanting one of those fancy facial brushes for a while... But, I just couldn't justify dishing out the cash for it.  I saw this at Wal-Mart, and I can't say that it works as well as a brush, (Simply because I've never used one) but I do have to say that I LOVE this, and that it's done wonders for my skin.

The Neutrogena Sonic Spin!  It's fairly small, and really easy to use.

It's got two different speed settings, which is great!

There's different types of pads that you can use with it, but I really like these ones.  I've been using it for a little over a month now, and the blackheads on my nose and chin are almost completely gone.  Not only that, but the redness in my cheeks has reduced quite a bit, and my skin just looks better!

I seriously love this thing!  And it was only around $10, which is a huge plus in my book!

Have a great Tuesday!

Tip Tuesday (A5 Paper)

I've written quite a bit about my filofax.  I love it.  I use it every day, all day long.  The one thing that is difficult about it is that the inserts are paper size A5.  It's not a huge deal, and I use the Filofax Week on Two Pages inserts for my everyday planning, but there are so many printables out there so you can customize your filofax to fit your specific needs.  I have printed several things, but was getting frustrated by the paper size.  I have a personal paper cutter, but it doesn't do more than two sheets at a time.
On the Philofaxy Facebook page, I asked if anyone knew where in the US to buy A5 paper.  I did get some suggestions, but the best one (in my opinion) was to go to an office supply store, buy a ream of paper, and have them cut it to the A5 size.  It was $5 more for them to cut it for me, but I was able to find the paper weight that I wanted, and now I have 1000 sheets of A5 paper.
My printer does have a setting for A5 paper, so I just popped it in, and printed this cute "Important Date" printable from Organise with Katie on Etsy.

I used my new hole punch from Rakuten to punch my holes.  I love this thing!  It's adjustable, so it'll punch just about any size of paper that I need.

And it's in my Filofax!  Now to fill it in!

I hope this tip helped!  Happy Tuesday!

Wowzers...

Busy, busy, couple of days.  Not that I mind.  I like to be busy, but these few days have been nuts.  I have managed to fit in a few things in spite of all the craziness.
I have several things to share with you in this post.  Sit back, relax, have a cup of joe.
With some homemade FLAVORED coffee creamer!  (That sounded like a commercial announcer in my head.)
I threw these together yesterday afternoon.  There's two different kinds here: Chocolate Raspberry and Mexican Mocha.  They're actually pretty good.  And they don't have all the processed junk in them that the store bought kinds have.

There's 25 different recipes here: http://blog.greendeals.org/go-green/homemade-flavored-coffee-creamer-recipes/

I can't wait to try them all!  

This is my girl right before she went on stage this weekend.  We were at a dance competition.  Our very first.  It was so much fun!  And Haven had a ball!  And, of course, she looked adorable!

And her trio took TOP FIRST PLACE!!!  Go Synergy!  

She looks like she's bearing her teeth there.  She was really saying "Cheese."

And I got a new toy this weekend.  I new (to me) embroidery machine!  I'm already having so much fun with it!  I made this cute hair bow for Haven yesterday.

And the Asher-man wanted something, so I put his name on his craft apron.

I also did a pillowcase for Jay, and put Haven's name on her dance company jacket.  I was having so much fun that I forgot that I had put dinner in the oven.  I burned it.  Badly.  It was completely inedible...  So, we had to eat out.  Not that the kids minded much, but I'm really tired of fast food after being gone all weekend...  But, hey, it was a productive day.

I'm so excited about my new toy!  Next on the to learn list is appliqué.  It should be fun!  Wish me luck!

Office redo/reorganization

Warning: Photo Heavy Post!  This is my office yesterday morning... The disaster that was...  It was so hard to work in it... And I really didn't have enough desk space.  I had an L-shaped desk, and a folding table that I used for my sewing machine.  And, as I'm getting another machine this weekend, (an embroidery machine!) I seriously needed to make more room...

I showed you pictures of the desk I built yesterday.  So far, I'm LOVING it!  The surface space is amazing, and I really like the height of it.

