My Easy Way to Clean an Area Rug

Like I said recently, I'm in Spring cleaning mode over here and I've discovered another way to save money while getting my house sparkling clean!

People who live here are somehow allergic to wiping their feet before entering the house and I've given up begging them to do so.  So, if you have people in your home that are "allergic" to wiping their feet too, please keep reading.

Why I bought a mostly white rug for a high traffic area in our home is still a mystery, even to me! Hey its really pretty, it matches my curtains and I wanted it! That's good enough, right?

At first I was thinking I was going to use THIS RECIPE and method, which is good, but then I remembered my new Bissell portable carpet cleaner and I went and grabbed it.

This little rug lives right in front of the sink area so it gets lots of traffic.  You can see the nice dirty spot there in the middle.  SOMEONE had mud on their feet.

Ok, now to cleaning it and get it back to looking new again.  To start with, vacuum your area rug to get all the loose debris off of it.

Dirty spots, here I come....you are getting ready to be outta here!

This is the back of my rug, this is not one you can just toss in the washer, which I would do if I could. I vacuumed both sides just to make sure I was getting all the dust and dirt from it before I got started with the cleaning.

As you can see, I'm cleaning the rug on my kitchen floor, that way there will be easy clean up when I'm done.

I'm using the same DIY cleaning solution that I used right here for removing a week old coffee stain from our light colored carpet. 

DIY Carpet Cleaning Mixture (for smaller cleaners):

1 cup of vinegar
1 scoop of OxyClean
Warm/Hot Water to the fill line on the tank

The clean water tank on this particular machine is 3/4 gallon capacity so its quite a bit smaller than the full size cleaner tanks.  If you need the recipe for a full size machine, look right here.

NOTE:  Although this mixture worked for our light colored carpet, I'm not sure about using OxyClean on darker colored carpets, so be sure to test it before you start just to be safe.

Yes, there will be a slight vinegar odor, but it dissipates in about 24 hours time.

First, I treated and scrubbed the really dirty spots.
1. Spray with solution
2. Scrub with brush
3. Suction the water from the rug.
After I got all the spots done, I sprayed the entire rug with the solution, let it set for a minute or two, scrubbed it with the brush all over.  Starting at the upper left hand corner suction water out of the rug working in straight lines from top to bottom, moving over each time until you get the whole rug done.  I did the last suctioning step twice.

Lucky for me it was a nice sunny day so I took the rug outside, laid it on the patio and let it dry.  It looks so much better!

This is the place where the dirty spot was, but not anymore! Yay!  I'm so glad this worked because I really like this rug!

Here it is all dry and looking new again.  Its seriously like brand new again!

I didn't really realize how dirty it was until it was clean again and then I did this side by side picture and I was amazed!

This is the smallest  Pioneer Woman Country Garden Rug that matches the curtains that I made from a Pioneer Woman Tablecloth.  You can read about that post right here.

Want to see more of my cleaning tips for using vinegar? Just click on the links below.

Cleaning an HE Washer with Household Products

Remove Hard Water Buildup Naturally 

DIY Carpet Cleaning 

Cleaning Your Hairbrush the Easy Way 

Cleaning Your Oven

Cleaning Your Sink's Spray Nozzle

THIS JUST IN: Did you know you could use COUPONS on Amazon? Me either, but look right here for all your favorites and start saving, you know I am!

GREAT NEWS!  I now have an Amazon Storefront!  If you ever want to purchase anything I'm showing you here, you can pop over to my shop and see what I've picked out for you! Click right here to visit.

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch
The Dedicated House  - (I was featured)

Make Your Own Steam Mop Pads

I'm already in Spring cleaning mode so I've been cleaning like a mad woman lately!  We bought a Swiffer Bissell Steamboost Mop recently and it came with two of the cleaning pads for it.  They smelled wonderful, but I was concerned that the solution on them may not be good for our three cats to be walking around on as well as the the refill pads are kind of expensive in my opinion, especially for as often as I mop my floors.

I decided to find a more natural way to clean my floors so this is my solution for saving money and *keeping my cats safe in the long run.

First of all I needed a cloth to attach to the mop to grab up all the yuckiness.  A microfiber cleaning cloth was what I decided on so off to the Dollar Tree I went and lucky enough, I got two towels for one dollar! Yep $1 yall!!!

FYI, this is the lazy, no cut, no sew method for my fellow impatient types out there! lol!

First I removed the tags from my towels (just my preference) then I centered the mop on the towel.

Fold the ends up to the edge of the mop on both sides.

You will see a little rubber slot on each corner to tuck your towel in to.  Its very grippy by the way.

Using one finger I tucked each corner into the provided slots making sure my towel was tight on the mop base.

For the placement demo I was showing you with a dry towel, but before actually mopping, I wet the towel and then wrung it out pretty well.

DIY Mopping Solution for Tile Floors

1 cup water
1 cup distilled white vinegar (for cooking)
1 cup rubbing alcohol (50%)
3 drops Dawn dish soap (blue)
10 - 20 drops essential oils (OPTIONAL)

NOTE:  *Some essential oils can be harmful to pets or cause a negative reaction so please research the oils you choose before adding them to your solution.  Lots of information to be found on Pinterest.

