Prairie Scraps

Today, we are going to clean the carpets in the living room.  If you own your own carpet cleaner, you can just focus on the living room today.  If you have to rent a carpet cleaner and you are anything like me, this will create a frenzy of 24 hours of cleaning all the carpets in the entire house!  Either way, you may want to save this job for when you can work on this for an entire day.   What you will need: Vacuum cleaner Carpet Cleaner - after getting a new puppy at Christmas, this is the one I ordered online and LOVE!!!  It is worth every penny!!  I've cleaned a lot of carpets, in my own home and commercially, and this is by far the best machine I have used! Ultra Power Plus Laundry Detergent Carpet Stain Buster Envirocloth What to do: Remove as much of the furniture from the room as you can. Vacuum the entire room, taking special care to get the edges around the room. Spray the Carpet Stain Buster on all visable stains throughout the room.  You

  If you haven't noticed, in each room, we've been trying to move from top to bottom with our cleaning.  So in the living room, we've cleaned the Chairs & Couches , the Woodwork , the Walls , and Organized the shelves and Drawers .  Be sure to check out those articles if you haven't already. Today, we are going to do a clean-up of all the electronics in the living room. You will need: Optic Cloth Dust Mitt Container to coral all of those chords - I like this one: Double Duty Caddy Zip ties What to clean today: Start off by cleaning all of the screens in the living room with the Optic Cloth .  Using a cloth that is not approved for this job can scratch you screens!  The Optic Cloth is approved and works great at not only cleaning, but repelling future dust. Here's a list that I came up with: Computers Television IPads & Tablets Smart Phones Small Gaming devices Once the screen is cleaned, you'll want to go all the way around yo

Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a happy mail that I sent out to the customer on my Facebook VIP page that won a drawing for the Superbowl.  The winner happened to be my mom, so it made it extra fun to send some Happy Mail.   I bought a Valentine's Candy Heart box and put my message on the front with an address sticker, and then put an address label on the back with the addresses.  I took the whole thing down to the post office to mail.  It cost around $3 to ship!  Not bad!    It's so fun to get odd items in the mail!  You could do this for a college student (which I also did) or for a past hostess to tell them how much you love them or their business.   Here's my message: "Mom - I LOVE that you played along for my Superbowl party!  Customers are the HEART of my business!  Thanks!"     Even though today is Valentine's Day, you could still do this for past hostesses or special customers!  Go out tomorrow, the day after and buy up

Today is your chance to clean out any drawers or shelves in the Living Room! There's nothing really complicated about this day, but if you are like me, it's a much needed day!   Wipe off/out drawers with the EnviroCloth and apply that Oil/Vinegar mix as mentioned before to any wood that you are cleaning.   I love everyone else's shelves!  I love to peruse Pinterest for all kinds of ideas on how to make my living room shelves look like a magazine.  What am drawn to?  Well, simplified shelves!     Here's what I like for my shelves: Simple, small collections, grouped together Books in order of size, tallest to shortest, or visa versa. If function is needed (i.e. videos, or remotes, etc.), use baskets or bins to organize clutter Pick a 3-4 items of interest to "decorate" (this could be a globe, a vase, an antique camera, whatever) I love how this shelving unit, although it's for an office, has the bins to reign in the clu

Today's chore for Green Deep Cleaning the Living Room is to wash all of the walls.  I know!  Frankly, this is not something I think about doing very often, but once you start, you realize how dirty the walls really are.  My warning for this is that after inspecting and cleaning the walls really closely, you may decide you want to put a new coat of paint on them.  At least, this is what happens to me! What you will need to wash the walls: EnviroCloth Superior Mop System How to clean the walls: I start on one wall, and then methodically work my way around the room. For each section of wall, take the pictures off the wall. Wipe them down. Lock the Mop head into position and attach the dust pad (the yellow pad) to the mop. Wipe down the wall with the Mop (yes you saw that right!  This Mop works so well on the walls, I actually get excited to wash the walls!) Next, replace the dust pad with a wet (with water only) mop pad.  The wet pad is the blue one. Wash the

Today's Deep Cleaning is going to be all of the woodwork and furniture in the Living Room. The product I love the most to rejuvenate my woodwork is my Vinegar/Oil Combination. To see more details on how this process works, go to my posting this day.   Are you sticking with me on this far in your deep cleaning?  For me, focusing on just one area at a time, or even just one chore each day, makes the entire process of Deep Cleaning seem doable. 

Now that we've Green Deep Cleaned the Kitchen and the Laundry Room, let's move on to the living room.  Today, we will be cleaning the chairs and couches that have cushions. What you will need to clean your Living Room Chairs & Couches: Envirocloth Leather Shine Vacuum Cleaner Spray Bottle with 1/4 teaspoon of Ultra Power Plus Laundry Detergent and water Ultra Power Plus Laundry Detergent Mattress Cleaner (optional) What to do:  If you have any covers on your couches or chairs, before removing the cover, spray the UPP /water spray bottle on any stains, to pre-treat them. Throw the covers into the washing machine with a scoop of UPP.   They'll be all ready and clean after you're done cleaning everything up! Next, determine what kind of fabric your couch is made of.  Here is what the tags may mean: W: OK to use water for cleaning. S: Only use a solvent-based cleaner on fabric. SW: Either water or a solvent cleaner is safe to use. X: O

Don't you love a snow day?  We homeschool, and we still get excited about snow days from school.  Don't ask me why, because we still have school on snow days!  But, there really is a thing of wonder when it snows enough to cancel everything!  What do you do for snow days?