We recently moved into a new house, and as I’m sure you are aware, moving often means getting new furniture. In our case, we needed a sectional sofa to fill a large great room with 20 foot ceilings. After looking around, we decided to get a 5 piece sectional from the Futon Shop. What I love about the Futon Shop is that they have all-natural furniture with the option to have organic fill. They are non-toxic and chemical free which is really important to me and my family. As you can see in the picture below, they are comfy and we often find our youngest son sleeping on it. 

One tip when buying from the Futon Shop (or anywhere, really) is to measure the space and make sure it is big (or small) enough. We initially purchased a smaller size, but when we put it all together, we realized that we needed one more piece, which we then purchased. The dimensions are posted on the site, so you should be able to measure before buying. Learn more about the Futon Shop and its natural furniture here. 

They have so many different options for colors fabrics, and in the end we chose to go with a white color. Now, many of you know that I have 3 boys, with another on the way, so you are probably thinking I am crazy for having white furniture. I have had that thought myself if I am being completely honest, but it went really well with the overall design and color scheme of our home so we went with it anyway. 

Before making the choice, I did some research and found that you really can take some steps to keep white furniture clean. It isn’t easy, and of course there are going to be accidents, but I wanted to share some tips today about keeping that new white sofa clean. 

Pre-Treat the Fabric

The first thing you should do when you get your white furniture is treat it with fabric protector. This can make a world of difference because they are designed to repel spills and other messes. Based on my experience, this is not going to protect it from everything, but it definitely does a good job of repelling small spills and other accidents. There are many options to choose from, but I always recommend trying it on a small piece of the fabric on the underside of a pillow or somewhere else that isn’t visible to make sure it doesn’t cause any issues. 

Follow the Manufacturer’s Guidelines and Wash Often

The sofa that we got from the Futon Shop comes with easily removable covers for the cushions and pillows. This makes it easy to remove them and wash them in the washing machine from time-to-time. If you are using white slipcovers, you can take those off as well and wash them when needed. The important thing here is to make sure that you are following the manufacturer’s instructions for washing. Many fabrics require using only cold water and air drying. If you follow the instructions for washing the fabric, your furniture will last longer and should stay cleaner as well. 

Don’t let Spills Sit for a Long Time. 

The longer you wait to clean a stain, the more difficult it will be to remove and maintain the white color for your sofa. For example, if your child drops a popsicle on the couch, you should wipe it up right away and use a spot stain remover and probably wash that part of the couch at the very least. If you let it sit, it will be very difficult to get rid of later. 

Make and Enforce Rules 

This may seem like a crazy idea to all of you moms of boys out there, but if you want to keep your white furniture clean, you have to set rules and you have to enforce them. For example, we have movie night every night in our family room. With movie night, we serve ice cream, but my boys know that the rule is that we do not eat the ice cream on the couch. In fact, our overall rule is that there is no eating on the couch ever. It was hard for them to adjust, but they are used to the rule now and that has helped me keep our beautiful sofa clean. 

If you are going to spend money on a new couch, you should definitely take the time to make sure that you are doing what you can to keep it clean. I hope that these tips are helpful for you! Let me know in the comments below if you have any other tips. 

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5 homemade baby food combinations that your baby will love, and how to store them.

It’s true what they say about each child being different. I have 3 young boys, and while they are similar in many ways, they are very different in others. This is especially true when it comes to their tastes in food. My 7 year old will eat just about anything, and my 4 year old is very picky!

We just had baby boy number 3 at the beginning of this year, and we are finally getting to see some of his personality. With my first two boys, they were perfectly content to eat any baby food that we gave them, but our most recent addition to the family loves homemade baby food made with different combinations of flavors.

We started him out with rice cereal and he enjoyed that for awhile. That was convenient for me of course, because all I had to do was add some water and stir until it was ready to go. Whenever I made rice cereal for him, I liked to use Gerber® Pure® Water. I use it to mix his rice cereal and to include in homemade baby foods, because it is specially purified for babies. Anything that I can do to help my baby grow up strong is good in my book! You can find out more information about Gerber® Pure® Water here and you can buy it at your local Walmart.

After a few weeks of rice cereal, it was clear that my baby was going to need something else. I gave him baby food from the store for his age, but I quickly found that it was easier to make my own homemade baby foods and he liked them even more! Today I am going to share 5 of the best homemade baby food combinations. My baby loves them and I am sure that yours will too.

