diy thursday: removing dirt stains from white socks

Last week we returned from Kenya (I will write more about that later) and the village we went to is very dusty, dry and hot. Everything has a layer of dirt on it when we return and that includes our socks even though we wore shoes the entire time. The dirt becomes part of the fibers of the socks:( In years past I just accepted the socks we brought home from Kenya would just be forever stained even after washed. This year, however, I decided to try to get rid of these dirt stains. I turned to my trusted OxiClean to do the job and it did! The socks are not as good as new, but they don't look as stained as they were before I treated them. And the best part is that it is super easy to do.


Ingredients

OxiClean
Boiling Water
Detergent


Directions

Boil enough water to cover the socks you wish to whiten.

Depending on how many socks you have, put a big scoop of OxiClean in a tub.

Add the boiling water to the tub and mix until dissolved.

Once dissolved add the socks. 

If needed, add more boiling water to cover the socks completely.

Stir it all together and let it sit overnight.

Remove the socks from the tub and launder with detergent as normal.

And voila! The dirt stains have disappeared. 

diy thursday: getting rid of a toilet bowl ring

Let me start by saying: I clean our toilet bowl every week! In the above picture it doesn't appear that way:( We have hard water and even though I clean every week I continue to have this STUBBORN toilet ring in my toilet bowl. Granted, we don't use our guest bathroom toilet as frequently so the water probably sits still for longer than our other toilet - but still, it is embarrassing to have guests come to use our toilet and then it look like I haven't cleaned in a month or two. I have tried everything to get rid of this stubborn ring. First, I tried using my trusted white distilled vinegar. Vinegar is usually great at getting rid of hard water stains ... but not a toilet ring like this. I also tried using bleach, to no avail. Then finally I read somewhere that you can use a pumice stone. A pumice stone? Really? I wasn't sure it would work and was a little worried it would scratch the porcelain. But for $1 I thought I would give it a try. AND IT WORKED!!!!! Why have I used so much time trying to clean the ring and within minutes for just $1 it had disappeared. AMAZING.

As mentioned all you need is a pumice stone.

After cleaning the toilet bowl  (I prefer to start with a clean slate) get the pumice stone wet and start rubbing it against the toilet ring. And it will start disappearing before your eyes.

This is such an easy and natural solution. It takes no time and no chemicals are used.

Mission accomplished!

diy thursday: getting rid of deodorant stains

I hate it when you wash a dark shirt and afterwards you can still see the deodorant stains. It is like the shirt didn't get the memo that you washed it?! So frustrating! The good news is that I found a super easy way to remove it.

All you need is OxiClean and some warm water. 

First, add a scoop of OxiClean to your bowl of warm water. 

Stir it until dissolved (or until mostly dissolved). 

Add the stained shirt soaking the part of the shirt with the stain. 

Let it soak for several hours.

Finally, wash and dry the shirt as you normally would. 

And voila! The deodorant stain is gone!

diy thursday: homemade color catcher

 

Typically I sort my laundry by color. Lights and darks separate. But what about those in-betweens? Sometimes it just feels safer to use a color catcher. This time of year in Arizona we don't really have cold water coming out of the faucet, meaning, when you wash your clothes there is nothing called a cold water cycle  (just varying degrees of warm/hot). That being said, I am especially nervous about colors bleeding when I don't have a choice to use the cold water cycle. In order to save money on this incredibly smart invention, I found a super easy and very budget friendly recipe for making my own color catcher.

Ingredients

White cotton fabric

2 cups of hot water

2 Tbsp washing soda

Directions

Cut up some white fabric. I just used some white left over fabric I had on hand.

Dissolve 2 Tbsp washing soda in 2 cups of hot water.

 

Soak the fabric pieces in the solution.

Hang them to dry.

And they are ready to be used. Just add one to your washing machine when you do your laundry and the cotton and washing soda should grab the dye floating in the water, preventing it from bleeding into your other clothing.

