Homemade Shout Stain Remover

I have to admit I am not the mom that spends hours trying to preserve her child's clothes at the end of the day by getting the grass stains out of the knees or the kool-aid stains out of his shirts.  I know I'm a slacker.  No stain remover has ever really worked well for me, there seems to always be a light stain still left after I spray, soak, rub in, spray, soak, wash, spray, soak, wash.

It's like a never ending battle.  Me vs. The Stain.

Somehow no matter how hard I work, I always lose.

So I gave up on even trying for a while and just turned all the really badly stained shirts into sleep shirts.  However the time finally came when he stained one of his good shirts that I really wanted to keep stain free.  Instead of spending a bunch of money on Shout or Resolve or Tide stain remover I decided to give a homemade stain remover a shot.  I've had really good luck with all my other homemade cleaners and detergents so I thought my chances might be good.

I found a recipe here and followed the directions.  I took a white kool-aid stained shirt of Grant's and a white tank top of mine with a stain on it (who knows where that came from).  I sprayed them and let them set for about an hour.  Then I soaked them in cold water for an hour or so.  When I took them out the stains were gone.  I wish I had a before and after pic of the shirts but of course I forgot.

Due the ammonia make sure you do not use bleach and you are in a well ventilated area not breathing in the fumes, because this stuff can be strong if you have a large stained area to spray. 

Homemade Dusting Spray

We recently moved and our stuff has been in storage for over a year, so naturally alot of our furniture needed polished and cleaned.  We have 2 end tables we use in our living room that my Papaw made years ago.  When we brought them to the new place they looked like some kind of white liquid had been spilled on them and dried to it.  Of course I had no dusting spray or furniture polish to clean them and kept forgetting to pick any up at the store.  I think I was intentionally forgetting because I truely HATE buying cleaning products.  Lets face it they are extremely over priced and none of them work as well as they say they will.

While I was unpacking I found a list of homemade cleaner recipes and in them was one for furniture polish or dusting spray.  I love homemade cleaners for a couple reasons;
1. They are usually cheaper because they are made from ingredients you already have.
2.  Most of them are safe to be around little kids.  While I still keep all my cleaning products, including the homemade ones, out of reach of my little guy it's nice to know they won't harm him.

This cleaner only contained two ingredients, which I had in my cabinet, vinegar and olive oil.  All you use is 1/2 cup vinegar and 1 tsp olive oil.  Mix them together in a spray bottle and spray on your furniture using a clean rag to rub it in.

 

Here is a couple before pictures of my poor little end table.

 

 

 

Here is the after:

 

I am so super excited about how well this worked so I knew I had to share.