How to Wash Soft Toys

If you're anything like us, your little Sprout(s) have a small mountain of soft toys with one or two firm favourites that have probably seen better days! But can you remember the last time you washed them? I have to confess I can't..... not even the the most loved of the bunch. If I really dig deep, I may have a distant memory of them enjoying a snorkel in the washing machine around about the time Sprout had chicken pox and a chest infection, but even then I couldn't be totally certain. 

So earlier this week Sprout's soft toys enjoyed a 'spa' date with the washing machine. 

Here's my guide to washing your child's cuddly toys as quickly and painlessly as possible -

1.Wash all the toys as soon as you get up in the morning. This will give you a pretty good chance of getting the favourite ones dry by bedtime.

2.Check whether the toys are suitable for the washing machine. It's very easy to shove the whole lot in and start the wash before remembering that one in particular is battery powered or has delicate decoration - a couple of our Hello Kittys are minus a few bows because of my overenthusiastic washing!! Ooops!!

3.Choose a washing powder that is gentle enough for your child yet powerful enough to get those toys really clean. We use Simply Sensitive which is dermatalogically tested, phosphate free and carries the Vegan Trademark. It has great cleaning power, however what we like the most is that once washed the toys smell clean, but not with the over powering scent you get from other washing products!

4.Choose a suitable cycle. Depending on your machine you'll probably be able to control all the elements of the cycle. I chose a delicate cycle that washes at 40 degrees, rinses 4 times to ensure all suds have been washed out and spins at 1200rpm. You could probably lower it to 800rpm if your toys are really delicate, but it might prolong the drying time because less water is removed.

5.Identify how you are going to dry all the toys - outside on the line, in the tumble drier or on a radiator. Again make sure the favs enjoy the quickest method to avoid those pre-bedtime meltdowns!!

Why bother washing? Washing helps to keep germs at bay, minimise dust mites and prevent allergies and asthma. Think about it like this - you probably change your sheets every 1-2 weeks and yet your child doesn't drag their sheets down the stairs on a daily basis, take their sheets to the park, throw their sheets into the footwell of the car or take their sheets to pre-school..... 

How do you keep your child's soft toys clean?

Leave me a comment below.

Sprout’s House

 xox

Washi Tape Wires

We have just finished a week of cleaning and purging here at Sprout's House, and already the house feels lighter and brighter. The sitting room was one of the last rooms I tackled and I nearly lost the will when I noticed this...

Eek....double eek in fact! It was a tangle of wires along with layer upon layer of dust! 

So here's how to tame those unruly wires with some washi tape!

Remove equipment that you no longer use - out went the Freesat box. (No reason to keep dusting something you don't use!)

Switch off and unplug all the equipment, dust the flexes and then wrap a piece of washi tape around each cable at the plug end. Label the washi tape so that you know which plug belongs to which piece of equipment.

For the sake of simplicity, you can also wrap a small piece of washi tape around the cables that connect the boxes to the TV and each other so it is easy to identify which wire belongs to which box!

And ta-dah you're done. 

Here's to quick tasks that help tidy things up!

What 5 minute tricks do you have up your sleeve to help you tidy?

Sprout’s House

 xox

Linking up at ~
Lamberts Lately, Creative Princess, A Delightsome Life, A Handful of Everything, Live Laugh Rowe, Katherine's Corner, Bloom Designs, Five Little Chefs, All Things with Purpose, Artsy Fartsy Mama, Sweet Bella Roos, The Pin Junkie, Craft Dictator, Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons, Sincerely Paula, My Turn For Us, Redoux Interiors, Prototype Mama, Create Bake Make, Practically Functional, My Crafty Spot, Denise Designed, Flamingo Toes, Nifty Thrifty Things, The Foley Fam, 

Spring Cleaning ~ Part 2

Phew! It has been a two day cleaning extravaganza!  To say that I’ve enjoyed it would be a massive over statement, but it has been immensely satisfying to suck up all that dust (the perils of having very old carpets!) and get everything organised!

I’ve managed to cross lots off my list - so far our bedroom, Sprout’s room, the bathroom, the spare room, the sitting room and the coat room have been cleaned and re-organised.

Before - yup this is real life folks!!

