Carpets

The last day in March and my final spring cleaning post, phew! Two tips for you today on cleaning carpets.

Remove hair (pet or human) from carpets with a clean trainer.  Pop the trainer on your hand and rub it over the carpet and see the hair lift off.  I've also heard rubber gloves to the same.

My recipe for a carpet refresher.  I hope you stocked up on Bicarbonate of Soda at the beginning of the month because  your about to need it again.  Mix bicarbonate of soda with dried lavender flowers, sprinkle over your carpets.  Leave for an hour or more and vacuum off.

Kitchens

My final room in the house for spring cleaning is the Kitchen.  Its fair to say your kitchen takes quite a beating day to day.  Here are my tips for cleaning it effectively and cheaply.

 

Wash your cupboard fronts down with warm water and washing up liquid, don't forget to do the tops too.  Washing up liquid is perfect for this as cupboard doors tend to accumulate grease.  Washing up liquid will dissolve this no problem and you already have it in your kitchen.

I have a stainless steal sink and hob.  When we viewed this house I fell in love with the kitchen, I loved the units and the french doors onto the garden.  But I remember looking at the sink and hob and saying they're going to be a nightmare to clean.  What that says about me, I don't know.  I was right though.  However I have discovered two things.  The 1st tip will remove limescale from around your taps.  Soak cotton wool in vinegar and wrap it around your tap.  leave it for an hour of two then remove.  The acid in the vinegar will dissolve the lime scale.  This works well about as well as any lime scale remover I have ever tried but is significantly cheaper.  I won't lie to you it won't completely remove lime scale but I have never found anything that does this.  For really stubborn water marks try lemon juice instead of vinegar the acid is stronger.

When you have cleaned your sink give it a polish with... baby oil!  Just a small amount of a piece of kitchen towel gives a wonderful shine.

For my hob I use warm water and washing up liquid to remove grease, vinegar also works well and then polish with the baby oil.  It really does give an outstanding shine to stainless steal.

Moving on to the oven.  I tied the "green oven cleaners" Ecover, the one endorsed by a TV chef and the eye wateringly expensive Method oven cleaner.  They did nothing!  In frustration and desperation I went out and bought a full on chemically loaded oven cleaner.  It got the oven clean enough but every time I used my oven the kitchen smelt of oven cleaner and when I opened the door my eyes would burn with the fumes.  Not nice!  Then I saw this video on you-tube of a woman sprinkling bicarb onto the bottom of her oven and then spraying it with water.  She left it over night and in the morning wipes all the gunk out.  I tired it... It works!  I will never use oven cleaner again.  Don't believe me see for yourselves

  A paste of Bicarbonate of Soda and water on a glass oven door works well too.  Leave the paste overnight and clean off.  I use a scouring pad to lift off any remaining dirt

Edible glitter

I don't know about you but I am looking forward to moving on from the spring cleaning.  Although I have enjoyed cleaning the house from top to bottom I am ready to start enjoying other spring pleasures.  I thought I would start the week with a post wholly unrelated to spring cleaning before my final two spring cleaning posts

I recently found a recipe in a book entitled Queen of Crafts by Jazz Domino Holly for edible glitter.  My four year old insisted we try it immediately.  A quick mention about this book I would recommend it if you are interested in taking up a craft but are not sure what to try as is gives an overview and some lovely modern projects in everything from sewing and knitting to cake making to kitchen gardening  and making your own cosmetics.

Back to the glitter.

you will need:

Gum Arabic* 2tbsp (this was all of the 12g tub I bought online so if you want to do more than one batch be warned)

Water 2tbsp

Food Colouring.  

*I struggle to find Gum Arabic, if you don't live near a specialist cake shop I bought it online here. Unfortunately postage was more than the Gum Arabic itself - not very thrifty I know but I had a desperate 4year old on my hands.  If anyone knows of a supplier that doesn't charge postage PLEASE let me know.

The Gum Arabic - which is made from tree resin and used to create glazes and glitter on cakes and also in candle making - came in powder formed but formed a sticky resinous substance when the water was added.  Melt in a bain marie - that is bowl placed over a pan of simmering water stir until the gum is completely dissolved.  Add the food colouring or omit this is you want silver sparkles.

In the book the author recommends using a clean pastry brush to paint the mixture onto a glass bowl, this is what I did however, it didn't work brilliantly.  I would recommend using a silicon pastry brush (not a traditional bristled one) to paint the mixture thickly onto a glass plate.

Leave at room temperature to dry for 12 hours.  The mixture will form a film over the plate which you scrape off with a sharp knife.  Now put the flakes in a bowel and crush them with the end of a rolling pin to create you sparkles.  Keep in an airtight container should last months!

This recipe was a lot of fun but also quite a lot of work for not a massive amount of glitter.  I would love to know how you get on if you try it.

