Make Your Couch Look Brand New Again in only 2 Steps!!

Since our first child was born close to a year ago, our couch has suffered the wrath of a snotty, reflux baby. Finally the other day I decided I really needed to clean it. Of course I turned to Pinterest for help and found a pin that had been liked and re-pinned multiple times so I decided to try it. And it turned out great and was so easy!! I just had to share it here:

Disclaimer:
This is in no way my original idea. I found the tips on Pinterest. If you would like to read the original post, please click here. Also, I tested this on an area of my couch and let it completely dry before I did my whole couch so make sure nothing stained and the color didn't fade. I suggest you do the same. 

Supplies you will need:

• Sponges: any sponge with a scrubby side will do. The original post suggested white, I didn't have any on hand so I used these blue ones and the color didn't transfer in any way.
• Rubbing Alcohol: Fill an empty spray bottle with some rubbing alcohol. Do not dilute it with water!! Very important. The pure alcohol will dry very fast before any stains on the padding is brought up.
• A scrub brush: this is for fluffing the couch after you have scrubbed it clean. You can see the one I used in the picture.

Step 1:

First spray the alcohol on the couch and scrub with the scrubby side of the brush. The alcohol evaporates very quickly so I suggest doing small sections at a time. You can spray and scrub your entire couch, or just stained sections if you want. I did my entire couch but on the sections that were really dirty I pulled the fabric tight with one hand and really scrubbed with the other. 

Step 2:

Scrub your couch with a clean and dry scrub brush. The purpose of this step is not to do any cleaning but it will fluff your couch back up to the way it used to feel. I was very surprised how much softer my couch felt after I did this step! Don't skip it! You won't be sorry. It will make your clean couch feel so soft.

And that's it! A 2 step process that will make your couch look brand new! It is a very fast process because the alcohol dries quickly. Here is some before and after pictures:

Have any more tricks to cleaning your couch? Please leave them in a comment below or let me know if you try this method!!!

Homemade Baby Food

Since the day my daughter started eating baby food, I have made it all myself. I have bought a few of the jar foods and I'm not interested. They're stinky, have weird ingredients, taste nothing like the actual food, have a very limited selection, and can get expensive. I have been surprised at how easy it is to make my own baby food! And how much money I'm sure I've saved.

I prepare most of her foods by steaming them. I cook frozen peas in the microwave. I simply mash avocados and bananas with a fork.

When she first started food I would puree everything in the blender with a little bit of the cooking water so it was super smooth. I cooked in large batches and froze it all in ice cube tray to make nice individual servings. Now that she's transitioning to chunkier food I use a food mill. It still breaks the food up into small pieces, but they aren't super smooth.

Before I tell you how I make my butternut squash let me show you a couple of my favorite gadgets for making baby food at home:

• Vegetable Steamer:

I absolutely love my vegetable steamer! I really like the free standing ones because you don't have to use your oven or stove and you can cook different items without dirtying up different dishes. I can load the thing with whatever I want, turn the 1 hour timer on, and leave it. It's great! 

I have this one from Rival

• A Blender

I used my Blender when we were in the super smooth phase of baby food. I don't see the need to buy one of those made for baby blenders. An ordinary blender works great plus it seems to hold a lot more if you cook in large batches like I did.

I have this one by Cuisinart. I was lucky to find a refurbished one for $29 from Big Lots on Black Friday!

• A Food Mill

I have been using my food mill a lot now that my baby is older and needing chunkier food. The only downside to a food mill is they seem to be made small so you can only mill one serving at a time. They still work great though and very easy to put together and mill up some food real quick. They are also really cheap and easy for travel because they're so small.

I use this one from Target. I have an older version of it.

Here is how I do butternut squash. They had the cutest baby butternut squashes at my local supermarket on sale this week so I grabbed a couple to cook up for Jada. She loves her squash.

First peel the squash with a vegetable peeler. Don't worry about the very top or bottom.

Next slice the top and bottom off of the squash and slice it in half.

You will see the inside has seeds and strings. Use a spoon to scoop it clean.

Cut the squash in equal size chunks and add it to your steamer. I add the squash on the bottom and put other vegetables in the top basket since the squash takes the longest to cook.

Into the top basket I added frozen green beans, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and carrots.

Secure with the lid and turn the timer on for 1 hour.

Once the vegetables have steamed for an hour, you will find they are very soft. I add them into the food mill and mash rinsing in between the different vegetables.

I store the vegetables in containers in the fridge. They will last about 3 days and I will go through them all in that time no problem. I also filled up her Zoli with lunch and dinner for the next day.

Hope you enjoyed! Please comment below if you have any tips or tricks on making homemade baby food! I would love to hear from you.

Menu Plan Monday!

• Monday - Pigs in a Blanket
• Tuesday - Crockpot Roast & Veggies
• Wednesday - Steak & Shrimp on the grill
• Thursday - Italian Crockpot Chicken (Chicken breasts & bottle Italian dressing)
• Friday - Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Making a Tulle Wreath

I was inspired to make a fall tulle wreath for my front door from this picture on Pinterest!

You will need:

• A Wreath. You can use a plain store bought wreath, a coat hanger shaped into a wreath, or whatever you have on hand. I had a pool noodle wreath I had used for the 4th of July. You simply buy a pool noddle ($1 from the Dollar store) and duct tape the ends together! So easy and cheap
• Various colors of tulle. I purchased rolls of tulle at Hobby Lobby this week. 50% off! $2 a roll. For this size wreath, I used 1/2 of a 12 yd roll and about 1/3 of the 25 yd rolls. I used black, brown, orange, cranberry, green, and gold / yellow.
• Flowers / other accesories to decorate the corner of your wreath.

To get started cut your tulle into equal size strips. Use whatever size you want depending on the width of your wreath and how far you want the tulle to flair out. I cut mine into about 20" strips. 

Start with the dark colors first because you will end up overlapping colors and you don't want to cover up the light colors with the dark. So I started with black. Simply tie the strip of tulle around the wreath and make a knot. Be sure to make your not on the outside of the wreath so the tulle will flair to the side. Start with the darkest color and tie a few at various places around the wreath.

Here's what it looked like after I did the black:

Added brown and orange:

 Added red, green, and gold:

Once you have your wreath covered and are you're satisfied with your tulle you can add an accesory to the corner or anywhere on your wreath. You can add flowers, acorns, really anything. I chose this little guy from Hobby Lobby. I found it in the fall section and it had a nice long stem I could just tuck it in the tulle to attach it. No hot glue needed.

And here's my finished wreath hanging on my front door!!

Final thoughts:

Looking back I think the only thing I would have done differently would be to cover the wreath in ribbon or something first. I had to work very hard at making sure the summer blue pool noodle couldn't be seen anywhere! 

Also if you are using glitter tulle, some of my colors are glittery, you might want to put some newspaper down or do it outside because the glitter gets everywhere!! Especially when your 1 year old daughter starts crawling through it :)

Final Cost:

Pool noodle: $1 at Dollar Tree

6 rolls of tulle: $6 ($2 each at Hobby Lobby and I used half of each roll)

Flower accesory: $4.50 at Hobby Lobby

TOTAL COST: $11

Pinterest Friday

Here's my favorite pins of the week:

Mickey Mouse Pizza!


I'm so ready for some Fall decorating!!

Blueberry Oatmeal Dinner

Tonight I decided to let Jada play a little bit in her food. I'm trying to get her interested in putting food in her mouth herself but she does not want to do it. She wants to be spoon fed. But we are working on it. This was also her first time eating blueberries. It was just fresh blueberry juice I added to her oatmeal.

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