I used a kitchen funnel and an empty glass cleaner bottle for storing my solution. Recycle!

Make sure your steam mop has distilled water in it, plug it in to warm up and then spray a generous amount of your diy cleaning solution down.

This Swiffer Bissell Steamboost Mop has changed my mopping life!  I love it and I feel like my floors are getting much cleaner than when I used a nasty looking traditional mop.  I have no idea why I haven't gotten one before now.

Just keep spraying your solution and mopping until your towel has reached it maximum amount of "dirty", then change if necessary and repeat.

The towel is filthy but the floor is clean now!  I swept before I mopped and this microfiber towel still picked up bits and pieces of yuck that was left behind as well as grabbed the dirt too.  Now I just toss this in the washer and it will be good to go for next time.

I'm always trying to save money when I can and of course I'm going to share it with you each and every time!  I hope you enjoy this cleaning tip as much as I do.

Want to see more of my cleaning tips for using vinegar? Just click on the links below.

Cleaning an HE Washer with Household Products

Remove Hard Water Buildup Naturally 

DIY Carpet Cleaning 

Cleaning Your Hairbrush the Easy Way 

Cleaning Your Oven

Cleaning Your Sink's Spray Nozzle

THIS JUST IN: Did you know you could use COUPONS on Amazon? Me either, but look right here for all your favorites and start saving, you know I am! :)

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch
The Dedicated House  - (I was featured)

Spot Cleaning Carpet with a DIY Cleaning Solution

Do you ever have those small accidents that happen and then the carpet needs to be cleaned, but its  not big enough for going through the trouble of renting a full size carpet cleaning machine? Yes!  We do too so I decided to get a small very portable carpet cleaning machine.  We have the machine you see below, its the  Bissell 3624 SpotClean Professional Portable Carpet Cleaner.

If you keep watch, you can get a lower price on this machine.  The one we got is an open box return that was never used and in brand new condition for $109.00.

Now, here's my tip:  For several years we've been using our own DIY Carpet Cleaning solution which works great, but its made to be used with the full size rental machines.  This recipe is the same, but made for a smaller, more portable cleaner and it works just as awesome! Winner!

(Do you like my Pioneer Woman Measuring Cup?  Click here to get one for yourself.  If that one is sold out, TRY THIS ONE!)

DIY Carpet Cleaning Mixture (for smaller cleaners):

1 cup of vinegar
1 scoop (2 tblsp) of OxyClean
Warm/Hot Water to the fill line on the tank

The clean water tank on this particular machine is 3/4 gallon capacity so its quite a bit smaller than the full size cleaner rental tanks.

NOTE:  Although this mixture worked for our light colored carpet, I'm not sure about using OxyClean on darker colored carpets, so be sure to test it before you start just to be safe.

Yes, there will be a slight vinegar odor, but it dissipates in about 24 hours time.

Step one:
Using a kitchen funnel, add one scoop of Oxyclean to the tank.

Step two:
Add one cup of distilled white vinegar to your oxyclean in the tank.  Remove funnel and carefully swish to mix.

It will foam up like you see here.  This is normal.

Step three:
Add about 11 cups of hot tap water to the fill line on your tank.  Secure the water tank back on to the machine

This is a coffee stain.  It's a full cup of coffee with sugary creamer added.  This stain is about a week old.

Picture this:  You're half awake.  You've just made yourself a nice hot cup of coffee and your heading back to your cozy bedroom.  Suddenly, the kitten runs in front of you!  To miss stepping on her and causing drastic bodily harm, you side step her and spill your nice cup of coffee on the light colored carpet.  You try to clean it up, but its dark in the room.  You "think" you've done a great job cleaning up the mess.  Nope, not so much!  Next, I get a text from my honey bun (I'm already at work) telling me that this near miss just happened but he's already cleaned it up so no worries.  It totally slipped my mind until a few days later when after I vacuumed there was still a dark spot on the carpet.  The following weekend it was cleaned with our new carpet cleaner.

First turn on the machine.  Now, using the trigger on the carpet cleaner handle, just spray the area with your solution and let it stand for a couple of minutes (2 to 3 minutes).

Next, do not squeeze the button and scrub the solution into the carpet using the brush on the head of the nozzle. Lastly, in slow straight lines in a backward motion, suction up all the liquid you've just sprayed on the carpet.

And just to help the drying process along a little quicker, I get several paper towels, lay them over the damp spot and step on the area to blot up any extra moisture.  This little Bissell machine worked really well at suctioning up the water because there was very little moisture on the paper towels when I finished blotting.

I know, ewww, gross but here is the end result after I cleaned the carpet spots.  I say spots because I also had a few cat "burp up" spots to clean as well.

Here's the original coffee spill spot, all clean now.  I'm so glad we decided to purchase this little machine because so far, I'm loving how it works!  I'm also glad that we can still use our homemade carpet cleaning solution in this machine as well, that's the best part of it to me!

