How To Iron a Dress Shirt

When I was in college, I had several friends ask me to iron one article of clothing or another. Whether it was her pants or her shirt (or a last minute formal date's dress shirt!) I was there for the rescue.

My husband is going out of town on business tomorrow, and we realized he didn't have any dry-cleaned shirts. We didn't have time to run to the dry cleaners, so I washed and ironed several shirts for him.

I think I iron shirts better than the dry cleaners. I put my love into them. And I kinda have to, haha. My work is scrutinized by the highest standards...my husband!

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I'd post a tutorial on here. I hope you find this helpful!

You'll need:
a sturdy ironing board with sufficient padding
iron with steam capability
heavy spray starch

I used: 

Step 1:

Spray the inside of the collar.  Iron BOTH sides (don't cheat!).

Step 2:

Grab one of the sleeves and lay flat on the ironing board.  Decide whether you want the seam to be on top (facing the front of the shirt) or below (facing the back of the shirt).  Fix accordingly.  Starch and iron.  Carefully flip over; starch and iron.  Repeat on other sleeve.

Step 3:

Starch and iron the shoulders of the shirt.  Any minimal wrinkling that arises can be easily fixed at the end.

Step 4:

Starting with the breast pocket area, carefully starch and iron the rest of the shirt.  Make sure shirt is taut so as to not create unwanted creases.  Fix any minor wrinkles that may have formed in the process (see Step 3, above).

Step 5:

Carefully hang the shirt.  You're done!

Dryer Efficiency

I do a lot of laundry at my house.  LOTS.  Enough for me to say to my husband, "I'm glad we're alive during this age when technology is so abundant.  I can't imagine doing laundry for you without electricity."  I know.  I'm a hoot.

So when our "new to us" dryer started skimping out on me I started to panic.  Back in Maryland we had a dryer that worked (by work I mean hummed and rotated its basket) but didn't heat up the air.  $100 later the electrician replaced a TINY little fuse that burned out.  Yes.  $100.  I was peeved.  Well I've been experiencing this lately with this "new to me" dryer and I don't want to fork over $100 to fix it when I could use it toward a multitude of other projects.  Like this one.

Somehow I stumbled upon this link online.  It contains 17 Tips to Make Your Life Easier.  #17 in particular caught my attention.  It involved cleaning the lint filter.  (By the way, I have done #16 and it DOES work!)

What I learned from that blog post:

"Dryer sheets create a film over lint filter's mesh over time.  That’s what burns out the heating unit. You can’t SEE the film , but it’s there.  This phenomenon also causes dryer units to catch fire & potentially burn your house down with it! The electrician said the best way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (& to cut energy bills) is to take that filter out, wash it with hot soapy water & an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least EVERY six months. This extends the life of the dryer at least twice!"

Good advice, huh?

So I did it.  I took out the lint filter and brought it with me to the bathtub:

I can't see a film, but why is that water just sitting there?  Isn't that what the mesh is for?

I took some Dawn liquid detergent and my toothbrush from my oil stain removal experiment, and as that experiment went through the rinse cycle, I washed this.

A quick (30 second) brush through...and look at the water run now:

Wow.

I replaced the lint filter into the dryer and put in the next load into the dryer.  What normally wasn't dry until a second run-through (towels) in the dryer was piping HOT even before the cycle finished:

Yes...there were still a good 20 minutes left before it finished its cycle and the clothes were dry.

TRY THIS and see for yourself!  You could be saving tons on your energy bill!

Removing Set-In Oil Stains

Have you ever sat down to fold laundry fresh out of the dryer only to find this?

Oils stains: the bane of my existence.

Aggravating, isn't it?

I've been looking for natural ways to clean around the house (and save money at the same time).  While I don't think I'm brave enough yet to use homemade laundry detergent, I found myself without a stain pre-treater or spot remover today after doing some laundry.  I've read that baking soda is great at just about 1,000,000 different things.

I love my husband.  I do, really.  Don't get me wrong.  But the man has this uncanny ability of defying the laws of physics when it comes to spills and making messes.  Yesterday he managed to spill the entire contents of his coffee mug onto the floor, but didn't drop either his cell phones (yes, two) or his coffee mug.  Please explain that one to me.  Also, I have watched him be motionless with a drink in his hand and in a split second the drink is spilled everywhere.  He defies the law of physics.  Please don't try to convince me otherwise.

So as you can imagine, I was upset at the sight of those oil stains.  More so because he gets upset with ME when there are oil stains on his clean clothes.  Please don't bother to understand that one.  Seriously...don't.

So in searching ways to remove oil stains, I remember I read somewhere that you can "revive" old oil by adding a little more oil.  Makes sense when I think of my cast iron skillets looking a tad dull before I add oil or butter on them.  There's still a slight sheen of oil there even when bone dry after cleaning with soap (which you're not supposed to do, I know).

Here's what I did today that will remove even the oldest, most stubborn oil stains from clothes.  I've only tried this on cotton so far, but I'll let you know what other fabrics it will work on (because I can always trust on my husband to give me fresh material).