1. Apple, Banana, Cinnamon, & Oatmeal

This one is made by adding half a cup of old fashioned oats with one cup of Gerber® Pure® Water and 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon in a small saucepan. Then heat it over medium for 3-5 minutes. While that is cooking, peel the apple and cut it into small cubes. Finally, add the oatmeal, bananas and the apples to a blender and blend until smooth.

2. Spinach, Sweet Peas, and Flank Steak

To make this delicious combination, cook the flank steak in a pot with a couple of cups of boiling Gerber® Pure® Water. Once cooked, you can shred it or just cut it into small pieces so you can blend it easier. Open a can of sweet peas, drain out the liquid, and rinse. The last ingredient is half a bunch of spinach. Add the steak, the sweet peas, and the cleaned and disinfected spinach to a blender and blend until smooth.

3. Carrots and Squash

Take one bag of baby carrots and cook in one liter of boiling Gerber® Pure® Water until soft. Do the same with one squash. Add the carrots and squash with a pinch of ground turmeric to a blender and blend until smooth.

4. Mangoes, Kale, and Ginger

Take the meat from one fresh mango (or a can of mangoes in 100% juice) and a half bunch of kale and add it to a blender with a pinch of ground ginger. Add a couple of tablespoons of Gerber® Pure® Water and blend until smooth

5. Blueberry, Avocado, and Pears

Drain the juice from one can of pears, rinse and add to a blender. Do the same with a can of pears. Finally, add one mature peeled and cored avocado to the blender. Once everything is in the blender, blend until smooth.

Storage Tips

1. Mason Jars. You can find small glass mason jars with white plastic tops. This is where you can store the food that your little one is going to eat within 1-3 weeks if refrigerated. Just add the baby food and tighten the lid before storing in the refrigerator. If you need to store it for longer, you can *freeze in these jars or follow one of the other tips below. Don’t forget to label them!

1. Plastic Storage Containers with Lid. Another way to store these is to add the baby food to a small plastic storage container with lids. You can refrigerate these as well or *freeze them. You will want to label each of these as well.

1. Ice Cube Tray. One of my favorite ways to store homemade baby food is to put them into the individual spaces on an ice tray right after I make them. Then you cover them with plastic wrap and put them in the freezer. Once they are frozen, you can remove them just like you would an ice cube and store in individual, labeled bags in the *freezer. When you are ready to serve them to your baby, select 3 or 4 “baby food cubes” and heat in the microwave for around 1 minute, or until it returns to the original consistency.

*using each of these methods, you can store the baby food in the freezer for up to 3 months.

My baby has been a happy camper ever since I started making these homemade baby foods for him. The great thing is that you can make all of these in less than an hour, you can make a lot, and you will save money in the process.

What combinations of baby foods have you tried? Let me know in the comments below.

The post The 5 Best Homemade Baby Food Combinations appeared first on My Latina Table.

To see the full tutorial and more before and after pictures, check out our post on the Home Depot Blog. 

Now that we have been in our own home for close to two years, we have decided to do some upgrades. Our first project is to make some updates to our kitchen to make it look nicer and more welcoming. Earlier this year, I started by refinishing and painting all of our kitchen cabinets and they turned out great! I love the black color and how it looks with the stainless steel appliances.

After we finished that, the next project was to upgrade our kitchen backsplash. The old backsplash that we had was nothing more than an extension of the laminate counter tops and I couldn’t stand them! I couldn’t wait to get them taken care of, so we started looking at different options right away.

We wanted something that was actually going to protect the walls a little better from water and food, but that looked nice as well. Since our ultimate plan is to upgrade to stone counter tops, we were hoping to keep costs down on our backsplash and to do them in one weekend at the most so that we could start working on other projects as soon as possible as well.

That is one of the reasons that we decided to use  Aspect brand subway tile, manufactured by Acoustic Ceiling Products (ACP) for our new backsplash. These are peel and stick tiles, which means that they stick to the wall with a very strong adhesive that is revealed when you peel away the paper from the back and this made installation pretty easy! With that said, if you want to be extra that they stay in place, the instructions state that you can use standard adhesive that is used for other backsplash as well.

Aspect tiles come in a variety of colors and styles so I am sure that you can find something that works for you kitchen. We used the “brushed stainless” subway tile and we love how it turned out.

