Easy Natural Towel Refresher

This summer I've noticed that our towels have been getting a musty smell.  They seem fine right out of the wash, but as soon as they get wet again -- yuck!  I've especially noticed it on our kitchen towels, I think because they are used more often??  Since I have colored towels I can't run them through the wash with bleach, so I was really excited when I ran across this idea on Pinterest!  I am a big fan of using natural cleaners, I hate using harsh chemicals (as you can also see in this post about how I clean my coffee pot).  So I had to give this a try!

Gather up your towels.

Put them in the washer on the setting with HOT water with 1 cup of white vinegar only (no detergent in this step).  I used the Quick Wash setting because I was a little worried about having my towels be in the wash for 54 minutes with vinegar on them!

When  that cycle is finished, sprinkle the towels with baking soda.  Then run them through another cycle.  Again with HOT water, but this time also use your detergent.

Promptly remove the towels from the washer and transfer to the dryer and dry on the highest setting.  Fresh out of the dryer they smelled great (and no hint of vinegar either).  The true test has been once they got wet, and I have to say I am very impressed.  We have been using our towels all week, and that smell has not come back!  Plus I think the cycle of vinegar and baking soda also helped my washing machine not get that funk smell that so many front-loaders tend to get.

Happy Monday .. a Day Late

Since I'm late this week, I figured a video was in order.
And it doesn't get much better than a baby elephant playing in a swimming pool!  Isn't this the cutest thing ever?  Sure did make me smile :)

http://screen.yahoo.com/cute-baby-elephant-plays-kids-094645718.html

Happy Monday #17

Have a Happy Monday!
~Melissa

Happy Monday #16

Hope you had a Happy Monday!
~Melissa

Baby Brittanys!!

I can't believe its been so long since I've written anything.  I have been super busy all summer, but have still been checking in with the blogs I follow once in a while.  I just had to share these two little sweeties that my parents got!!  They are Brittany pups!

Baby Billy

Miss Betsy

Happy Monday #15

Have a Happy Monday!
~Melissa

My First "Real" Quilt

Wow it has been quite a while since I've been on my blog.  I have had a lot of things going on in my personal life, but today for the first time in a long time I felt like myself!  And since I was feeling good, I thought I'd show off this awesome little quilt that I made. (I know not very humble, but I'm really excited about it!)

One of my good friends at work & his wife recently had a sweet little baby girl to add to their family of boys.  I decided to use the tutorial over at Diary of a Quilter to make her a quilt.  This was my first "real" quilt, I've only made rag quilts before.  I wanted it to be girly (but not too much so, as she will be in a home of brothers).  But I wanted to make something with pinks and reds and blues, because I've been seeing that color scheme lately & wanted to get in on that.

When I found A Walk in the Woods from Moda, I knew that was perfect!

The tutorial was really easy to follow.  Here are some pics of my progress along the way.

Piecing together the squares

Adding the borders

Ready to be Quilted

I apologize for the blurry picture of the end quilt, but I was a little late (baby was week overdue) and I wanted to get it quilted before she arrived.  I searched online for long-arm quilters in my town & emailed two of them to see if they could sneak me in.  And luckily for me, one of the ladies actually lives right in my neighborhood!  She is two streets over & you can actually see her house from our back yard!  Plus she is super nice and was able to help me out & quilted it with little swirls and hearts.  It turned out more beautiful than I could have ever expected.  And my friend and his wife LOVED it.  And baby does too.  They even took it with them to have her newborn pictures taken.