Here's what you'll need:

oil (I found some generic WD-40 under the kitchen sink)

baking soda

scrap of cardboard (optional)

Dawn liquid dish detergent

an old toothbrush

your regular laundry routine after stain removal

** UPDATE: I tried this with extra virgin olive oil and forgot to use Dawn. Oil stains were STILL THERE!***

I started off with my generic WD-40. I always buy generic when I can on everyday things. I have come back to Tide and Downy after straying, though. WD-40 might be a tad extreme, but since I had already WASHED and DRIED these oil stains on high heat, I didn't want to take any chances. (You could always use corn or vegetable oil of some sort.) I placed my scrap of cardboard underneath the stains (between the front and back of the t-shirt) and sprayed each oil stain...

...only to see that the oil spread while I gathered my other materials:

At this point I hoped my little project would work. Otherwise I'd be in bigger trouble than I started. Bring in the baking soda (see?...generic sodium bicarbonate...same chemical as the big brands). I poured a pile of baking soda on the oil stain.

I brought out the toothbrush (I didn't have an old one so I used a new one) and spread the baking soda around and brushed it INTO the oil-stained area. I didn't really let it sit there. I continued brushing and brushing and brushing...until I ended up with chunks of soda all over. The baking soda absorbed all of the oil in the fabric.

I dusted off the baking soda into the sink. Look at the oil stain and the cardboard scrap. Boy was I glad I didn't have to do this on the back of the t-shirt as well!

I wasn't done. I poured more baking soda on the oil stains and, again, brushed the soda into the fabric. Look at those little lumps. I repeated this process once more until I had next to no lumps of baking soda.



I thought to myself, at this point, Dawn wouldn't hurt this, right? I poured the detergent on there (as a pre-wash treatment) and used the toothbrush again.



I then had something that looked like this. Notice the fine powdery soda every where. This is what your soda should look like when you've taken out most of the oils.


This sat on my kitchen counter while I waited for the existing load to finish. I threw this in with other darks with my usual Tide and Downy. NO extra wash time. NO heavy wash cycle. NO extra rinse cycle.

Voila!

YAY! Go ahead. Find the stains. I dare ya! Cost? $0 as I already had all these items around the house. Try it! Also, look at my Dryer Efficiency post for a tutorial on how to remove a film from the lint catcher that can be making you spend a longer time (and more money) drying your clothes!

Home Sweet Home

Those of you who know me, know I'm obsessed with Pinterest.  From DIY crafts to decorating ideas, to humorous quotes, you can usually count on finding me perusing the numerous links on Pinterest on my iPhone.  (Don't you just love technology nowadays?)

Anyway, one of the "pins" that struck me the most was a link from Morgan's blog.  In my old home, I had tons of those plug-in air fresheners with the oil attachments to make my house smell good.  In the back of my mind, I always wondered what exactly I was inhaling (and suffering my dear husband and poor puppy to inhale as well).  Imagine my delight when I came across Morgan's blog! Morgan once worked at William Sonoma and took this AMAZING recipe with her.  I (mostly) followed her recipe.

It made my house smell D-I-V-I-N-E!  I thought I'd pass along my findings onto you as well.  Here goes:

First you'll need one lemon and a few sprigs of rosemary.  Slice the lemon as shown.  I actually used one and a half sprigs of rosemary.  I love the smell of rosemary, but too much can be a little too much.  I'm more of a citrus person :)

Now this is the part that was tricky to photograph.  I placed the lemon slices (rind included!) and the rosemary sprigs into boiling water.  Morgan instructed to put the ingredients into the water before it boiled.  I chose to apply heat (and bring the water to a boiling point) so that the yumminess would start sooner! The steam kept fogging up my camera :(  Although the lemon slices look blanched, trust me they were still bright yellow.)

At this point I had to turn off the burner (for the sake of an unfogged photo).  I actually went ahead and added 2 1/2 tsp of pure vanilla extract (we weren't drinking it, so why the heck not?).  This really pulled together the delightful aroma of the concoction.  Even my husband commented on how good it smelled!

This definitely turned out to smell very sophisticated and not at all overwhelming.  Next time I do this I am going to use oranges, as I LOVE orange scents in the cleaning products I use!  I once was stopped dead in my tracks walking through the mall by the mesmerizing orange essence fragrance teasing through The Body Shop's door!

What are your thoughts?  Would you use lime?  How about mint instead of rosemary?  It won't be "William Sonoma," but that won't matter.  What will matter is that you'll have a natural, non-toxic home fragrance in your home instead of a chemical VOC-laden toxic that may aggravate allergies within your family.

Let me know how you adapt this to your senses!  I will probably create another  post once I swap out the lemon for an orange.

P.S.  On an unrelated note, I splurged ($3.84) on this all-natural handsoap by Mrs. Meyer's (Lemon Verbena scent) at Walmart.  I felt like a goddess indulging in this wonderful handsoap, while the "Williams Sonoma" brewed.  Double score?  I even got a coupon for the next time I "need" handsoap :)