A Pinteresting Wednesday: Better Smelling Towels

Welcome to yet another A Pinteresting Wednesday. I haven't tried one of my pins of my Tips, Tricks, Good to Know board for awhile. I figured it was time.

Funny enough, this was actually from Hubby's boards (there was no actual link since it was pinned from an iphone so I can't direct you, sorry), but this is something we have both been wanting to try for a long time.

So try it we did. Obviously bringing out my inner Yoda.

We have these towels.

We have had them for a pretty long time. Some of them were even wedding gifts.

Explain to me the reason why towels you wash for years with delightful smelling detergent just end up smelling dank, old, and frankly quite nasty after awhile.

I pretty much hate it. 

Nothing worse than being all clean and then drying off with a stanky towel.

So this week I decided I would try to make my towels smell better.

I gathered up a handful of our towels.

I ran the towels through two loads.

First I ran the load with no detergent, just 1 cup of white vinegar with the water temperature on hot.

Once the first load is done, then I ran a second load with detergent and 1/2 cup of baking soda, again on hot.

After two runs through the washing machine, you dry them like normal.

Bam.

No more dank stank.

Fluffy and now with a refreshing clean smell.

So the lowdown to getting better smelling towels:

First Time: Run with no detergent. Use 1 cup of white vinegar and HOT water.
Second Time: Run with detergent. Use 1/2 cup baking soda and HOT water.
DRY

Now enjoy renewed towels.

Oh thank you Pinterest for making me a better housekeeper!

What has been a favorite tip or trick that you have pinned? Do share!

I would love for you to follow along on Pinterest and stay posted on the fun.

A Pinteresting Wednesday: Homemade Fabric Softener

I pretty much dislike, okay I strongly dislike doing laundry.

The only thing that keeps me doing it even in my intense dislike of the chore...

...well I dislike smelliness even more.

I think the reason that I am not a fan of laundry is because it truly is never EVER done. I can complete four loads of laundry and by the time I am done folding that load there is a whole other load.

Boo.

A new washer and dryer has helped. Delightful smelling detergent has also helped. Another thing I have started having a fondness for is fresh and lovely smelling fabric softener.

Unfortunately, the best stuff...you know the stuff that smells to.die.for...isn't always in our budget.

We ran out of softener quite awhile ago and I was just going without.

Then the other day I came across THIS post at One Good Thing. Remembering that I was fabric softener deficient, I pinned it right away on my Tips, Tricks, and Good to Know board.

I had everything on hand to make it AND it was laundry day, so I figured I would give it a go and see if Homemade Fabric Softener was worth the hype.

Her original recipe makes 1 gallon of fabric softener.

She mixes 6 cups of water, 3 cups of white vinegar, and 2 cups hair conditioner (it can be the cheap stuff). Since I was just testing it out, I actually halved my mixture and just did 3 cups water, 1 1/2 cups vinegar, and 1 cup conditioner.

I mixed the conditioner and vinegar together first.

Then I mixed in the water.

When everything was all combined, I poured it into a half gallon empty, and clean, milk container. I figured the chocolate milk residue wouldn't so much help my softener.

I poured some of it in a pretty little container. Yeah I am pretty sure I didn't need to, but sometimes I like surrounding myself with unnecessary but pretty things. I stored the rest.

To use, I just added about 1/4 cup of the softener in my fabric softener container of my HE washer and ran it like normal. In the first load, which was larger, I didn't notice the "ocean" smell as much. In smaller loads I did notice the smell. I actually washed a blanket and it was lovely and oceany fresh.

I am not sure it can really compete with the really good store-bought stuff, but it is cheap, still works, and I will be making my own fabric softener again for sure.

Happy Pinning!

A Pinteresting Wednesday: Baking Soda and White Vinegar Floor Wash

Another installment of A Pinteresting Wednesday.

I am not sharing a project from my pin boards this week. We are trying to make it through enjoy our last week of Summer, and I didn't have any time to check a project off my boards.

Also, true to my word I am trying to spend a little more time snapping pictures of Bean. More photo-taking, less project-making.