As you can see in these pictures of the finished product, they turned out really nice and it is definitely an upgrade from what we had before. Aspect also has peel and stick trim pieces that you can use around the edges. We really feel like these trim pieces completed the look and made it look even better!

Overall we were happy with our experience with Aspect tiles and we definitely recommend them, especially if you want to remodel your kitchen on a budget and on a schedule. We were able to finish our entire kitchen in one Saturday with just a few finishing touches on Sunday. The difference that it made in our kitchen was quite drastic and we are excited to continue making more upgrades throughout the next year.

To see the full tutorial and more before and after images, check out our post on the Home Depot Blog here.

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When we were able to move into our own home about two years ago, I was so excited! One of the things for which I was most excited was to be able to decorate my house in the way I wanted to and to be able to make it a home. Shortly after moving in, we furnished our house with new furniture and appliances and made a few updates. After a few months though, we got so busy that a lot of our projects got put on hold.

I am the type of person that doesn’t like to keep things the same for long. I have changed the layout of our bedroom at least 3 times since moving in and our family room has changed as well. Of course, changing things around and updating so often can mean that we have to spend more money than we should sometimes. Since we try to save our money whenever possible, I always am looking for new places to shop to get things that we want at an affordable cost.

Updating furniture can be one of the most expensive parts of changing the look of a house, so we tend to keep the same furniture for awhile. Recently, however, we have been thinking about getting a few new pieces of furniture to update our living room. That is where CORT Clearance Centers enters the picture. Until just a few weeks ago I had never heard of CORT Clearance Centers, so I had never been there. When we found out about it and that it had a lot of discount furniture, we were really excited to go and check it out. 

The nearest CORT location is about 20 minutes from our house and we were able to find it easily because of the large sign outside with the name on it. We had read a little bit about it leading up to our trip and were excited to go inside and check it out. We weren’t quite ready to make any purchases yet, but we thought it would be good to see what kind of variety they had.

Right when we went in the store we were met by a very polite employee who asked us if there was anything he could help with. We told him that it was our first trip to CORT and that we really just wanted to take a look at what they had. He was very nice and gave us a quick overview, explaining that they have both a rental and a retail section in the store. He showed us where each was and invited us to take a look and let him know if we had any questions.

We were quite impressed with both the variety and the prices of the furniture at CORT. As you can see in these images, they have furniture ranging from bedroom sets, to living room sets, to office desks and chairs and more.

My husband had a good time trying out some of the office sets and imagining how they would look in our house someday. Currently there isn’t enough room in our house for an office this big, but for our next house we definitely want to have one.

Our boys were tired after a long week and really enjoyed testing out some of the couches which they said were very comfy!

One thing that we really discovered was that although the furniture at CORT was definitely affordable, it was not cheap! We looked at everything closely and it looked like it was high quality and that it would last a long time. Another great thing about CORT is that all of its furniture is CORT Certified, which among other things, means that each piece of furniture has been inspected for cleanliness and structural quality.

We saw quite a few living room sets that we thought would look nice in our house as well, and we were sure to get lots of pictures so that we could remember the pieces that we liked for when we are ready to make our next purchase.

All in all, we enjoyed our first trip to CORT Clearance Centers and are happy to have found a new place to shop whenever we are looking for any furniture in any room of our house. Follow this link to find your local clearance center.

The post My Experience at CORT Clearance Centers appeared first on My Latina Table.

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Mexican food is well known for having a wide variety of delicious dishes, including many types of tacos, tamales, barbacoas, soups, and many more. You can see the influence of Mexican food in many other foods around the World including in the United States, Spain, Africa, and even Asia.

Mexican cuisine was designated an “intangible cultural heritage” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2010. For those, and many other reasons, I am proud of my Mexican roots and always seek to show that through my recipes.

Of course in order to make these delicious recipes, not only do you have to have the traditional ingredients, but you also need to have specific cooking tools, or utensils in order to give the dishes that authentic taste. The products that are traditionally used in Mexican food have developed and changed throughout the past few centuries as technology has improved.

Today we are able to enjoy the best of both worlds as many of the tools we use today are similar to what was used in the past, but are a bit more efficient.