I'm hoping this will keep our carpet looking cleaner in between full on carpet cleanings.  I'm still wishing for a nice new tile floor in here in the living room sometime soon! *wink*. Want to see the tile we picked out?  Click right here.

Would you like to read about the original DIY carpet cleaning recipe? Click link below.

DIY Carpet Cleaning

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch
The Dedicated House  - (I was featured)

Homemade Fabric Softener

Homemade Fabric Softener? Why not! I started making my own DIY Laundry Soap about five years ago and I haven't looked back since then.  Making your own laundry supplies is so much cheaper than the store bought variety.  For instance, I made this big batch of softener for less than $3.  You can't go wrong there!

ALERT! Shameless plug ahead!

Being the card maker that I am, I couldn't help but dress up my mason jar that sits on the counter in the laundry room.  I just make a new tag when I change scents.

Want to see the cards I make?  See my Etsy Shop HERE.

The way to easily dispense your softener is to save, rinse and use your giant creamer container(red cap above), that's what I do .  You will only need three (3) ingredients to make your own fabric softener and you probably already have two of them in your home right now.

 Homemade Fabric Softener Recipe:

• 6 cups HOT water - I used hot tap water, but you can microwave it too
• 2 cups or 15 oz. Hair Conditioner (I found it for .78 at WalMart)
• 3 cups white vinegar

Mix your water and conditioner together first.  I used a "big" bowl and added my 6 cups of water first.

Next, add your entire bottle (or 2 cups) of conditioner to the hot water. I should have used a larger bowl yall!

I transferred the mixture to a larger bowl in small increments and whisked it until it was smooth.  That's what I get for trying to use pretty dishes for the photo shoot! lol! BTW, I love my Pioneer Woman Measuring Cup.

Lastly, add your three (3) cups of vinegar, mix well and then transfer to your storage container(s).  The vinegar is the actual softening agent in this mixture, the conditioner is just for the scent mostly.

We have HE (High Efficiency) machines and this along with my homemade wash soap works awesome in them.  The dispenser tray in my washer shows a max fill line for the softener (about 1/4 cup), but if you're just adding to your wash load, use 2-6 tablespoons per load.

NOTE: You can also substitute the hair conditioner for 10-15 drops of essential oils of your choosing.  If you need a good source for oils, please scroll back to the top of our blog and click on the doTERRA tab.  Let me know if I can help you in any way.

Want to see more of my cleaning tips for using vinegar? Just click on the links below.

Cleaning an HE Washer with Household Products

Remove Hard Water Buildup Naturally 

DIY Carpet Cleaning 

Cleaning Your Hairbrush the Easy Way 

Cleaning Your Oven

Cleaning Your Sink's Spray Nozzle

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch
The Dedicated House  - (I was featured)

Cleaning Your Coffee Maker Without Harsh Chemicals

When we remodeled our kitchen a few years back, I wanted a brand new coffee maker in stainless steel to match all of our new appliances.  Anywho, my coffee maker is a going on 3 years old now and it still looks pretty good for its age.  Let me show you how I keep it looking nice!

By the way, this is one of those coffee makers that does not have a heating element to keep the pot warm.  It has an insulated carafe and it keeps coffee warm for hours.  Sometimes if there is coffee leftover from the morning (very rare) it is still warm when I get home from work in the evenings, not hot, but warm.  Pretty nice!  HERE's a link to where I got ours.

Our machine shows when it needs to be cleaned which is awesome so you don't have to keep up with it.  The clean button lights up and glows until you clean it.

The only thing I use to clean our maker is plain white vinegar.  That's it, nothing else goes through this machine for cleaning.  We have really hard water so it causes lots of build up.  The hot vinegar running through the machine breaks all that up and sends it out.  I always make sure to put a coffee filter in the basket to catch anything that the vinegar sends through.

Here are a few before and after pictures for you to see the difference a little vinegar and then of course some soapy water can make.

This is where the water canister sits.  Since the vinegar doesn't touch this part of the machine, I just add a little vinegar to a spray bottle and clean up this area with a paper towel.

This is where the actual coffee filter basket sits.  What a mess huh?  I use the vinegar in the spray bottle here too.

After I've ran the vinegar through the cleaning cycle I then run 4 full cycles of plain clean water to clean out all of the vinegar from the inner workings.  The final thing I do is give the water canister, the filter basket and the carafe (not shown) a good scrubbing in some nice hot soapy water.  Dry completely and reassemble the machine.

Now its not only shiny on the outside, but sparkly clean on the inside too! Coffee time!

This coffee maker right here is the one we are thinking about getting next! Can't wait!


Want to see more of my cleaning tips for using vinegar? Just click on the links below.

Cleaning an HE Washer with Household Products

My Easy Way to Clean an Area Rug

Spot Cleaning Carpet with a DIY Cleaning Solution

Remove Hard Water Buildup Naturally 

DIY Carpet Cleaning 

Cleaning Your Hairbrush the Easy Way 

Cleaning Your Oven

Cleaning Your Sink's Spray Nozzle

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch