August 11, 2011

Helpful Hint Day

I'm always looking for a good excuse to make one more trip down the school supply aisle.  Here's a worthy reason:  

Now is the time to collect this kind of stuff for the Shoeboxes that will be due in November.  If you haven't had the privilege of filling a Shoebox for a needy kid, I highly recommend it.  Check out the ins-and-outs here.  
It's a great lesson in perspective right before the gift wanting giving season.

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Do you have a gas stove?  If so, this might make life a little easier.
My grates were looking disgusting and no matter how hard I scrubbed, soaked or washed I couldn't get the tough stuff off.  Then I read a couple of remedies that were worth a shot.


1. Place the grates outside (out of the sun) on a heavy duty trash bag.  Spray with oven cleaner and walk away.  In about 30 minutes, uses a dry soft cloth and wipe clean.  
A-mazing! Super easy!

Before you wipe the oven cleaner off you might get a little nervous because your grate will look worse than when you started:
 Have no fear, soon your cooktop will be looking like new:

2. Place your grate in a giant ziplock back with a paper towel soaked in ammonia.  Leave overnight and your grate will be sparkling by morning.

**I've tried the first one, but let me know if you've had success with the second one.

What do you like to put into the Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes?

6 comments:

Rebecca said...

Those shoe boxes are too much FUN! In years past our church was a drop off site for the boxes from our area. I even got to go to one of the Big distribution centers & help with the final sort before everything was shipped out/overseas!
That was AMAZING! Did you know they add stuff to the emptier boxes?
Perhaps you've taken part in that also?!

blessings~
Rebecca

tarajj said...

Shopping for shoe box items now or in a few days when it is all marked down is a great idea! Have you used dry erase crayons at your house? I wonder how they would fair in a box with a small board.

Anonymous said...

Such a great idea to get some things now for the shoeboxes! I shall go shopping this week. Thank you for the suggestion!

Kellie said...

OK... so I wonder if the oven cleaner would also work on the "old fashioned" plates that are under burners on a coiled cooktop? Any thoughts on that? Email me your thoughts, my dear. :)

Mom said...

What a great idea! I"m stopping tomorrow to look for fillers for my shoebox!
I bought some oven cleaner not long ago, thinking that someone posted about it cleaning grout on tile floors. That didn't work, but I'll try it on the stove burners since I already have it!

Anonymous said...

Great idea for the shoeboxes! I'm going to pick up a few more things to tuck away just for that purpose!