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Getting Ready for a Party! Step One Cleaning…

May 23, 2011 By 5 Comments

We’re going to be having a party this week. Vtech has sent us everything we need to throw a rocking baby shower. Now I’m not planning to have another baby but I know LOTS of moms, and I happen to know one in particular that’s going to have a baby and I thought of her when I agreed to throw this ‘Get Ready for Baby’ party. The Get Ready for Baby playdate is going to be tons of fun as we will get to explore four different Vtech Toys. One of which is this cute little Vtech Peek-At-Me Bunny.

 

Peek At Me Bunny

He’s so cute, I can’t wait to open him. But before I start setting up the toys and decorating the house, I have to clean it. I’m not usually that big on making sure the house is really sparkly clean. We don’t have a lot of company very often, but when I’m planning a playdate with other moms and dads then I pay a little more attention to getting things cleaned. I get out the carpet cleaners, do a little tile cleaning, while I’m in the bathroom I clean the shower, the sink, and then I move on to my closet. You know, having a playdate or party every now and then ends up being really good for the house. The only thing I seem to have trouble with is the carpet on the stairs. I think it would be easier just to pay someone to do it. I am wondering if any of you have any experience with a good carpet cleaning service? Is there anyone that has done a really good job for you for a really great price?

I clean my house the very same way I write. I follow whatever just pops into my head and go with it. I’m very scatter brained and I’m pretty sure my writing shows that. I’m here and I’m there and, how do you guys keep up with me? That’s how I clean, I start in the room that needs it the most then I find myself folding clothes, then when I’m putting away the dish rags, I find myself cleaning the kitchen. I never finish anything. I guess that’s why it takes me a whole day to clean and I end up with an entire clean house before a party.

So are you like me, do you clean for an occasion or is your house always ready for company?

 

 

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Cleaning with Staples, “That was [eco] EASY!”

May 11, 2011 By 2 Comments

It’s about time more companies became Earth Day friendly year round. Staples is making their mark with their Sustainable Earth line.

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I have used other brands of multi-purpose and glass cleansing products and compared to the Staples Sustainable Earth, I’d say in a blind test I won’t be able to tell the difference between my typical cleaner and the Staples Sustainable Earth cleansers. My house is shiny, steak-free, and without film residues. Staples Sustainable Earth cleaning products also leaves a very fresh, clean smell not a chemical sterile smell, which is important to me because I want to live in my home not a hospital! The reason is Sustainable Earth has no harsh chemicals but offer powerful ways to clean greener … BRILLIANT!

The Staples Sustainable Earth Glass Cleaner is alcohol-free, ammonia-free, and phosphate-free. The Staples Sustainable Earth Multi-Purpose Cleaner offers a natural pH, and is also ammonia-free and phosphate-free. It is an eco-conscious cleaner that was formulated in partnership with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exclusively for Staples and meets the Green Seal environmental standard for household cleaners.

Sustainable Earth by Staples is eco easy! Not only are they stepping up with eco cleaners, but their Sustainable Earth line offers toner, paper products, school and office supplies, and cutlery and flatware. The coolest of these Sustainable Earth products including a Bamboo USB Flash Drive (made from recycled bamboo) and notebooks made from recycled sugarcane instead of paper from trees!

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So keep Earth Day in your everyday, and with the help of Staples you’ll be saying, “That was easy!”

You can keep up with Staples on their website, via Staples on Facebook and by tracking them on Twitter @StaplesTweets.

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Disclosure – A product was provided to me free of charge by the manufacturer or representing PR agency for the writing of this review; however, opinions expressed are my own and are NOT influenced by monetary compensation

About Summer:

Summer is the President of our Local MOMS Club chapter, she is the mother of two adorable active boys, and is always thinking of ways to help others. She is a friend, a wife, and always busy as all mommies are. She is very active on Facebook, addicted to Geocaching and very interested in organic and green living.

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Lysol Disinfecting Wipes 200.00 American Express Gift Card Giveaway

December 15, 2010 By 1,016 Comments

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Having a new puppy and accidents all over my hard wood floor, I am using Lysol Disinfecting wipes left and right. I’m also using them every day to clean out Abby’s crate. She’s just a puppy and can’t seem to go longer than 30 minutes without making a mess in her crate. So I trust Lysol to get rid of all those nasty germs that I do not want my kids around.