Here is a short list of a few of my favorite Mexican recipes that I have shared here on my site:

1. Guacamole Recipe Homemade Authentic Mexican Version
2. Horchata (Authentic Mexican Recipe)
3. Traditional Mexican Tostadas
4. Authentic Mexican Salsa Verde
5. Tacos Al Pastor Recipe Homemade Version

As I make these recipes, I am able to use the cooking utensils that I learned how to use from my abuelita and my mom, and this brings back so many wonderful memories from when I was a little girl.

Fortunately, today it is not too difficult to find these products even outside of Mexico, and so today I want to share 6 essential products for cooking Mexican food and where you can find them.

1. Molcajete (Mortar and Pestle)

This amazing little product is basically a stone in the form of a small bowl that is used to grind ingredients like garlic, chilies, seeds, pepper, cloves, fresh herbs and even soft fruits and vegetables like avocado!

I will always remember the delicious, fresh roasted pepper salsas that my grandma always used to make and that we always had on the table to go along with our meals. When I first arrived in the United States I had to learn how to live without my beloved molcajete, but eventually I found it here, and it is still one of my favorites!

2. Blender

It doesn’t matter what brand or how much it costs, having a good blender is absolutely essential to making great Mexican food. Whether you are using it to make your own salsa, preparing your own refried beans, or making fresh and delicious beverages like horchata, a blender is a great investment because you will definitely be using it!

I have used many different brands and types of blenders throughout my life, but the one that I have settled on is the Blendtec 725! It is absolutely amazing. It has touch buttons with preset times and cycles for different types of recipes, including salsas. I know it is expensive, but the quality justifies the price and it will last you a long time. Click here to check it out. 

3. Tortilla Press

This is a very basic tool that is used to make tortillas very quickly and which can be used by anyone to make tortillas, especially if you aren’t sure how to form them by hand. They are used very often in Mexico – especially in local restaurants and stores where they have to make a huge volume to keep up with the demand for delicious foods like pork rind filled gorditas, quesadillas, and of course for the internationally famous tacos, like these chorizo and potato tacos!

This product consists of two metal, circular plates, which are connected by a handle and which, when pushed together are able to form a perfectly flat and round tortilla when a small ball of tortilla dough is placed between them.

With this great product, you can have perfect homemade tortillas in just seconds and there is nothing better than homemade, recently cooked tortillas. I bought my tortilla press a few years ago when we were living in Phoenix at a local store, but fortunately you can buy them here as well. The price is worth it, because this product will last for many years (and many tortillas!).

4. Comal 

In order to cook those delicious homemade tortillas, you will also need a comal. A comal is smooth, flat griddle that can be used to cook tortillas, meat and more. Originally they were made of clay and I even remember seeing one of those that my great grandmother had. Today they are usually made of cast iron so that they are able to last longer – in fact a good comal can last for many generations! 

They are usually disc shaped so that you can easily cook the tortillas or toast seeds and roast chilies. I used to have a really good one, but in our many moves, I seem to have lost it and I am definitely missing it.

Fortunately I am planning on getting a new one and there are many great options here.

5. Wooden Spoons

One of the great things about Mexican food are the many delicious, homemade beverages that are served with it. In order to make these drinks, you have to do a lot of stirring. That is why it is important to have a good amount of wooden spoons on hand.

You will be surprised how often you use them and you will notice that they will protect your non-stick and stainless steel pots and pans as well!

6. Steamer

I have been familiar with steamers since I was a little girl, and it has always been one of my favorites. It is most famous for being used to make tamales, but it can also be used to make delicious esquite and corn. You will find one of these in every Mexican home, and because of their popularity, it is even easy to find them in the United States.

I have found lots of other uses for it as well, like for steaming vegetables like artichokes. It consists of a large pot with uniform holes placed inside of another large pot which allows for whatever is put inside to be perfectly steamed. You can find them for a good price and quality here. 

These are just a few of many cooking tools that you can take advantage of to make delicious Mexican food There are many more that you can use, but these ones are essential. As I have gone through this list, I can say with confidence that I use at least one or two of these products for almost every Mexican recipe that you will find on this site.

Whether you are an experienced chef, or are just starting to learn, these will definitely help you on your journey towards making delicious Mexican food.

For  more essential kitchen products, check out my kitchen essentials store page.

To summarize, Here are links to all of the products listed in this article. 

