My church family is the best. One thing they love to do is get together, and a baby shower is a wonderful reason for us to all hangout. I have been to more baby showers in the short time we have lived here than the rest of my life combined. The games are hilarious and there are a couple of us who are a bit competitive ~ always a good time.

This past week has been  crazy. Paul was out of town and I am just over 36 weeks. My body has not enjoyed this pregnancy and I have been sleeping in the recliner for the last 3-4 weeks. I have been falling asleep every time I sit down so I did not think I was going to get a card up this week.

Tonight {Saturday} we had a dinner before the Women's Conference {Lady A and I went for the dinner part but went home for the conference because it was too late to keep her up} with the ladies from church. I was handed an invitation to my own baby shower next weekend. YEA!!! There were four of us due within about six weeks of each other and I am the last one. We will also be moving shortly after and since I have tried to make it to every baby shower possible, I am super excited for one last get together with these ladies before we leave.

I have pinned a couple of items or shared some things on FB and these cards are perfect. For Lady A we did owls and for Lady #2 we want to do elephants and I will continue with the yellow and grey color scheme, I used them in the afghan I recently finished. Since this invitation was made on my behalf, and because I think it is so cute, I am counting it as my card for this week.

There is another baby shower this weekend, so guess what this card is for. A little girl baby shower!

I have loved the yellow and grey combination for years now. Both of my girls have afghans using those colors and if there is ever a baby number three, you can bet their afghan will have those colors in them too.

Starburst Afghan
Tulip Afghan

Have you noticed over the past few weeks/months that the shape of the moment is the honeycomb. {OK, even typing that has me thinking of Honeycomb cereal and now I am hungry.}  I love this shape and there seems to be an endless number of ways it can be used. Here is my simple card using the honeycomb as my inspiration.

I created the shapes in Adobe Illustrator and imported the file to my Silhouette Studio. BAM!! Shapes are cut just as fast as that and away we go creating the card.

I have gotten some e-mails and comments from others about suggestions on things they use for getting after some of those hard to clean items. One item was Bar Keepers Friend.

I have fiends who use this and swear by it too. While I was walking down the cleaning isle at the store the other day I spotted it and decided to pick some up to try. The last few main cooking/baking dishes that are left to clean right now are the cookie sheets. 

Um...gross! Does anyone else have cookie sheets that look like this or is it just me?

To help the process along I decided to soak the cookie sheet in hot soapy water like I had done with the glass baking dishes and pots. Using the same technique, I poured Bar Keepers Friend on the cookie sheet and went to town. The cookie sheet was getting really scuffed so I turned the sponge around used the soft side but that did no good. Can you see in the photo how the the sheet has gone dull and scuffed? Well, that is not what I wanted. When I run my fingers over this spot I can totally feel a difference in the finish of the sheet. I am now worried that I ruined it.

Back to the new 'go to'...baking soda and a sponge. This was working just as well at getting the gunk off the cookie sheet but was not leaving it all scuffed up.

To try and help this cleaning process go a bit faster I decided to soak the cookie sheet in hot, soapy water and poured some vinegar in the water as well. After soaking for about an hour I went back at it. So much better! Remember, it is better to use the baking soda as a paste. Ring out the sponge as much as possible, pour the baking soda on the sheet then go to town. The corners are still a bit tough so I did end up using the scrubbing side of the sponge to get the last bit of stubborn gunk off.

With all this cleaning going on in my kitchen I just might be more excited to cook. {After the baby is born}

In my quest to clean everything or toss it out before we move I caught myself contemplating Lady A's stuffed toys with electronics in them.There are three that she absolutely loves and it shows, they are looking terrible.

This cute little seahorse: the belly lights up and it plays lullaby music for about 10 minutes This is Lady A's first love, her grandmother got it for her and she still uses it at bedtimes and nap times.

Violet, the cute little purple 'dah-hee' {doggie}: all four paws and the belly have buttons to be pushed and then Violet will sing, talk, play bedtime music and interact in different ways. We love this one too because we can program it with Lady A's name and different music for different holidays and lullabies {there really is a ton to choose from so you do not go crazy with the same thing constantly playing and you can personalize it}.

Last is this yellow soccer ball that sings, counts and interacts as well. She loves to kick it around and sit on it to hear it go.

It is time to figure out how to get these babies clean.

What you will need:
Water
Cloth/clean rag
Bowl
Mild laundry detergent
Spot cleaner
Baking soda {optional}
Handheld or hose vacuum {optional}
Comb/brush {optional}

First thing is first: remove what electronics you can.
I was lucky that the whole system came out of the soccer ball and the seahorse. For other plush toys that do not allow for the electronics to be removed, take out the batteries.

If the plush toy is machine washable it will say right on the tag. Both the soccer ball and seahorse are but I washed them just a bit differently because of the type of material they are made of.

The soccer ball is made with polyester material and does not have any fuzz to it like other plush animal toys do. After using the spot cleaner on some more intense looking places I tossed it in the washer {cold, gentle cycle} and dried on low heat.

Tips: place washable plush toys in a pillow case or mesh washing sack to help keep the toy from snagging on other items in the laundry and to help keep the velcro from gather all the lint. When drying toss it in half way through the cycle. Let it air dry the rest of the way.

That leaves Violet. She needed a good cleaning all around and there were a couple of spots that were going to need even more love and care but because the electronics can not be removed, start by taking out the batteries.

In the bowl put warm water and a small amount of mild laundry detergent. Not too much! Remember if you put too much in there it will take more work to get all the soap off of the plush.