It’s also cold and flu season and with Zoe in preschool she’s bringing home every germ under the sun. Health is a big priority for me in my house, because with all my traveling, I seem to be the one always getting sick. Zoe brings it home and I get sick. The neighbors come over and I get sick. So I’m taking to sanitizing things a lot more often. I guess, I’m finally taking my grandmother’s advice and doing it at least once a week. I should have listened to her sooner. To make it even easier for moms like me to help stop the spread of germs this cold & flu season, LYSOL is offering Buy 1 Get 1 Free packs of LYSOL Disinfecting Wipes and LYSOL Dual Action Disinfecting Wipes at major retailers nationwide through January 2011. You can even give one to your child’s teacher to help keep classrooms germ free!

Lysol disinfecting wipes are for use in your home and locations around your community, such as schools, LYSOL Disinfecting Wipes kill 99.9% of germs to help keep your family healthy during cold & flu season so you can do more with your kids. LYSOL Dual Action Disinfecting Wipes have a scrubbing side that cleans tough messes like soap scum and grease. Use LYSOL  Wipes to kill viruses and bacteria like Influenza A, H1N1 and E. coli on commonly touched hard surfaces. Don’t forget to check out the Lysol the community and new Facebook pages.

Enter to Win

1 of 2 100.00 American Express Gift Cards

To Enter for one:

Share your favorite cleaning tips leave each tip in a new comment

To Enter for the other gift card:

I need someone to go out to Walmart, Target, anywhere that Lysol is sold and take a photo of the Lysol Display! Then tweet your photo @momstart, or post it on your blog and leave a link in the comments. It’s 100.00 for a photo! Easy peasy! You can win both cards too if you do both entries!

** One of the gift cards will only be awarded to someone that did this entry method *****

Extra Entries available after you do at least one of the above.

Tweet your favorite cleaning tip, and #LysolCleaningTips

ex: My favorite Cleaning tip is get the kids to fold and put away the laundry #LysolCleaningTips http://bit.ly/ifIKnK

(but whatever you do is fine)

And Tweet: Share your Favorite Cleaning Tip to Win up to 200.00 #Giveaway #LysolCleaningTips http://bit.ly/ifIKnK

Enter The Commit A Minute Giveaway
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Leave a comment for every entry, This giveaway ends January 3rd. All rules can be found under giveaway rules.

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My New Time Saver: Mint Automatic Robotic Hard Surface Floor Cleaner

October 29, 2010 By 18 Comments

imageThe Mint Robot

The Mint Automatic Floor cleaner is guided by NorthStar Navigation. Mint comes with an indoor GPS unit that you place on a counter in the center of your cleaning area. The Cube projects a signal that Mint uses to find itself and it starts cleaning. It builds a map of the room and obstacles that it needs to go around. Mint can clean up to 1000 square feet in a large open space and weaves in and out of doorways cleaning other rooms. I’ve watched it clean our large open area and then into the bathroom and avoid the carpet. When it is in mop mode it will only clean 250 square feet so that you can change the mop pad or rinse if off and add it again. When Mint is finished cleaning the room it returns to the point it starts at so it is easy for you to find.

The sweeping mode uses dry cleaning cloths and it comes with three reusable ones. Mint is compatible with Swiffer pads (not the Swiffer wet jet, those pads are too small). In sweep mode it moves in an S pattern along your floor. In mop mode it moves in a Y direction to help dissolve the dirt. Mint works with reusable microfiber or disposable cloths cleaning cloths in both modes.

imageThe Cloths come in two varieties. You will receive two that are white and work best for sweeping. Then you will also receive one gray one that works best for mopping. It is more textured than the white ones; both types are microfiber and work very well at picking up dust, dirt, hair and other things in the floor. image

 