His eyes are two cups of crazy, right?

Since I am wrapping up Summer and capturing Bean in photos, today's pin is from my Tips, Tricks, and Good to Know board.

I love all of the non-toxic cleaning options out there. A lot of them include one of the three ingredients in today's floor wash. When I saw this PIN, I knew since this floor cleaner included Baking Soda, White Vinegar, and Dish Detergent it was a definite must try.

I have washed my floors with just vinegar and while it works, man talk about smelly. The boys hate when I mop with vinegar. HATE.

I was happy to find out that mixing the baking soda and detergent  in the vinegar smell was masked. Woohoo!

Simply mix 2 gallons of water, 1 cup of white vinegar, 1 cup of baking soda, and 1 Tablespoon of liquid dish detergent (I used Dawn, I have posted of it's magical cleaning qualities before HERE).

I like to heavy duty mop on my hand and knees with a rag. I think it is easier to get in there and really man handle the dirt and grime. This would also work with a mop though.

I was pleased with this cleaning mixture and will use it again. I might half it next time, especially if I were just doing one room.

So another Pin tested, another Pin successful. 

A Pinteresting Wednesday: The Power of Dawn

Today for my A Pinteresting Wednesday I decided to go to my "tips, tricks, good to know" board. There were a couple of DIY cleaning tips that I wanted to try.

I was probably drawn to the first tip because my favorite white shirt was only wearable if I put a jacket or sweater over it. The super embarrassing and yucky underarms made me sad. Was I ever going to be able to wear my oh-so-lovely summer shirt again?

When I remembered that I had pinned a way to fix that underarm yellow stain I kind of jumped up for joy.

 source

The idea seemed easy enough. Could it really fix my shirt?

I know it is hard to see the yellow, but trust

me it is there. It was super gross.

All I needed to do was mix 1 part Dawn liquid dish detergent to 2 parts hydrogen peroxide. Then I added some baking soda.

After I combined the cleaning mixture, I took a laundry scrub brush and really let those stains have it.

I will tell you what, even right after I scrubbed them I could tell a difference.

Then once I washed and dried my shirt, I was sold. My shirt was so sparkling clean. Buh-bye ugly yellow underarms.

Now it can be safely worn all by itself with no shame to me. Yipee!

Now Dawn seems to have even more magical qualities. I also came across this pin to clean jewelry.

source 

With a simple mixture of only a couple ingredients, it claims to clean pretty much any of your nice jewelry.

I will let you in on a secret...

I don't own nice jewelry. I pretty much stick to jewelry from forever21, target, hand-me-downs, and so on.

The nicest thing I own is, and probably will always be, my wedding ring. I am just not a fancy girl. Besides my ring, jewelry does not float my boat.

Now because this jewelry is also something I wear 24/7 it is pretty gosh darn filthy. I thought I owed it to my one piece of sparkly to clean it.

So I used this DIY jewelry cleaning solution. Just looky what it did...

 Pretty awesome, right?

I thought so, AND it was super easy.

Dawn was involved again.

1. Heat 1 cup of water for 2 minutes in the microwave.

2. Prepare 1 TBS salt, 1 TBS Dawn, and 1 TBS baking soda

3. Put a little piece of aluminum foil in the bottom of the hot water

4. Add the salt, Dawn, and baking soda

5. Immerse the ring and let it set for 10-15 minutes

6. Remove jewelry from the mixture, rinse off with cold water. Then 

gently wipe off with a soft rag.

BAM. Clean and sparkly jewelry once again.

Who knew Dawn was so extra awesome? I certainly did not.

Here are some other Dawn DIY tricks that I found and thought I would share:

DIY Dawn Shower Cleaner

DIY Ice Packs

DIY Window Wash

Gardner's Hand Scrub

Go check out the power of Dawn for yourself!

Thought I would mention that Dawn is not paying me to sing their 

praises. I am doing this of my own little free will. In fact,

 I would wager a bet that Dawn doesn't even know my name. 

Lucky for me though, I know theirs!