Day 18: Cleaning with Lemons

What do you do when the world gives you a small bag of a few over-ripe lemons?  You clean with them, of course!

The pins I used for this post I pinned quite some time ago.  I guess I needed a month of actually using the pins to put this to use!  Guess what?  Lemons are incredible for cleaning faucets, soap scum, water spots, tea stains, the air, and garbage disposals.  I know!  Who would have thought?  

The following group of pictures are the before/after photos of some of the faucets I cleaned today.  All I did to accomplish this task was simply cut a lemon in half and "scrub" the faucets with the lemon.  I then just rinse it off.  It was extremely easy.  I will be cleaning my faucets with lemons from now on. My faucets were REALLY dirty with water spots and soap scum.  It's very embarrassing.  But, I'm coming clean.  Pun intended.  

Before----------------------------After

Before

After  (amazing difference, right?)

The next thing I did with my trusty lemons was make a Crock Pot air freshener.  This is actually a pin I use all the time.  I switch up the ingredients, so to fit with today's theme of lemons, I chose lemon and rosemary.  I plucked a few rosemary sprigs from my garden.  To make this air freshener, you need a crock pot or you can use water in a sauce pan on the lowest heat. 

 Rosemary Lemon Air Freshener Ingredients:
2-3 Sprigs of fresh rosemary (dried may work, but because I have a monstrous rosemary plant, I've never tried it!)
1 Lemon, sliced
Baking Soda
Water to fill the pot

Instructions:  

1) Sprinkle bottom of pot with baking soda until covered

2)  Fill pot with water

3) Add sliced lemons and rosemary

4) Set heat on low (or plug in pot) and enjoy the aroma within ten minutes
5) You can enjoy this aroma for hours if you are using a Crock Pot.  If you are using a saucepan on the stove, you can turn it off when it starts to simmer and enjoy the aroma until it cools.

(Tea stains in mug)

The next cleaning venture I went on with lemons was to clean tea stains out of a mug.  To do this, I took the lemon half (which I had already used on the faucets) and sprinkled the peel with salt.  I then used the peel to scrub the tea. I rotated using the peel and what was left of the inside of the lemon.  Within 30 seconds, I rinsed the mug and it sparkled!

(Tea stains, no more!)

 And last, but certainly not least, I used those lemons that worked for cleaning my faucets and mugs to deodorize the garbage disposal.  Those lemons sure do go a long way!