About the Video Review/Vlog:

imageI realize that I still need a bit more practice in making video logs. I stumble over words and my vocabulary abilities diminish to almost none existent. Basically, I took the video to illustrate how the Mint Automatic Floor Cleaner operates. There are buttons on the top, one of the button is an on/off switch. When you push the on button the Mint machine makes a happy little sound and comes to life. Then you choose between a sweeping button or a mopping button and they are easy to tell apart. The sweeping motion makes long strides and then turns a 90 degree turn if the furniture allows for it. Then it goes forward just enough to make sure it is covering all of the floor. Then it turns back the direction it came from and continues doing across the floor. I didn’t think that it would recognize carpet and stay off of it, but it actually has only gotten trapped on the carpet once. It also got trapped under our couch once. The line imagebetween our carpet and hardwood floor is just a switch in surfaces. We have no divider of any sorts. So the Mint robot seems to be fairly intelligent. The weight of the robot is enough to pick up more dirt than I usually pick up with my stick sweeper. I was saddened about how dirty my floor actually was. First time I used Mint to sweep it picked up so much dirt and debris that I had to change the cloth half way through so that it could clean up more.

The mopping is the actual type of cleaning that I captured on video. The button for mopping looks like a tear drop. I pushed it and watched it mop up my floor. One thing I was not able to articulate properly in the video is how the Mint moves while mopping. Instead of long strides, it take short strides in a Y shape, going left and right in that Y shape making sure that is cleaning. Then it goes forward a bit and continues doing the Y shape.

 

imageI was concerned that certain areas in the area would not become clean. I figured it wouldn’t be smart enough to feel it’s way along all of the nooks and crannies that we have. I was wrong. Mint Cleaner finds it’s way around the objects and in and out of different rooms with ease. I would have to say it only misses places that it can not fit in. Certain corners in under the kitchen cabinets and around the toilet in the bathroom. It doesn’t scrub stock on spots but I’m really happy with it. It saves me time during the day and my floor is cleaner now. I charge it overnight.

The only negative would be that the charge isn’t strong enough to sweep and mop the entire downstairs. So I sweep one day and mop the next unless I remember to mop in the afternoon after sweeping that morning.

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The Grease is gone, Cleaning with Pledge Furniture Cleaner

October 7, 2010 By 8 Comments

IMG_5445Pledge is quite easy to recognize, it’s almost iconic coming in a yellow can, smelling like a lemon. Pledge®.com sent us a can of Pledge® to use in our house and test out on a number of surfaces. The can actually says that it is safe to use on marble, leather, wood furniture, wood cabinets and stainless steal removing 90 percent of allergens in the air.

The Pledge® aerosol (Natural Beauty, Clean & Shine, Dust & Allergen, Protection Plus and Extra Moisturizing) family of formulas can be used to dust, clean, shine and give limited protection to the following surfaces: sealed wood and wood laminates, synthetic wood surfaces (IKEA), stainless steel, leather, sealed marble, sealed granite, vinyl and chrome.  This would include car dashboards (vinyl) and car seats (leather or vinyl).

Pledge is a furniture cleaner and I pushed it to it’s limits trying it on surfaces it wasn’t exactly intended for.

IMG_5436The most exciting thing for me in this review was when I cleaned my counter tops and back splash. I have tile and granite countertops. The tile, is porous and has been absorbing grease from cooking dinner. I’ve been trying to get the grease off with soap and water and it has been failing. I even tried an actual kitchen/grease killer cleaner and to no avail my backsplash still showed grease spots. So, while I was testing Pledge on every surface like I was asked to do, the grease disappeared right before my eyes. Now, I wasn’t sure if it was really clean. I thought perhaps the grease will come back, so before I could wrote this post I had to make sure it was really gone. YEAH, Pledge did get rid of the grease! In the photo it looks a little streaky, but without the flash of light on it, it just looks clean. Even in the flash I think it looks pretty good, I like a nice shiny look.

IMG_5444I also tested it on the stainless steal appliances that we have. They  are now shiny, lemon scented and you can see my reflection in the photo. I have to honestly say that I love cleaning when the cleaner has a nice citrus scent to it; Pledge is lemon scented and to me that equals clean!

