Frugal Foodie Mama: Greening My Clean (& a Giveaway!)

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Greening My Clean (& a Giveaway!)

***Winner has been picked!!***  Congratulations, Calleah  K.! :)
Please check your email, Calleah & reply back to me within 48 hours or I will have to choose a new winner via Rafflecopter.  
Thanks to everyone who entered!  If you didn't win, please visit Shaping Beauty's etsy shop and order your own set of reusable sweeper cloths for your house.  For less than $12 for a set of 3 (with shipping), they are a bargain.  Mine paid for themselves in a little over 2 weeks!  Plus, you are keeping all of those awful disposable sweeper cloths out of the landfills. :)  Thanks so much to Alina at Shaping Beauty for sponsoring this fabulous giveaway!

In our efforts to become a more eco-responsible family, I have been trying to slowly transition the household cleaning from chemical-laden and wasteful to more natural and reusable.  Little green baby steps, if you will...  
We moved to our new home in June.  A home with no carpet, and mostly hardwood floors.  Out with the vacuum, in with the Swiffer and broom.  We have a papillon, and I was finding that swiffering was starting to become an almost daily task.  Especially now that baby girl is 100% mobile.  If I didn't swiffer and sweep at least every other day, then her diaper became our new swiffer, picking up dog hair and dust as she scootched and crawled across the floors. I realized that we were going through a box of disposable swiffer cloths almost once a week.  Not only was it killing our wallet, but I was starting to feel guilty about just how many of those fur-laden cloths I was tossing out each week.  
Etsy to the rescue!  
After a quick etsy search, I found Alina's Shaping Beauty etsy shop.  She mostly makes sweeper cloths for your swiffers, but also specializes in some beautiful crocheted items.  After a few etsy conversations, I ordered my sweeper cloths.  They were amazingly affordable too- Just under $12 for 3 reusable sweeper cloths & shipping!  I paid at least half that for a box of Swiffer cloths that last me a mere week.  
Okay, so I know what you all are REALLY wanting to know.... Do they work??

This is one of Alina's sweeper cloths before I swept by kitchen floor.  ^^^

This is that exact same sweeper cloth after swiffering my kitchen.  Yeah, I know... yuck.  But how else can I show you that they REALLY work? ;)
I just pull off the dog hair, toss the pulled off fur in the trash, and then continue swiffering.  It fits perfectly over my Swiffer head.

Plus, when the one side gets really nasty (usually after using it 3-4 times), you can easily flip it inside out and continue swiffering away for another 3-4 uses.
These cloths clean easily in the washer.  I ran mine with a little detergent in hot water.  Alina says it is fine to wash them in cold water though. ;) You just line dry them and then they are ready to go again!  
I have had my reusable sweeper cloths for almost a month now, and still have the same box of disposable cloths in my cleaning closet that I had when started using my new ones.  I will admit... I still use the disposable ones for my bathroom.  But the reusable ones get used in every other room in my house.   Yes folks, I haven't bought a box of disposable sweeper cloths in well over a month.  I would have spent $35 by now in disposable ones if it hadn't been for Alina's awesome reusable sweeper cloths.  (In case you are doing the math, that is a savings of $23 so far!)  
Okay, you want your own set, right?  Of course you do!  Alina is generously giving away one of  her Sets of 3 Sweeper Cloths for Swiffer (a $11.49 value) to one of my readers. All you have to be is a U.S. resident, and then enter using the Rafflecopter form below! :)

*Opinions are entirely my own.  I was not compensated for this review or giveaway. I purchased my own set of sweeper cloths, and loved them so much that I contacted the shop owner about allowing me to feature her shop on my blog. Luckily for all of us, she said sure! :)
Giveaway ends at 12:01am on Monday, September 17, 2012.

a Rafflecopter giveaway