Here's a panoramic view of my office/ craft room:

I moved my bookshelves to the other side of the room.  I store my fabric, and my patterns here as well as the embellishments that I use of my hair bows and such.

And Baxter's bed.  Which is made from an old army ammunition box.  I love it.  He sleeps in it maybe once every 3 months.  You can also see my fold down ironing board.  I plan on recovering it ASAP.

Another view of my amazing new desk.  I even have room for my TV on it.  It was previously hung on the wall, and although I could hear it, I could only see it if I turned a certain way. The only thing I don't particularly care for is the fact that you can see all my computer cords hanging all over the place... I need a solution for that, STAT.

The right side of my new desk.  I've got various paper supplies and scissors under here.  With plenty of room to spare!

Here's the left side!  My Cricut, paints, and other paper cutting supplies.

And the shelving above my desk.  As I said yesterday, the wall organizers are made from the front of the kids' crib.  I love it.  It still has their little teeth marks on it.  I keep my ribbon and all my Cricut cartridges here.  The shelving was a Craigslit find last year.  I decided to use them for more decorative purposes than before.  I previously just had all the little things that I didn't want the kids to get to on them.  This looks much better.  And looking at the things up there just makes me happy.

I put my folding table as well as an old one a grabbed from the garage in an L-shape on the other side of my desk.  It's perfect for a sewing area, and I have plenty of room for my new machine!  The bulletin board has some favorite pictures on it, as well as some things that the kids have made for me.

The view from the sewing area.

And the other side of my window.  I love this wingback chair!  I plan on recovering it very soon.  Baxter likes it, too.  

You can also see my antique dress form.  Vintage 1940s.  I love it.

There you are!  I'm so happy with how this turned out.  Let me know if you have any questions!  And feel free to pin or share!  Thanks for reading!

Trip Tuesday?

That works, right?  I'll tell you about our trip to Idaho.  Both my husband's and my families live there, so it was such a good time to see everyone.
We left Friday morning, and as soon as we pulled out of the driveway, my husband decided that the dog smelled too bad to travel with, so we stopped and had him groomed really quickly.  He did smell a lot better, but they clipped one of his toenails a bit short, so it was bleeding all over the car.  Poor dog!
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful with the exception of a flat tire between Baker and Ontario.  Thankfully, we had a spare, and Jim was able to get it changed and we were back on the road.  We did have to stop at Les Schwab to get a new tire, and it turns out that we had run over a chain or something.  It put a good sized hole in the tire, so we were lucky that it didn't blow out!
We dropped the kids off at my parent's house, and Jim and I went to a hotel for the night.  That was awesome!  We haven't ever done that in the 8 & 1/2 years we've been married, so it was really, really nice to have an entire night for just the two of us.
When we got up on Saturday morning, we did some "Christmas" shopping.  Since we weren't able to come down to spend Christmas with family, we did a gift exchange Saturday night.  I LOVE that.  My husband's family is so much fun, and I love watching the kids light up.
On Sunday, I took off with my mom for a while, and it was really nice to spend a couple of hours with her.  Then we took to the kids to "Wahooz" which is an arcade, go cart race track, laser tag, bowling... etc.etc.  It's a really fun place.  Haven LOVED the go carts!  And her mom stood out in the cold for 2 hours so she and her brother could ride.  I was COLD!

We were able to see some of our really good friends and I met my "sister" Missie for coffee yesterday morning.  She had to work, so I was really bummed that we didn't have more time to spend together, but we had a nice chat, and it was a good way to start off a Monday.

We stopped by my in-law's storage unit to grab some things that had been in there for years... My husband grabbed some baseball cards that he's had since he was a kid, so he could give them to our oldest son.  He has the entire set from 1994.  Crazy.  And Jay is thrilled!

I grabbed a bin that had all my porcelain dolls that I collected as a girl in it... I don't know what I'm going to do with them all yet.  Haven doesn't have a shelf in her room that's high enough for me to put them on, and she's not quite old enough yet for me to leave them down...