1. Molcajete
2. Blender
3. Tortilla Press
4. Wooden Spoons
5. Steamer

The post 6 Essential Products For Making Authentic Mexican Food appeared first on My Latina Table.

For some reason I always have a need to update the decor in my house. Some days it’s the living room, other days it’s my bedroom, and on days like today, it is my laundry room.

To be honest, it is more of a laundry area, as it isn’t an actual room, but that won’t stop me from decorating it and making it my own! Up until now, my laundry area has been pretty boring – just our washer and dryer, a trash can and whatever else we decide to throw on top when we are in a hurry. Today, however, I decided to spruce it up a little by making and hanging this wooden sign on the wall above my dryer. It is really easy to do and today I am going to share a tutorial on how I did it!
Pretty much anyone will be able to follow this tutorial and it doesn’t require any special equipment for adding the letters, because they are hand painted! Follow along and I will show you how you can make one just like this.

Step 1

To begin, you will need a 2 x 10 piece of wood. It doesn’t matter how long the one you purchase is, because you will be cutting it down to size anyway. I cut mine down to 25 inches and it fit perfectly on the wall in my laundry area.

Step 2

The next step is to sand the piece of wood so that it is pretty smooth and without rough corners.

Step 3

Once you have cut and sanded the wood, it is time to stain (or paint) it. I used dark walnut stain, and it turned out great. You can use paint as well if you want to do a different color. I chose stain, because many of the DIY home decor projects that I did throughout the rest of my home use the same color stain. After staining or painting, let it dry until no wet paint or stain remains.

Step 4

After you have chosen the quote or phrase that you want to use, you should type up all of the letters in a Word document and print each one off. Then tape each word or letter in the right order onto the stained wood exactly where  you want them to show up. Next, carefully trace the letters with a sharp pencil, so that you can see a slight indentation in the wood in the shape of the letters.

Step 5

After you have traced all of the letters onto the piece of stained wood and removed the paper, outline the letters with a paint pen. You may have to go over each letter a couple of times.

Step 6

With all of the letters outlined with the paint pen, it is time to fill the letters in with paint. I chose to use white because it makes a nice contrast with the dark walnut stain. You can use a paintbrush with acrylic paint for the bigger areas and the paint pen for the smaller areas. Repeat steps 4-6 with any images or shapes that you want to add as well.

Step 7

The final step is to add a picture hanger or something similar to the back and then hang it on your wall!

This was a really fun and inexpensive project to do, and is especially great if you don’t want to go out and buy an expensive vinyl machine! I love creating things that make my house more welcoming. This one was especially great, because I have been really wanting to make my laundry area more inviting ever since we moved in here over a year ago. Now that I have a start to some great decor, I can focus more on doing my laundry with the constant reminder that all of the hard work that I do is for my family. Luckily, the job has been a lot easier and more efficient since I started using Member’s Mark® Ultimate Clean Laundry Detergent which can be purchased at Sam’s Club. It does an awesome job and has a really convenient, no mess dispenser. It comes in two scents – Fresh Scent and Paradise Splash. The great part is that it works just as well or better as other laundry detergents, but it costs a fraction of the cost – and you know what that means – more money for more great DIY projects!

I would love to hear about your laundry room projects, and if you try this one, let me know how it turned out!

The post DIY Wooden Sign for Laundry Room (Tutorial) appeared first on My Latina Table.

Easter is almost here and we are still decorating!  If you missed our DIY Centerpiece and No-sew Easter Pillow tutorials, make sure to check them out. They go perfectly with these wooden Easter Bunny decorations!

With all of these sunny days that we have been having, I have had more energy and motivation to work on these fairly simple projects using leftover wood from other projects to save a little bit of money. As soon as I decided what I wanted these to look like, I went to the start to find some inexpensive, simple materials and set to work getting our house ready for Spring. Don’t worry about not having much time – you can do this entire project in less than 2 hours!

Materials

• One 3 foot long piece of 2×4
• Thin Wire
• Acrylic Paint
• Wood Slices
• Paint Marker
• Small amount of fabric in the color of your choice (polka dots are perfect!)
• Other assorted decorations like bows and ribbons, if desired.
• White primer or other paint.
• Circular Saw
• Electric Sander
• Pinking Shears

Step 1

The first step is to cut the wood into the sizes that you need. The wood that I used is a little bit thick, so you will need a good circular saw like the one that we used. You can cut them whatever length you want – I cut one that was 10 inches, one that was 8 inches, and two that were 6 inches to represent my husband, myself, and our two little boys.

