Do you know where to take your pet if there were (heaven forbid!) an emergency? What if there was an emergency at 9:00 on a Saturday night? What about 5:30 on a weekday evening? Would you drive to your regular vet? Or need to go to an pet emergency hospital? I don’t want to have to think about it…
We have a cabinet with Joe treats and his leashes, and in there we also have a paper that says “IN CASE OF A JOSEPH EMERGENCY” with address, phone number, and hours of operation for our regular vet and the closest emergency vet. There are also directions to both vets and a bit of health information for Joe.
It brings a bit of piece of mind. If you’d like a template, you can get it here!
My new favorite Christmas tree tip: if you want your home to smell like a Christmas tree, grab a toothpick or pin and pull back the branches to expose the tree trunk. Using the toothpick or pin, puncture a few bumps on the trunk. These bumps are filled with sap and if you do this every couple days your house will be filled with Christmas tree smell!
Original source here.
This is what the water tray in my refrigerator door looked like after I cleaned it with soap and water. Sooooooo gross.
But they can get clean! The trick to getting these clean is to use vinegar! Pour a little vinegar in the tray and let it soak for a minute. You can scrub it a bit with a toothbrush or cotton swab.
Ta-da!
A couple of sort of sneaky ways to update your holiday card list:
- You know your friend moved, but you don’t know her new address… but you did go to her house warming party! Go through your evite account and pull addresses from there
- If you recall the street name but not the house number, look it up on google maps and go to “street view” to get the house numbers
- Use Facebook to add your friends’ and family members’ children’s names to your list – or to double check spelling (Jayden? Jaiden? Jaden? Jadyn? Jadun??)
By the way, that Christmas card with Santa and the puppies is my all-time favorite. It’s from my dad and he taped this picture on the inside.
This is another vintage dress that Chris got me for my birthday this year… isn’t it adorable? Unfortunately, this one smelled too! Do all vintage dresses stink? This one smelled more chemical-y than body odor though. Since it is silk (!) I took it to the dry cleaner, but it only helped a little. It was so overwhelming, I decided I would hand wash it as a last resort… I am glad I did! It worked! No more smell!
Here’s how I did it:
- First, I washed the tie in warm/cool water to make sure this wasn’t the worst idea ever. The tie did well, so I decided to do the entire dress.
- Also very important: I then gathered all the materials since time was of the essence with silk. Necessary materials: woolite, baking soda, vinegar, towels, and a hanger.
- Since the smell was more acidic than basic, I thought baking soda would be best. Eventually I used both vinegar and baking soda (but not at the same time, since they cancel each other out). I added a couple inches of warm/cool water in the kitchen sink with some woolite and then added the dress. I handwashed it in the sink, rinsing with vinegar and then water… and then baking soda and then water… until I couldn’t smell the chemical smell any more.
- I laid a towel out on the table, and then laid the dress on top. Then I rolled the dress up in the towl to soak up as much moisture as I could.
- I slipped the dress onto the hanger and hung it from the light fixture under the ceiling fan in my living room - this worked out really well because it dryed quickly. Then I ran it in the dryer for a few minutes.
Voila! Let me know how it works out for you!
Do you like what I turned this vintage dress into? I do… like, a lot. The only thing I didn’t like was that the dress STUNK, like a lot. So I washed it with Coca-Cola and now it doesn’t smell any more! Unfortunately, I threw it in the dryer and it SHRUNK (like, a lot)! See those belt loops? They were up by my armpits. And those sleeves? Yeah, they were suddenly 3/4 sleeves.
Luckily, I was able to “un-shrink” it! Here’s how I did it:
- First, I soaked the dress in warm/hot water for ten minutes.
- While it was soaking, I gathered a couple towels and laid one out on the table.
- After 10 minutes, I gently squeezed out excess water and laid the sweater on top of the towel.
- I rolled up the sweater in the towel to get out some more water – you have to do this quickly though because you want to do the next step while the sweater is still warm.
- Finally, I gently stretched the sweater back into shape. I even put the sweater on (carefully!) to make sure it would fit after my “un-shrinking”
- Let it dry flat and you’re done!
Let me know how this works out for you!
Check out this vintage dress that Chris got me for my birthday! To be honest, I wasn’t in love with it (I had it turned into a sweater jacket that I LOVE though) – but I was so impressed by Chris’ thoughtfulness. However, on the first day I wore it I noticed something… um… stinky. And it wasn’t me. I needed to get the body odor out of my wool dress ASAP.
Here’s how I did it:
- First, I consulted my mom. Because she knows lots of things about lots of things.
- Then, I had to determine if the odor is basic or acidic. Most clothing odors are basic, but the only way to closely determine what type of odor you have is to give it a good wiff. If it doesn’t smell acidic-y or metalic-y (read this post instead), it’s probably a basic odor.
- To remove basic odors, you have to use an acid like lemon juice, vinegar or Coca-Cola (the regular kind, not diet) – I used Coca-Cola
- I washed a regular load of similar colored clothing and towel, and then dumped half of a 2 liter bottle of Coca-Cola in the rinse cycle. I can’t guarantee that this won’t discolor your clothes, but it didn’t discolor mine.
- Dry as usual (which in the case of this WOOL dress, should have been to hang dry… but I put it in the dryer! Learn how I “un-shrunk” it here)
There you go! Please let me know how this works for you!
