Jenn Tries...

I remember being in college when Martha Stewart's daytime show came back on the air. (The one she did after prison). I'm not sure how many times I saw her have a segment on folding, but I remember at least seeing it more than once. (I believe her segment on folding t-shirts was quite popular.) And so I watched her several times teaching the audience how to fold a fitted sheet. I never participated, though. (I'm not sure why, I guess I thought I had no problems folding a fitted sheet. Silly me!) So now here I am 6 or 7 years later and I realize that I really didn't know what I was doing. And I wish I had paid more attention to Martha. So since I'm on laundry improvement spree, I thought there was no better time to learn how to properly fold a fitted sheet. The Project Learn How To Fold A Fitted Sheet instructions from this photo: (photo from Sleep Number .) Results So here we go; folding a fitted sheet! (It can't be that hard can it?) Fir...

I'm officially changing my Tuesdays from a Try Me Tuesday to Clean Me Tuesdays! because they only things I seem to be trying anymore are cleaning ideas. And there certainly are more than enough cleaning tips on Pinterest , so it doesn't look like I'll be running out of projects anytime soon. So for this week's cleanning project I wanted to tackle a couple of different laundry tips. The Project Vinegar as Fabric Softner/ Cleaning Agent (And trying out new reusable fabric sheets) Instructions from this picture from Ask Anna and  Six Dollar Family Results Project #1: Vinegar in the Wash I know that's a big list of different ways to use vinegar in the wash. And I didn't test all of them (yet. I'm definitely going to have to try the whitening solution!). So instead I decided to just use it as a general laundry boosting agent. I just poured it into my fabric softener slot and then let my washer go to work.  I'm actually ...

I'm so excited to finally be writing about this because since June (what is that like 5 months now?), I've been trying different ways to clean my cookie sheets. And well I've come to two different conclusions. Either my cookie sheets are too far gone and I should just buy new ones or all these magic cleaners, don't really work. And the more I tried different mixtures, the more I started to believe that both were true. The Project Deep Clean Cookie Sheets! Best Cleaning Solution From Clean & Scentsible Results All right so here's how bad my cookie sheets was And after trying vinegar and baking soda (and even heating the vinegar first), oven cleaner (Don't do it. I'm pretty sure this is why cookies sheets rust easily now) and steel wool scrubs, this was as clean as I could get it. As you can see I was able to clean most of the middle, but corners remained black or mostly black. And by this point I was worn out and didn...

I really enjoyed that for all my October Try Mes! I tried out cleaners. And for the most part I really enjoyed trying them. So I thought I would continue along this trend and try out more cleaning products during November. First up is a magic cleaner. (which makes promise that you just spray it on, let it sit and then wipe with a damp rag and everything will just wipe off. The Project Test Of Magic Spray Instructions from this photo (And yes I'm still tracking down who created this image) Results So where do I begin on this. Oh yes I forgot to check the amount of liquid my bottle would hold before I tried doubling the recipe. (And for the record I reused a Green Works spray bottle from work. And I find that if you are trying to get into going green, but don't want to make it yourself, it is a solid product and you should use it.) So in the process of dumping some of it out and adding water, I may have messed up my ratio while dong so. So with that ...

I actually saw this idea a while ago. And I saved it and I went along with my life. At the time I had no reason to try homemade good gone or anything to try it on. But as I've started learning how to really upcycle and how to start looking at things for a way to upcycle them.  And that's when I started looking at all the containers my food comes in differently. Especially the jelly jars. Normally jelly comes in a glass jar and it really is a perfect size to store whatever little things you need to store in them. (I went with my coconut oil face scrub). The only issue is that you can rip the labels off, but there is still that stubborn glue strip that remains.  So I was happy when I rediscovered this idea and I knew it would be a great way to try to get rid of that pesky glue strip once and for all. The Project Test Out Homemade Goo Gone instructions from this picture: (Photo from The Repo Woman and if you click the link you can find recipes for all sor...

My little Lion is a little over a year now, so I've decided now is the right time to stop procrastinating and start packing up all of the baby toys. Most of them are easy to clean and pack. And the fit nicely into boxes. And everything was going really nicely... And then I stumbled upon our baby jumper . Its big and bulky and really a pain in the ass to take apart. And Mike at some point had moved it out on the patio, so by the time I got around to it, it was covered it dirt. So while I was breaking it apart (and cleaning the metal and plastic parts as I was going along), I remembered reading about a way to deep clean the pack and play. And I thought that it would be a great way to clean the foam polls (that an otherwise quick wipe wouldn't clean). So I knew I had to try it out The Project Deep Cleaning Baby Toys (and other hard to clean items) Instructions from  I Heart My Kids Results Since I was just washing the foam polls around the top of the bouncer, ...

There are still plenty more ways to use coconut oil and I would like to (eventually) try them all (or at least most of them), but I thought I would give it a rest for now and switch my attention over to some different ideas. Pinterest is full of ideas that seem a little too good to be true, so I can't really just stick to one topic. (even as tempting as it is to see if coconut oil is as good as it seems) And after having themes for my Try Me Tuesday for August and September, I was a little lost at what I wanted to do. I went back to my Pinterest board. And what I found was about ten different versions of laundry detergent. (I'll get there with my tax refund. I don't really have the money to buy all that stuff right now). And a bunch of ideas that need to be switched over to my Kids Crafts board. So I was really thrown for a loop. And then I saw it. A pin about proper pillow cleaning. A pin that I don't even remember pinning, but knew I had wanted to try it. And...

And here we are at the end of another month. So its time for my monthly upcycle project. For this month's project, I wanted to see how many different ways I could upcycle wash cloths , And what I found was a lot more projects than I have time for. So I settled with three projects that I thought would be great upcycles and also replace some of our most used disposable household products. (I used wash cloths because we have ton of them, but you could easily use hand towels or bath towels . You just need to cut them down to get the size you want.) Project #1 Reusable Paper Towels instructions from  The Short Girl I've actually been trying to switch out paper towels to wash cloths for a while now, but getting Mike on board has been a difficult task. So I was happy to find this project. But I knew I had to make a couple of changes. Since I already had a bunch of spare wash cloths, I decided that they would be fine of there own and didn't need a colored fabric on one...