The one surface I do not recommend that you use it on is your wood floors. When the can first arrived I was so excited to use and Zoe found a really dirty sticky spot on the wood floor. We just had a painter come in the house and after he left there was a nasty spot on the floor. It looked like paint mixed with dirt and glue, so I sprayed it and it wiped right up. The only problem was that the floor was now quite slippery. We have extra soft hard wood floors that we’re only supposed to use soap and water on so I should not have used the Pledge® on it. You might check on what kind of hard wood you have and it is treated before you use anything other than soap and water on it. Just my FYI.

This is a sponsored review I was paid to use Pledge. I have shared the positives and the negatives of using it in my post as this is my honest opinion.

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I Love O-Cedar ProMist Wet or Dry Floor Cleaning System Giveaway

August 16, 2010 By 663 Comments

I’ve been struggling to clean my floors for a while. The Swiffer Wet Jet has not been my friend, and my neighbor told me that he’s been having trouble with his too. So much so that he pushed so hard on his that the snapped it in half. The problem is, it doesn’t scrub the floor it only wipes it off. I have the same problem and figured that I’ll be spending the rest of my life on my hands and knees getting those stickier messes off of the floor.

image Then, O-Cedar sent me the ProMist Wet or Dry Floor Cleaning System for free to review. I like it for quite a few reasons, the biggest being that it CLEANS my floor without me having to get on all fours.

The other reasons:

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It does not use a battery to spray.

I can use my own solution, and I like to use hot water and soap. We’re only supposed to be using soap and water on our hard wood floors so it’s nice to know that I’m taking care of our floor.

It does Dry mopping and wet mopping

There are different kinds of pads

The pads are re-usable

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My neighbor liked it too and wanted to know where you can buy it. So I wanted to make sure that I included that information in this review. It can be purchased at quite a few locations Costco, Kmart, ACE, Target, Walmart, Winn Dixie, and Wallgreens. Of course the location list goes on.

The only negative is that the spraying isn’t consistent. But I still love it!

Enter to win:

2 winners

Promist Wet Dry Mop

To Enter:

Give me a cleaning tip for cleaning the floors

Extra Entries:

Tweet or RT this post and include the link to the post

O-Cedar ProMist Wet Dry Floor Cleaning #Giveaway http://bit.ly/acjSFi

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This giveaway ends September 6th, I also received a Powermat to facilitate this review and giveaway, All rules can be found under giveaway rules.

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Quickie’s Ultimate Summer Cleaning Kit #Giveaway

June 8, 2010 By 301 Comments

Quickie has been around since the 1920’s being a company of innovation when it comes to cleaning and tools. One of the first tools they created was the compound-action hedge shear and it changed the way Americans gardened. They continued making advances in manufacturing and now make excellent cleaning tools.

They sent me some sponges, we’re a sponge of a family. We just like sponges. We go through them like crazy, and I think this is our first time to try out the Quickie brand. They are super soft and I never knew you could have so many versions of a sponge for cleaning. They sent a microfiber pot and pan sponge, a microfiber dish and glass sponge, and a microfiber non stick cooking pan sponge. I’m going to be cleaning counters and pots. You can have even more cleaning fun!

QuickieSummerKit

From cleaning your floors, to your patio, and even your grill, the Quickie’s Ultimate Summer Cleaning Kit is perfect for getting your home in shape for the season.

Enter To win:

The Ultimate Summer Cleaning Kit contains $86 of Quickie Cleaning products including:

QuickieSummer

 

 

To Enter:

Give me a cleaning tip, I need some help cleaning my house so give me some good tips! (required)

Extra Entries:

Tweet or hit the RT button up top:

Quickie Cleaning Supplies #Giveaway #contest http://bit.ly/aS25kh

Advertise this giveaway on any giveaway site, your blog, or your facebook page and tell me where you advertised it or Use any of the share options below, digg, stumble…1 entry each 

The contest will run until June 28th  11:59 pm Pacific. All rules can be found under giveaway rules.

 

This is a sponsored product post. Quickie is providing the prizing.

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Scotch-Brite Bathroom Solutions Challenge, Are you up to it?

