How to clean your microwave....EASILY!

So maybe I'm the last person on earth to know this little tip, or maybe there are others like me who never knew about it and will love this easy tip! If so I want to see comments that you've never heard this and will try it! I listed this in one of my other hint and tip posts, but thought I'd show pictures. I love pictures so much better. I purposely let my microwave get icky so I could show you an easy way to clean it. So here it is! Stuck on cooked food from all sorts of lunches, dinners and snacks. Yuck! The sad part is, this photo is actually cleaner than it has been in the past. lol

Step 1

One dirty microwave needed!

Step 2
Put a glass container in the microwave with at least 1-1/2 to 2 cups water *
Close the door and microwave on high for 5 minutes.
(*NOTE: Make sure you have at least this much water, boiling a small amount of water can result in it exploding! I know from experience...ooops)

Step 3
When the 5 minutes is up....KEEP THE DOOR CLOSED FOR 5 MINUTES! Do not open the door.... the steam from the boiling water will soften all the gunk.

Step 4
After 5 minutes, open the door, CAREFULLY remove the glass container.
HOT HOT HOT!! Use an oven glove or similar item to remove it.
Step 5
Wipe inside with a warm wet washcloth.
I take out the microwave tray (if you have one) and rinse it in the sink. This lets me get under the glass tray and wipe the bottom, top and all sides of the microwave. See how clean the tray is with ONE WIPE of the washcloth! t

FINISHED!
Beautiful, clean and it was so easy.

Enjoy being a Mom All Day!

GET ORGANIZED this year with Peter Walsh "It's All Too Much"

I have received my book and DVD of "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh! You may know Peter as the host of TLC's Clean Sweep and he's a regular guest on the Oprah Winfrey show sharing his organizational hints and tips. His new book and DVD are wonderful tools to help you organize your home when it just seems "all too much" to handle and his ideas are very easy to understand and follow.

New York Times best seller

Now available on DVD
$19.99 plus S&H
An hour of tips, techniques and encouragement from an organizational living expert

I love to be organized, but sometimes it's just too hard to keep everything nice and neat all the time. Somewhere in my house there is always clutter and usually it's because I've cleaned out one space or room and just emptied it into another space or room! The information and tools Peter gives in his book and DVD are easy to follow so you can reduce your clutter so your not just transferring it from one room to another.

He has great points for everything like comparing your bedroom to a hotel room. If you walked into a hotel room and it looked like your bedroom does right now, would you call the management and complain about getting it cleaned? If so, you probably need to organize and clean it up and he gives easy tips on doing so! He also talks about treating your closet like a department store and keep similar clothing items together and stored by color so you see what you have and avoid needless future purchases. He talks about how to store shoes, jewelry and so much more.

He shows how to organize photo's also. Scrapbooking is a perfect way to start organizing and even tossing some old photo's. His tips on storing and displaying photo's are simple and can be done in such a way that family and friends can enjoy them when they visit.
Peter also touches on putting your kids artwork into a book to avoid endless bins of art which I think is a wonderful idea! I found this photo from a friend and it's an example of what you could do with your kids art work. You can scan photo's and have a book made up with your childs favorite art work to avoid a lot of paper clutter. You can check here to have coffee table books like this made up using your photo's.

The office is another area that is discussed. Hear tips on how useful a mail center can be to keep all your mail together and what to do with your junk mail. Peter has a way of telling you exactly how, and why, you should keep your home, garage and even your car clutter free and organized. He is clear and precise in the way he teaches and demonstrates exactly how to get started and keep it up. "It's All Too Much" is a great gift for that clutter freak in your life, and you KNOW you have one! Maybe you are one! Put it in a basket with some other goodies and it would make a very useful gift.

Get to know Peter:

- Facebook: Facebook.com/PeterWalsh

- Twitter: Twitter.com/peter_walsh

Don't forget to pick up a copy of Peter's book and DVD and Enjoy being a Mom All Day!

Tackle it Tuesday - Stubborn Burned stove top

I was making dinner one night and the pot of butter and milk boil over. You've all done it right? Now I have a stubborn burned stove top! So I wanted to experiment with different things to see what I could use to remove the burn. You can see the process I've taken to try to get it off. While my test trials worked for the most part, there is was some left over! (which I finally took care of!)

Burned on butter, milk and water.

FIRST ATTEMPT
1/2 with CLR, 1/2 with Clorox clean up, let sit 3-5 minutes.

Scrub with sponge...and it worked a little.

SECOND ATTEMPT
I pulled out the 409 grease cutter and let it sit a few minutes in the center.

Not so bad! It took the middle part away, so...........

I sprayed again and scrubbed it and got a good result. BUT I wanted to try more.

So I poured the rest of the bottle on and let it sit 3-5 minutes.

It got all of the middle out very nicely. But not the part where it's stuck on the burners.

SO I tried DAWN dish washing liquid. "Dawn takes grease out of your way" right!?

NOTHING happened even with a sponge and scrubber. No good.

So I decided to buff it with the "wax" that came with the range when I bought it to see what happened.

STILL THERE!

WHY NOT try regular 409 AND SHOUT stain remover for clothes! I know, I'm crazy. But I was on a roll with experimenting and wanted to see what happened!
1/2 regular 409 and 1/2 Shout stain remover

Scrubbed with a sponge and nothing on either. SO then I took out the white vinegar and baking soda!
This is suppose to work on anything right!?

Pouring the vinegar on the baking soda and let sit 3-5 minutes.

NOTHING~! NO results from any of those on the outer burnt rings.

SO I pulled out the ol' Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and with a little elbow grease, it went away!

Next time I'll probably use the 409 Glass and Surface cleaner to get the main part off and then use the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to get the rest off. But it sure was fun experimenting and trying all the different ways to get it clean!
Please share a comment and let me know if you've tried something else that worked (or didn't work) for you!

Enjoy being a mom all day!

Tackle it Tuesday! CLR vs Clorox Cleanup

I'm a fan of Clorox Clean up personally, so I thought this would be a great thing to
compare the two to see if I have a new cleaning love... lol
I get these stains on my counter from the ink that stays behind on boxes, bread bags, whatever has sat there too long usually in something wet. My clorox wipes dissolve it immediately so I thought I'd see if the CLR would do the samething.

THE STAIN (Looking at the bottom one)

Half Clorox (left), Half CLR (right) sitting on the stain

Clorox on the left, CLR on the right... you can see here that the clorox has already taken the stain away on the left and they have been sitting the same amount of time.

Wiping the cleaners away

Now this picture is reversed (look at original stain photo for comparison). The clorox was used on the RIGHT side here and the CLR on the left. I just took the photo from the opposite side as the photo's when I was actually using the cleaners on the stain.

EXPERIMENT #2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I used CLR only on the back of my sink though.
I left it sit longer and it seemed to do the job!! Go CLR!


BEFORE
AFTER

Enjoy being a mom all day!
Robyn