Cleaning With Lemons

I recently discovered that you can use lemons to clean. Unlike many other natural cleaning products, lemons are cheap and easy to find. They are also versatile and can be used on many surfaces without risk of damaging them.

Cleaning with lemons is quick and easy.  Simply cut a lemon in half and rub it on the surface you wish to clean. You can also dip the cut lemon in salt, baking soda [LINK] or citric acid [LINK] to create a more abrasive cleaning surface.  The only thing you need to worry about is washing away the juice and pulp bits after you've scrubbed up the food and grease.

I mostly use lemons to clean in my kitchen, but you could use them in your bathroom or anywhere really.  And, because lemons are good for degreasing, they would probably be quite useful for grimy car and/or machine parts - and/or for cleaning your hands after working on grimy car/machine parts.

I often use lemons as a starter cleaning solution and then use a magic eraser to get off whatever the lemons don't. And, when the lemon is exhausted, you can simply put it down your drain and run the garbage disposer - it cleans the disposer and freshens up the smell.

Cleaning with lemons - a simple triumph!

Charm Jewelry

I really like charm jewelry! Awhile back, I went to Michaels and bought a bunch of jewelry stuff. I spent a long time in the store - probably like 2 hours. I often don't know exactly what I want when I go in to a craft store, but I always have some sort of an idea of what I want to make. This time I went in for jewelry. I knew I wanted an oak tree, an owl, birds, shells, feathers, wings, and all the findings necessary to make those things into jewelry.

Not knowing exactly what I want, I usually start out at the clearance aisle (a habit I got from my mom - my mom and I have spent a lot of quality time on the clearance aisle, and now that we live apart, on the phone talking about the clearance aisle). I love to be inspired by cheap finds.

At the clearance aisle, I found a package of little shells and pieces of shells for 80 cents. They seemed perfect for using as spacers and extra baubles to go along with the shells [LINK] I collect from the beach. So, I tossed 'em in my cart. Next, I found a necklace and bracelet style in silver and gold tones. The necklaces were three bucks each and the bracelets a dollar. Perfect! I often like to start from existing pieces.  It makes my projects faster and easier and gives me a design guide to work from.

Next, I went to the jewelry section and began looking at the charms.  Again, I really like charms.  There I found an owl and some feathers and wings.  I didn't find any oak trees or any birds I liked, but I did find some strawberries and mushrooms that were really cute.  Some of the charms were silver and some gold tone - perfect to match the necklaces and bracelets I found.  I liked all the charms and wanted to use them all in my jewelry making, but they didn't all go together.  I decided to get some small clasps to attach to the charms so that I could make them easily removable. I got all the other findings I needed and headed home.

I made my mix and match charm necklaces and bracelets and now I have several pieces of jewelry all on one - simply triumphant!