April 11, 2010 By 508 Comments

My bathroom was in pretty bad shape when it came to needing a good Spring Cleaning, so when Scotch-Brite asked me if I was up to a Spring Cleaning Bathroom Challenge I said yes, please help me clean my bathroom. 3M and Scotch-Brite sent me full set of their bathroom cleaning products to put them to the test.

New Scotch-Brite Bathroom Solutions products will make it easy to do the deep-cleaning this spring as well as year-round; from a grout cleaner to tile scrubbers to a nook and cranny sponge, Scotch-Brite has customized designs so you don’t waste time on a one-shape-fits-all cleaning tool that won’t get the job done. These tools offer reusable solutions for every bathroom cleaning situation. 

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Scotch Brite Cleaning Tips:

Cleaning the Sink

Cleaning the Shower

Cleaning the Tub

 

For this cleaning challenge, my husband was up to the task. (I have a huge head cold and I feel like I’m stuck underwater in the deep end of the pool and sharks are swimming around me so I feel like I’m trapped in a vortex of terror)

He cleaned my new bathroom and this is what he had to say:

The Grout Scrubber:

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If you have a bathroom that has any tiles, the floor, your bath tub, or shower walls, then you’ll want to use the grout scrubber. The handle is made out of the same material that a pool needle is made from. You’ll find that it bends and molds easily and that the scrubber fits nicely into grooved, grouted areas.

Shower & Bath Scrubber:

549T-6_PKG_FRONT_CMYK2- hi res The Shower and Bath Scrubber is an item that we owned already but are quite happy to have another one. Then we can leave one in each bathroom. It’s nice because you can reach farther, like scrubbing the bathtub is a whole lot easier without having to get into the tub to make sure you can reach all the areas of it. This scrubber has an extendable handle making it even longer, perfect for the top hard-to-reach tiles in your shower. Plus, it’s great on other bathroom surfaces, like the countertops and around the toilet bowl.

Absorbent Counter Cloths:

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My husband wasn’t really impressed with the counter cloth, but I think he was using it to clean the glass. It doesn’t say to use it on the glass, it’s for the counters and I think it’s a lot better to use than a paper towel. Because you can use it over and over again and it is so absorbent. It picks up hair and little flecks of makeup.

Tub & Shower Scrubber:

 549H_PKG_FRONT_CMYK-hi res  

Seems like not all of the products are needed right? It’s true, but, this one is one of my favorites because of how moldable it is. I like the Shower and bath scrubber better, just because it has the extendable pole, but for those surfaces that are just right there and easy to get to, this one is great.

The Nook and Cranny Scrubbers:

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First, I have to mention how these little triangles look like a Klingon symbol. My husband just can’t get over how they remind him of Star Trek. He enjoyed using them and said the shape makes them great to use, but they will wear out easily and he’s glad they come two to a package.

Non-Scratch Angled Scrubbers:

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The angled scrubbers he said that he used on the countertops in the bathroom. He is very particular about cleaning around the faucet and what products are ok to use on certain surfaces. He reads all the directions carefully and the angled Scotch-Brite was easy to use because he didn’t have to worry about scratches. I never thought about all the different surfaces that need to be cleaned in the bathroom before. I mean, we just clean them right. This line of products makes cleaning the bathroom quick, easy, and squeaky clean.

Purchase them at any drug store, Target, Walmart, or on-line. Be sure and download your Scotch-Brite coupon on their new greener clean products.

Enter to win:

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Scotch-Brite sent me enough supplies to provide products to two of my readers. How cool is that?

To Enter:

Tell me what area of the bathroom needs the most help?

Extra Entries:

Follow me on twitter tell me your twitter ID

Tweet for (2 extra entries):

I want to take the Scotch-Brite Challenge http://bit.ly/9WgVOM #scotchbritechallenge #giveaway

Advertise this giveaway on any giveaway site, your blog, or your facebook page and tell me where you advertised it (include link to giveaway). 5 Extra Entries for each one you do
Subscribe to my blog
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Use any of the share options below, digg, stumble…2 entries each

The contest will run until May 6th 11:59 pm Pacific. All rules can be found under giveaway rules.

 

 

Scotch-Brite provided information, and products for this post and for the giveaway.

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