Step 2

Once you have cut the wood to the correct lengths, make sure to sand them so that they are smooth and so that you can get rid of the rough edges. Then be sure to wipe the excess dust clean.

Step 3

Once cut and sanded, it is time to paint. I used white primer that I had on hand, but if you want to spend a bit more you can always buy some good wood paint. I decided to use what I had, because like I have mentioned in the past, I like doing inexpensive, yet really cute crafts! For the nose I found these perfect wooden slices  for 1 dollar!

Step 4

While you are waiting for the white paint to dry, it is time to paint the noses with acrylic paint according to the color of fabric that you are going to use for the next part.

Step 5

To make the eyes, use a cotton swap to paint a small black circle on the now dry block of wood. After the black circle has dried, paint a small white circle to finish the eyes.

Step 6

The next step is to take out your Pinking Shears and cut two 14″ x 2″ rounded strips of your choice of fabric. Put the inward-facing sides together and then use some needle and thread to tie the middle as shown in the pictures below. Use hot glue to glue it to the top of the block and add any other bows or other decorations that you want.

Step 7

The next step is to make the whiskers. Fo this you will need thin pieces of wire and wood glue. For each bunny, cut three pieces of the wire to equal lengths, put them together, and tie a knot in the middle. After you have tied the knot, put it in the middle, about where the nose will go and attach with your wood glue. Then put the nose on top, pressing down firmly so that it is glued in place as well. Once the nose and wire are in place, use a pen or marker to form the whiskers. Now you can add more decorations, like bows and buttons or whatever else you think will look great!

Step 8

The final step is to draw on the mouth and the teeth and adding a little bit of color to the cheek area.

I hope that you have enjoyed this tutorial and that you will try it too! Let me know in the comments how it turned out! These are a perfect way to decorate your house or it would be a great gift for a friend or family.

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This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #LimpiaTotal #CollectiveBias

I love everything about the word “clean.” How it sounds, how it smells, and how it shines! I admit I probably have a bit of OCD, but that doesn’t bother me at al. My mom always taught us that a house, no matter how small and humble, will always feel like heaven when it is clean – and I agree 100%. Ever since I was a little girl I have associated cleaning with Clorox because my mom used it religiously for cleaning the house and I learned many tricks that I am going to share with you today.

1. Keep  your Flowers Fresh for Longer

With Spring just around the corner there are all different kinds of flowers popping up, and that has definitely motivated me to have as many as possible around my house too! Did you know that if you put 1/4 teaspoon of Clorox per 1 liter of water in your vase, the water will stay fresh longer and it can help avoid the bad odor that flowers let off after a few days? Try it!

2. Clean Your Mops and Tile Floors

To keep your mops clean, fill a bucket with soapy water and 1/2 a cup of Clorox Liquid Bleach per gallon of water. Next put the mop in the bucket and let it rest for about 5 minutes. Finally, rinse with clean water.

When you are done, refill the bucket with the same amounts of water and Clorox Liquid Bleach mentioned above, and add one cup of Pine-Sol Lavender to clean your tile floors.

3. Keep Your Sheets and Comforters White

I love using light colors, like white, for the sheets and comforters on my bed because it makes me feel comfortable and clean. However, having two little boys that climb up on our bed every morning makes it hard to keep them that way or long. So, I always make sure to include Clorox Liquid Bleach when I am washing them to keep my whites bright.

4. Keep Toys Germ Free

Like I mentioned above, I have two little boys, and they love playing with small toys like LEGO’s, blocks, and more. Now that there has been enough sun to play outside, they just love taking almost all of their toys outside to the sandbox. Of course they then love to bring them inside covered in sand and who knows what else! Just thinking about the germs that these toys must pick up outside scares me a little bit. So, in order to try to keep them from catching those germs, I clean them by adding 1/2 cup of Clorox Liquid Bleach to 1 gallon of water, then I add the toys and let them soak for 5 minutes, followed by a good rinse. Finally, I let them dry completely in a strainer over a large bowl or bucket before returning them to the toy box.