Dip the cloth in the water/soap mixture and ring out as much water as possible. For Violet I did an over all cleaning and then went back a second time and scrubbed on those problem areas.

Tip: if the plush has really long fur use the comb/brush to help loosen the gunk in the fur. If there is a lot, use the vacuum as you go to clean up so that the dust and debris does not sink back into the fur. When washing go with the direction of the fur to keep it from matting.

After the plush is clean dump the bowl out and replace with clean water. Now use this to rinse the plush and get all the soap off. Repeat as necessary!

Tip: if soap is left on the plush it will become a magnet for dirt and grim and the plush will become dirty faster. Be sure to rinse as completely as you can.

Now air dry. Violet had a very low pelt {fur} so I took the comb and brushed her against the direction of the fur to help her dry faster and to make the fur look more full and soft.

Tip: to help remove odors, use a freshener spray or baking soda. If you use baking soda let it sit for a few hours or a day and then vacuum the plush to get the baking soda off.

The seahorse is made with a couple different fabrics and the plastic belly. This one required a little bit of spot cleaning as well as an overall cleaning like Violet. I could not get a photo once I was done with it because Lady A kept taking it. If I happen to sneak it away in the next couple of days, I will be sure to snap a photo to show to results.

Just like my post on cleaning bath toys, this is one that I would put into a regular cleaning schedule. If it is not done often enough the toys will wear out a lot faster.

Over on my main blog there is a giveaway going on for a Target gift card and home decor. Be sure to stop by and enter.

'Tis the season for baby showers. These next few months the weekends will be full for me and it seems like half of them will be baby showers. Not that I mind, it is a great reason to get together with friends, play some games, eat yummy treats and let the dads take the kiddos for a bit.

This week I got out my trusty card kit and a few extra embellishments to sit down and put some cards together.

The card kit had a baby card packet but I have no idea where the instructions are so I put them together however I wanted. At first I was just going with the idea to get them done and move on. But after placing the simple pieces down that came in the kit I decided that I needed to add just a little something extra to help give them a personal touch.

With just a couple of simple extra touches I love how the cards turned out and am excited to give them out. Now to just find the perfect gifts to go with them.

Last week after cleaning the glass baking dishes my husband asked me to try cleaning his stainless steel pans. He does most of the cooking in our home. He loves it and finds it relaxing after long days at work and school.

The other day he tried a frozen Chinese dinner and cooked it according to the instructions. Paul said while he was cooking it, he was not sure the instructions were going to work out and he was right. The bottom of the pan is covered in black burned on gunk. Just terrible! This was about two weeks ago and Paul has been soaking the pan and washing it every time he has done the dishes {that is right ladies...he cooks and does the dishes!!!}.

We have two pans, the first is a cheap one we got when we were first married, the other is part of a better set  of pots and pans my parents got us.

Here is the first one. See....the pan is in bad shape. I was not kidding you.

First thing I went ahead and tried the same technique I used on the glass baking dishes. It worked ok on the underneath part of the pan but it had hardly touched the stuff on the inside. When Paul came in the kitchen and saw me going at this pan he told me that the only thing he found that was working was to take a butter knife and scrape it. That would take forever and make my skin crawl every time it scraped on the pan.

Then I remembered we had a Lysol Scrubber Sponge, this has a really tough scrubber on one side. A simple switch of the sponges and we were in business. My back was not going to let me stand much longer so Paul went to town with the sponge and baking soda.

Pan number two: As a side note my parents are so funny. They were on this kick of watching Americas Test Kitchen and they recommended a brand of pans. I can not remember all the reasons my parents said these were on the top of the list but they were and so my parents wanted to get all of their married kids a set. This particular set was on sale and going to be discontinued because a new style was coming out so my parents were on the hunt. They went to 5 different stores to get four sets. Once the first gift was opened on Christmas morning, the rest of us knew what we were getting!!

The dishes clean up really nice but this one {the one Paul uses the most} is starting to get some build up on the outside where grease has spilled over then been cooked on the outside. Once we pulled out the scrubber sponge this one started to clean up really well which Paul was happy to see, after all, it is his favorite pan.

I am not going to write out all the steps, just hope over to the instructions for cleaning a glass baking dish and follow that. Here are a couple of tips for cleaning the stainless steel pans.

• Use a scrubber sponge along with the baking soda
• Scrub in a circular motion, it makes a huge difference instead of just going back and forth

We were working against nap time and loosing the sun to take some photos, so the pans are not done yet but one more soak and scrub during nap time and they will look like new!

Linked up here:
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Link Party Palooza @  I Heart Nap Time
Tip Me Tuesday @ TipJunkie.com
Made by You Mondays @ SkipToMyLou.org
Inspire Me Wednesday @ 733blog.com
The Party Bunch @ ThirtyHandMadeDays.com

This week I did an invitation for our New Beginnings program that will be this Sunday. It is a little later than normal for the program but the Young Womens Presidency was changed up unexpectedly so that had to be done first.

The colors I was given were pink and yellow {yea...a little bit of spring colors, I would love to see the sun} and I was on a time crunch so I went with simple and uniform. This was also the first time I used washi tape. It is a super fun and easy accent to add, I have a feeling I will be using it more often from now on.

If you would like a digital copy of the Theme for the Youth this year we found it here.

Don't mind the bad photos. I have to try and time it all so that I can take photos during the 10 minutes during the week that the sun is out. This week I have not been so lucky so the photos are taken with my wonderful apartment lighting.