After

There are also two big achievements I'm really pleased with -

• I’ve managed to whittle our three rather fancy wardrobes down to 2! Yee Haa!!

• I’ve rearranged a corner of our bedroom, and used some of our wedding presents to create one of the nicest little spaces our house has at the moment.  Adding some lovely lamps and a gorgeous mirror to our chest of drawers has momentarily quelled my need to feel like we are making progress with our renovations.

Before

After

Today’s list includes the hallway, the dining room, the downstairs bathroom and loo plus Sprout’s playroom – Time to power through people!!

How’s your spring cleaning going? Hope you’ve managed to do a little bit!

Sprout’s House

           xox

Spring Cleaning

Ok peeps….I’m back in the house!

Good point number one - after 4 weeks of exam marking and report writing I have finally finished!! 

Good point number 2 - it’s HALF TERM.

Thank goodness normal service can resume not only in the www, but also in the real world. At this time of year, everything grinds to a halt whilst I chain myself to my laptop to write 100+ reports. I can’t remember the last time I cleaned the bathroom, the spare room is a no go zone due to the mountains of laundry……… AND those piles of paperwork are still haunting my dreams!! Not to mention the saga of Sprout’s missing passport – not much to tell other than it’s missing obviously!!  All this has spurred me on to have a really good Spring Clean!

Knowing how easily I can be distracted from these less than thrilling tasks I have come up with a game plan –

I am planning to sweep through the house starting with all the rooms upstairs on Tuesday and then all of downstairs on Wednesday followed by Mission Paperwork on Thursday! 

Wish me luck!! 

If you have any Spring Cleaning tips please feel free to send them my way - I think I'm going to need all the help I can get!!

                     You can catch me here

 here

here!

Sprout’s House

           xox

Steamy Windows.....

Or should that be steamy bathroom! You’ve had a little peek at our very modern and luxurious(!) shower room, and you all know how much I love it – so much so that I want to replace it as soon as possible. In the meantime, in an effort to make it a little more sumptuous (who am I kidding?!) I decided to tackle the very attractive mould that has made the ceiling its home.

One of the more well thought out features of our wonderful shower room is that the shower enclosure goes from floor to ceiling, however…..and it’s a big however, the extractor fan is located on the opposite wall and crucially outside the shower. 

So once you’ve enjoyed a lovely hot shower, jumped out and shut the door behind you all the steam gets trapped inside and before you know it those friendly, little mould spores are rubbing their hands with glee at the lovely moist environment you’ve created. It also means we spend a lot of time propping the shower door open in an attempt to air it and halt the mould growth – but that’s another story!!

So you can see the need for OPERATION MOULD ELIMINATION!!! This was also the chance I had been waiting for to use my new steam cleaner. Two birds, one stone - brilliant!!

It was as simple as filling the steamer with a litre of water and turning it on – just like boiling a kettle! Then I could steam away to my heart’s content.

The steam did a great job eradicating the mould from the corner of the bathroom, but the mould directly above the shower was little more ‘hard core’, and eventually I found I was taking the paint off the ceiling! Not sure I'm ready for that stage yet!!.....

This weekend I’m going to have to implement mould elimination PLAN B!!

Has anyone else got a steam cleaner? What do you use yours for?

Sprout’s House

           xox

Dining Room Reveal!!

You’ll remember from Sprout’s ‘New’ House Part 1 that our dining room started off looking like this.....

....before it swiftly became standing room only!! So my mission over half term was to get the dining room table up and running so we could stop picnicking in the sitting room!

It had to get so much worse..... 

........before it was got better, but I 

unpacked,

amalgamated,

recycled,

AND

ruthlessly chucked out

until our dining room looked like this!

The table is up, the chairs unstacked, my favourite mirror is hung…… and finally we can sit down and enjoy our meals!!

Sprout’s House

           xox

P.S It’s now packed to the rafters in the boiler room instead!!......

A New Toy!

A late Christmas present arrived last week in the shape of this little beauty…..

Since our move in October, a steam cleaner has been at the top of my ‘to buy’ list as there are several areas of Sprout’s House that need a good steam.  It comes with a couple of different attachments plus you can also buy some extra ones depending on the jobs you want to tackle.

The test run is going to take place at the weekend – I’ll let you know how I get on!  Has anyone got any tips?

Sprout’s House

           xox