Making A Simple Air Freshener!!!

 How to make you own air freshener...

I am one of those people who like alot of fragrance in my house. This is quite simply a very easy thing to do and took me about 1 minute to assemble.

Ingredients...

1. Baking Soda (1/2 Cup)

2. Essential Oil (about 8 drops), or for my taste I used liquid Potpourri (1 cap full)

3. A Cute glass to put it in. (Mine was originally a candle holder but it made for a beautiful decoration)

Just put the baking soda in the container, add the scent of your choice and stir until it's almost a powdery texture again. This is recommended for smaller spaces like a bathroom counter, or a dresser top. Not only does it make a good deodorizer it makes the room smell good. Every now and then just give it a good shake. Not sure how long it lasts but after 4 days and a shake now and then it still smells amazing!!!  You can find liquid Potpourri at some dollar stores, big lots, and possibly Walmart. They are pretty easy to come by.

Dirty Oven Door? Try This Easy Trick...

Baking Soda, and elbow grease to clean the oven door

Thanks to my many people I follow on pinterest I tend to find some amazing home remedies to make my cleaning projects a lots easier. Today I decided to try the baking soda trick. 

p.s. I don't think this has been cleaned in almost 3 years so I know my work is cut out for me...

 All you have to do is take a half cup of baking soda, add enough water to make it pasty, and smear it on the inside of the oven door and glass part if it has one. Let it sit for 20-30 minutes...

 After it's done sitting wipe of as much of the loosed grease with a damp sponge, you will be surprised how dirty the sponge will be when your done. After that take a scrubber or scratch pad the scrub off as much of the spots that are left (It took me about 10 min.) I noticed that the black spots did not want to scrub off, so I took a small metal spatula and gently scrapped the black and they came off instantly, it also took off alot of the small spots that were left on the glass. After that was all done I took my sponge and cleaned up all that was left and made sure all the residue was gone from the baking soda. Voila, the finished product...

This project was actually quite simple and didn't take a whole lot of physical labor =) so once again, thank you my pinterest friends!

Shoe Rack Out Of CD Shelves

For the past 8 years many people seem to be amazed at how we keep our shoes organized, well...my parents gave us this CD Shelf system (From Big Lots) and since we didn't have a lot of cd's I decided to put shoes on it one day. Five kids later and this piece of furniture has come in handy. Each kid has their own shelves plus a few extra cleats on the bottom. Daddy usually keeps his shoes on the carpet just to the left of the shelf since they are to big to fit on it.

Pretty dang nifty if you ask me!!!

Small Toy Containers

Simple and Cheap Toy Storage

5 kids, a billion and one toys, and no place to keep it all organized, especially all the tiny itty bitty toys like small Legos, toy food, soldiers, cars ect. Also I'm sure you can see that we have this toy shelf inside one of the closets where we happen to have some extra space making the place seem even less cluttered.  So we took a trip to the dollar store and purchased 12 containers (the ones with blue lids as you can see on the shelf). Voila...4 hours of sorting through toy boxes, under beds, and under couches and we found every little toy in the house, as well as organized the rest of them. Here is the picture of the amazing simple and cheap little toy storage containers....

And yes, my children actually keep these toys put away, and if they break a bucket then they have to use their allowance to buy a new one, so they are careful with them and don't just leave them on the floor.

Carpet Cleaning with results!

So today I searched the internet for the best DIY method to clean my carpets. A little background...we have our carpets cleaned every 6 months-a year, and low and behold the carpet is so dirty from the high amount of traffic between 5 kids, me and the hubby, and 3 Doxie Dogs. It's pretty much ruined but I did want to clean it to keep it sanitary the best I could till we can afford new carpet or wood floors.
First I tried the carpet cleaning solution from bissell...Results=Okay
You can see the left side is where I cleaned, with the assistance of a handheld Bissell machine...

Second I did the vinegar and water solution...Results=FAIL almost no difference at all (no pic)

Third was the Amonia and Hot water, which is 1 cup water per Tablespoon of Amonia..Results=Best
So I'm still looking for a better method to make my carpets look as new as possible.
Before picture...

 

After picture...

My Crazy Life

My name is Dreena, I am a mother to 4 boys, and a little girl. I love my kids but the messes they make just drive me crazy. I have decided to share my survival skills and home repair projects that help make my house a lot more tolerable =) I will also show my organization techniques that have made a difference in keeping everything in place.