 

diy thursday: getting rid of coffee stains

It is super frustrating when coffee (or tea for that matter) leave stains inside mugs. Sometimes you are lucky and you can wipe it off or it comes off in the wash. Other times it has sat too long and you are stuck with this beauty (see above) and your mug no longer looks clean. Luckily, my mom taught me an old school trick of getting rid of these stains, that works every time.

 

 

 

Getting rid of coffee stains (and tea for that matter)

 

 

 

Ingredients
 

Salt

 

 

Directions

 

Wet the mug inside a little.

 

 

 

Rub salt on the stains and you will magically see them disappear.

 

 

Wash the mug, and voila, no more stains.

 

 

This is such a simple and easy trick using one ingredient that everyone has on hand.

 

 

diy thursday: getting rid of ring around the collar

After getting married, my husband introduced me to ring-around-the collar:) I learned quickly that simply laundering his shirts did not remove it. I know from other projects that Dawn dishwashing soap is great at getting rid of grease and such, so I decided to give it a try on the dirty collar.

 

I rubbed in the soap into the dirty collar before throwing the shirt into the washing machine and washing it as normal.

 

 

On voila! The ring-around-the-collar was pretty much gone. Another victory against stains and dirt!

 

 

 



*please excuse the different lighting

 

 

 

diy thursday: how to clean the microwave with vinegar

We don't use our microwave very much and it usually isn't very dirty. A quick wipe down usually does the trick. But the other day our microwave was more dirty than normal so I decided to use a quick trick to easily and effortlessly clean the microwave.

Ingredients

All you need is equal parts water and white distilled vinegar. I used 1/3 cup of each.

 

Directions

Add the water and white distilled vinegar to a microwave safe bowl.

Place the bowl in the microwave and cook on high for about 3 minutes.

When it is done let the bowl sit for another couple of minutes to avoid handling a hot bowl and to let the vinegar steam continue to work on the microwave grime.

After removing the bowl, just wipe down the microwave with a damp rag. You will notice how easily all the grime just wipes away.

This is such an easy and quick solution to an otherwise disagreeable task.

diy thursday: homemade garbage disposal freshener

The garbage disposal can emit some not so lovely odors from old food scraps and residue. In the past I have sometimes bought garbage disposal fresheners/cleaners to help eliminate the smell and these can get quite expensive. I have also sometimes thrown a lemon down the disposal to help freshen the smell, but that requires that I have lemon on hand regularly, which I don't. I found the perfect inexpensive solution - vinegar and lemon ice cubes!

This homemade garbage disposal freshener is super easy to make and inexpensive and completely natural.

Homemade Garbage Disposal Freshener

 

Ingredients

 

Lemon

Distilled White Vinegar

 

 

Directions

 

All you have to do is cut up the lemon.

 

Add a piece of lemon to each ice cube mold.

 

Fill each ice cube with vinegar (don't dilute it)

 

 

 

Freeze the ice cubes.

 

And voila, you have garbage disposal fresheners.

 

When you are ready to use, just take out some ice cubs and dump a couple in the garbage disposal and turn it on.

 

 

 

This is a great non-toxic and natural solution to freshen and clean your garbage disposal. Vinegar  is a great cleaning agent as it breaks down bacteria and dirt. Lemon is a wonderful degreaser and provides a fresh smell.

diy thursday: baking soda dishwasher bombs

 

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I clean my dishwashing machine about once a month to avoid dirty residue on dishes. Many bloggers also recommend running a cycle with baking soda. I didn't like having to run two cycles without dishes, so when I came across how to clean your dishwasher with a baking-soda bomb on Pinterest, I thought I would give it a try. This way I can clean my dishwasher with both vinegar and baking soda in one cycle.  This project is super easy, inexpensive and completely natural.

Ingredients

2 cups baking soda

3 TBS hydrogen peroxide

15-20 drops essential oil (I used lemon)

 

Directions

Combine the ingredients and mix together until it has the consistency of wet sand.

Use an ice cream scooper (or large spoon) to mold the baking soda bombs. Gently release them onto a piece of parchment paper.

