First, a link to 66 All-Natural Cleaning Solutions (found via my wonderful sister E). This list of ways to clean using basic household ingredients included several ideas that were new to me.
Then, a few favorites from our house not included in the above list:
- Use a regular rubber eraser to get crayon off of floor tiles and walls.
- Baking soda (coupled with some elbow grease) to get soap scum off of the bathtub.
- When kids want to play with toys that come with many small pieces (blocks, beads, legos), put a blanket or sheet on the carpet and have them play on top of that. At the end, gather up the corners of the blanket and all the tiny pieces go into a pile in the middle for quick and easy pickup. I mentioned this idea to my mother and she pointed out that for even quicker cleanup you can designate a sheet for each toy and put the entire sheet (with the toys inside) in the bin at the end of playtime. Or you can get crafty and make special play mats for all the toys with nice ties to close them up. Maybe I’ll do that someday, but for now Emma knows that toys with small pieces may only be played with on the fleece Monkey blanket.
On the topic of crayon on walls, yesterday Johnny stopped coloring on his coloring page and started coloring on the wall. I told him he couldn't color on the wall and took him back to his coloring page, where I started commenting on how pretty his coloring was. He took my hand, walked me back to the wall, pointed proudly, and said, "Pretty wall!" Looks like we have a ways to go before he gets the whole coloring boundaries thing...
What are your favorite tried and true cleaning tips?