5. Clean Bathroom and Kitchen Surfaces

With everything that has to get done in the morning, I usually put on my makeup pretty quickly which doesn’t leave me with much time to clean up. Since I am a bit obsessive about having everything clean, I always make sure to save time by using Lavender Clorox Disinfecting Wipes to quickly clean up the makeup stains from the bathroom surfaces. I love this, because not only do I know that it the surfaces are clean, but that they are disinfected too because Clorox Disinfecting Wipes kills 99.9% of household bacteria in  your home.

6. Keep your Trash Bins and Door Handles Fresh and Clean

I often find little fingerprints around the house – especially on the door handles leading into our snack cabinet! Luckily with the Lavender Clorox Disinfecting Wipes in the kitchen, I can clean them up. As a bonus, the great lavender scent leaves it smelling fresh.

Every once in awhile it is important to clean your trash bins, both inside and out. To do it, mix 1/2 cup of Clorox Liquid Bleach with water and scrub it with a kitchen scrubbing sponge before rinsing with a mixture of water and a little bit of Pine-Sol Lavender and letting dry.

The three products that I mentioned in this post have defintiely been lifesavers for me on more than one occasion, and I am glad that I can find them all so easily in the cleaners section at Walmart.

I love learning new ways to clean, so please tell me what are some of your favorite tips!

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I love doing crafts, especially when they are cheap, and easy. I am no professional, and I love looking around for great ideas and inspiration, but it seems like most tutorial ideas require some sort of expensive vinyl or sewing machine.  Honestly, I don’t like to spend a lot of money on expensive materials and I always look for ways to reuse left over materials from prior projects for my new ones. So, if you are a professional, this post might not be for you :). On the other hand, if you are like me and you like to make pretty things for your home but you don’t like complicated and expensive project, you are in the right place!

I will start off by saying that you can get these 20″ x 20″ pillowcases for around $4 dollars on Amazon or even at IKEA, which saved me the time and money that it would have taken me to buy the fabric and sew them together myself. Of course when I lived in Mexico, I could have bought 2 yards of fabric for $1, but here in the United States it usually isn’t as cheap. I decided to make Easter themed pillow cases because it is just around the corner and with Spring coming up and winter almost gone, I can’t help but do what I love – decorate my house!

To start it is important to wash and iron the pillowcases. Once they are ready to use, the next step is to print the letters that  you need for whatever phrase you want to put on the pillow. I used Microsoft Word and typed up the words in Lucida font using size 250, 230, and 300 font so that the words all lined up correctly. Of course you should use the font that you like and the sizes will depend on how big the pillowcases are too. That’s why I hope that this post is more than just a tutorial, but rather an inspiration! Once you have printed the letters, cut them out and place them on the pillowcase in the correct order. Even though this technique is cheap and kind of unconventional, I assure you that it will work and just requires a little bit of patience.

Now, with the letters in place,  you can outline them using a pencil. If you have problems with the letters staying in place, you can use an inexpensive glue stick to keep them in place while you are tracing them onto the pillowcase. This step will not affect your ability to fill them in with the markers that you will use in the next step.

To make the next step easier, start by putting a recycled piece of cardboard inside the pillowcase (this will keep the marker from bleeding through). Now, very carefully you can color in each of the letters, making sure to not leave any white spaces. You may need to go over it a couple of times to fill it in completely. When you are done, let it dry for about 15 minutes and add the pillow. Easy and pretty!

To make these Easter bunny pillowcases, you will need to buy HeatnBond iron on adhesive, your choice of fabric (I used burlap), and an image of a bunny that you can find on google. After printing off the image, you can trace it onto the fabric and cut it out into the shape that you want to use. Once you have it cut out, use a match to seal the borders so that they don’t fray. This is an old trick that our abuelitas teach us in Mexico – just make sure that you don’t get to close to the fabric itself and be careful not to burn  yourself. Once this is done, it is ready to attach to the pillowcase. Just follow the instructions on the iron on adhesive to add the adhesive to your cut out bunny.

After the adhesive has been connected to the bunny pattern, all you have to do is bond it to your pillowcase, fill it will the pillow, and attach whatever cute accessory for the tail. I found these ones that were already pre-made and used a coupon, so they were pretty cheap. However, if you are adventurous, you can try to make your own mini pom poms for the tail. Really you can use whatever you can find as long as it is what you want.

See, that was easy right? Now there are no excuses for not being motivated and making fun crafts. If I can do it, so can you! Don’t forget to let me know in the comments how they turned out!

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