Let them dry overnight and they are ready to use. I store mine in some recycled glass jars.

 

When you are ready to clean your dishwasher, simply place 2 cups of vinegar on the top rack of your dishwasher as described in this post and then add one baking soda dishwashing bomb on the bottom rack. Run one dishwashing cycle (without any dishes) and then your dishwasher should be completely sparkling clean and ready to use, leaving no dirty residue on your dishes.

The reason this combination works so well is because, as I have mentioned before, white vinegar is a great cleaning agent as it breaks down bacteria and dirt while also killing mold and mildew. Baking soda neutralizes odors and is a gentle scouring agent.  Likewise, hydrogen peroxide is antibacterial and antifungal and is also a great bleaching agent. The essential oil gives a fresh scent and lemon is of course known to also kill bacteria. Together these non-toxic cleaning agents clean super well.

diy thursday: homemade natural soft scrub cleaner

 

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I clean my top loading washing machine monthly to kill bacteria growing in there. It is pretty gross that the machine that is supposed to wash our clothes and make them clean harbors so much dirt itself. Yuck. Even with the bleach and vinegar cycles, dirt it still left behind (see pictures below). It is pretty gross. The dirt had become ingrained in the white plastic. Not cool.

 

To fix the problem I decided to make my own natural soft scrub cleaner to remove this dirt. The cleaner works like magic! I had tried using an all purpose cleaner (after already putting it through a bleach and vinegar cycle) and it didn't work. But this concoction worked immediately. I could just wipe it off with a damp rag and it was gone ... like magic. It is super easy and inexpensive to make.

 

 

Ingredients

 

6 T Baking Soda

2 T Pure Castile Soap

1 1/2 t water

 

Directions

 

Mix all of the ingredients together into a paste.

 

 

 

Rub the paste on the dirty area and wipe off with a damp sponge/rag.

 

 

And voila! The dirt is gone.

 

You can of course use this natural soft scrub to clean many things in your home.

diy thursday: getting rid of set-in grease stains

A week ago, my husband noticed a grease stain on his shirt. Ugh. I then used stain remover and assumed the stain would be gone after I washed and dried it. It wasn't. Great, now I had really set the stain after drying it!



 I then reached for dawn dishwashing soap which is known for it grease dissolving powers. I rubbed it into the set grease stain and put the shirt in the washing machine.  

And voila, the stain was gone.  Another shirt saved.

 

 

diy thursday: natural fruit and veggie cleaner

 

 

As I mentioned in my berry wash post, I use a natural fruit and vegetable cleaner spray that I love. I have used the recipe for years now so I am not sure where I got it from. This spray is all natural, easy, budget friendly and super quick to make. It gets your fruit and veggies with hard skin clean and ready to eat. It helps get rid of the residue (dirt, pesticides etc. I have mentioned we try to buy mostly organic and especially the dirty dozen - check out the list) stuck on the skin of the fruit or veggies.

 

 



 

Ingredients

 

1 cup distilled water

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 Tbs lemon juice or 1/2 a lemon

1 cup distilled white vinegar

 

 

Directions

 

Blend all the ingredients together in a bowl. Add the vinegar last since combining baking soda and vinegar will cause a reaction and the mixture will bubble up. This is also why you don't want to mix the ingredients directly into the spray bottle.

 

 

Once the ingredients have reacted, pour the mixture into a spray bottle using a funnel. Keep the spray bottle nozzle closed when you are not using it since the pressure from the reaction can cause the spray bottle to leak fluid if it isn't closed.

 

When ready to clean your fruits and/or vegetables, first wash them with water and then spray them with the cleaner. Let them sit for about 5- 10 minutes. Rinse them with water and dry them. Now they are clean and ready to be eaten.

 

 

 

 

 

This mixture works great because of the combination of ingredients. Vinegar kills any mold and other bacteria that might be on the surface on the fruits/veggies. When acids like vinegar and lemon are added to baking soda, the reaction helps lift soil. Lemon also is great at killing bacteria. So together they all make a great team.