See the bigger one that's sitting?  That one belonged to my grandma.  I love it.  She gave her to me years ago, and I plan on passing her down...  Again, I don't really know where I'm going to put her for now...  Any ideas?

We had a pretty uneventful drive home, and it really felt good to sleep in my own bed last night.  Today I get to do laundry and unpack.  And figure out where to put all the kids' Christmas gifts...  Ugh.  

That was my weekend!  I hope you had one that was just as wonderful!

Tip Tuesday: Homemade Dishwasher Soap

I don't know how much money I've saved using my homemade laundry bombs.  Here's another good money saver!  (And from the looks of my jar, I need to make some more.)

Here's the recipe:  I keep it in my filofax so I don't have to dig through my Pinterest Board to find it.

I'll make it easier on you:

Dishwasher Detergent:

2 c. Borax

2 c. Washing soda

2 c. Lemi Shine

1 c. Kosher Salt

Use white vinegar as a rinse aid.  I just put some in a small container on the top shelf.  My dishes are clean and sparkly with no hard water spots.  I love this stuff!

One of my favorite things about this is that most of the ingredients were already in my cupboard because I use them to make my Laundry Bombs.

 And the link to the Original Recipe:

Happy Dishwashing!

Tip Tuesday: Endless Dryer Sheets

I already shared with you my laundry detergent recipe.  This one, I wanted to try out for a couple of weeks before I shared it.  So far, I'm loving it.

I  bought some sponges from the dollar store and cut them each in half.  Then I grabbed a plastic container, filled it with one part fabric softener and 2 parts water.  For every load, depending on size, I grab one or two of the sponges, wring them out, and throw them in the dryer with my wet clothes.  After they're done, I put them back in the container.  It's been working great!  No static, my clothes are soft, and they smell good!  All for a couple of bucks.  SCORE!

Idea courtesy of Pinterest.

Recovering from yesterday.

So, yesterday was a Monday.  A horrible, horrible, Monday.  I try really hard to start each day out on a positive note, simply because I really believe that if you think you're going to have a bad day, you will.  Well, I didn't think it at the beginning of the day, but it turned out to be a rough one.  Pictured below is my nightstand.  See the chocolate chips?  Dark chocolate chips to be exact. After the day I had yesterday, this is what I resorted to.  That, and an hour or two of Downton Abbey after everyone had gone to sleep, and all was right with the world again.  Here's my tip for this Tuesday:  When you have a bad day, drink a glass of wine, grab some chocolate, (any shape or size) and watch a chick flick.  You will feel immensely better.  I promise.

You know the suspender and bow tie sets that I was to finish yesterday?  Well, here's one of them.  The only one that I actually had time to get done.  You see, all of my children were home from school yesterday.  I love my kids.  I don't love when the fight with each other and fight with me all day long.  I didn't get to sit down for even five minutes together to work on my projects.  And, so I'll bet you that before 10 AM this morning, I will have the rest of the suspenders done, and have plenty of time to get the things done that I need to do for the boutique.

The bow tie and suspender sets really are cute, aren't they?  This one is for the boy in the dance group.  The others will have rhinestones on them.  And have coordinating pigtail bows.  So cute!

My hope for you today is that you have a fabulous one!  I plan to!

Magnetic Cups.

This is something I found on Pinterest, so I really can't take credit for the genius of it.  But, every time another mom comes into my house, they take one look at my fridge and make some sort of comment. I grabbed some cups from the party section at Wal-Mart.  My kids have all their favorite characters.  Princesses, superheroes, monster trucks... And they love them.

They love that they can reach the cups and get their own water.  I love that I don't have to wash 18 cups every day.  They grab a drink, and then stick their cups back on the fridge.

How I did it:  These round magnets are super strong.  I used E-6000 to glue the magnets to the cups.  I love E-6000.  It does have to set for 24-48 hours, but once it's dry, it can be run through the dishwasher or whatever you need to do.

So, there's your tip for this lovely Tuesday.  It looks as though I'll be spending mine nursing sick kiddos.  Have a good one!