Staying in the kitchen I will be posting about thrifty cleaning tips for your kitchen later this week, I was researching this topic all weekend and have some good tricks to share with you.  I hope to get this post up on Wednesday so do check back.

Love your appliances

Your appliances work pretty hard for you so give them a good clean this spring.

 

Wash the outsides of white good with warm soapy water.

Put a cup of bleach into your washing machine detergent drawer and run it empty to give it a clean.  This will remove build up in the pipes too.  The same treatment can be used for dishwashers as well.

Remove the shelves from your fridge and the drawers and wash them in warm soapy water let them air dry completely before you replace them.  Don't forget to put sponges in your vegetable drawers to soak up excess moisture and make your veggies last longer.  Also a small pot with bicarb in will absorb odours in your fridge.

1.WD40 removes crayon  2. How to make this 3. Keep pan lids tidy  

4. Attach lids to a shelf  5. Make your own fabreze 6. Mayo removes water marks 

 7. Towel rail for cleaning products  8. Ice removes gum & wax  9.From fruit sack to pan scrubber

Picture number 5 is the long awaited DIY fabreze recipe I tried a few weeks ago, it works well and uses very simple ingredients you will have around the house.

Children and toys.

As soon as a child arrives in your life, so do the toys and they just keep coming!

They are expensive and messy but kids love them.

My motto is a place for everything.  If toys can be cleared out of sight at the end of the day you can relax and enjoy your "grown-up time" without tripping over my little pony's and lego all evening.  A large ottoman that ties in with the rest of your decor makes a nice toy box and can also be sat on if need be.  Pine blanket boxes come in many different sizes and are readily available in antique shops these also make great toy boxes for the living room.  For toys with small or many parts look out for plastic containers to keep them together, this can be as simple as an ice cream tub or I find vanish containers very useful and easy to decorate.  make sure that your children can open them by themsleves though.

For soft items such as dressing up clothes and teddies a colourful pop up laundry basket makes ideal storage, these are also very inexpensive.

Toys can also be expensive.  If you want to buy a particularly expensive item for your child ask relatives to contribute.  For example for my eldest daughters 3rd birthday we wanted to get her a dolls house.  We bought the dolls house for her and grandparents, aunts and uncles all bought sets of furniture to fill it.  It worked out really well and although it required a little organisation to ensure we didn't get 3 kitchen sets and no beds, it was woth the effort.

Also before you invest in an expensive toy see if you can borrow one or let your child try one through a toy library or local toddler group.  I always find it useful to watch my little ones at toddler groups to find out which toys they are enjoyed most and would be worth having at home.

I keep a large box on top of my girls wardrobe full of toys for "rainy days".  On days when we are stuck in and bored we get this box down & my girls really enjoy seeing toys they haven't played with for a while

Finally a great place to get rid of toys your children have outgrown and pick up new ones are car boot sales, charity shops and school fairs.  Gumtree is also a great place to pick up new and get rid of old toys.  Sort through your children's toys at least once year, more often when they are very small and changing rapidly.  Older children can help with the sort out and clean up toys before selling them I believe this is a good habit to encourage children into.

Lipstick

We had a little incident this week when my youngest little angel got hold of a lipstick.  Don't ask me how, the irony is that when I went out of Friday night I could not find a single lipstick anywhere!  Any way my little monkey had pulled a bag down from a shelf, emptied it and found a lipstick right at the very bottom.

I should also add all this happened at 6am.  My daughter got up took herself downstairs and thought to herself "what shall I do today" I was woken later to be told by my four year old - who had just woken up.  I had to come and look at the "benourmouse" mess her sister had made.  The lipstick was all over her, all over her clothes and all over the banisters - worst of all it was ALL over the carpet.

So in case you are ever in the same position here is what works and what doesn't work to get lipstick out of carpet.

• Cornflour to absorb the grease - not a huge success but mostly because the lipstick was well worked into the carpet, had it been on the surface this may have stopped an oil mark developing.
• Fairy liquid - this did improve the stain but I was cautious about using too much and working up too much of a lather.  On a really thin carpet this would work well.
• Vodka - this actually did quite a good job but there was still a very visible lipstick mark on the carpet.

By this point I really just wanted the mark gone and was sick of scrubbing my carpet so I used Vanish power shot carpet cleaner.  It smelt strong and chemically, but hey the Vodka didn't smell great either but it worked!  I think the Vodka tip may be worth remembering for smaller future carpet stains - I'm sure there will be many.

Tip: If you don't drink, or don't keep spirits in the house but want to try this.  Buy miniatures from wine shops.  Any clear strong spirit should work as a solvent on difficult stains.  i tested the carpet in an inconspicuous area first.

My thanks to my darling daughter for inspiring this post, you really didn't have to.