Disclosure: This post brought to you on behalf of Museum Trees.

I am so over this winter here in Ohio. We’ve been flopping back in forth lately between freezing temps and warmer highs. The past week and a half we’ve been fighting the sick bug here in our own home as I’m sure many other families have been, too. Yes, I have spring on my mind!

My newest spring decor was hung on the wall recently: that beautiful rose wreath. I know it looks out of place because I still have my snowflake throw pillows in the family room but I don’t care.

Cleaning Throw Pillows

Throw pillows are some of my favorite things. They add color, textured layer and comfort to our living room.The one thing that concerns me about having them, however, is the keeping them clean part as we have children and I regularly have children from other homes in my home on a weekly basis. I’m not talking about clean from surface spills. I’m talking about keeping them clean from germs.

My go-to cleaning method in the past has been to cram my throw pillows into the washing machine and then dry them in the dryer. However, I eventually stopped doing that as it was somewhat wasteful. I could only fit maybe two pillow in my top loading machine and then I truly didn’t know if they were really getting clean.

So then I started skipping the washer and instead would throw them into the dryer with maybe a spritz of water first. But, I recently tweaked even that and I’m much happier.

I think what I’m doing now is my best move as far as light cleaning, possible disinfecting of the pillows goes. I’m also doing this to my furniture and my artificial flower arrangements like my wreath that I received from a place that sells custom artificial trees. By the way, I’ll have a discount code at the end of this post for you if you’d like to get something at their store. What’s my secret?

My DIY Cleaning Solution

For years I’ve been making my own cleaning solution with two simple ingredients…three if you include the basic H-2-O (water) which I may not always have added into it. I’m not sure what good it does other than make my mix go further. Those ingredients are simply:

• white vinegar
• Young Living Essential Oils…usually clove.

I love this mix because it’s safe to let my boys use this on their own when they clean the bathroom. I don’t want them using dangerous chemicals. I have this mix in spray bottles placed in both bathrooms and the kitchen for easy access.

Back to the throw pillows.

I decided to use my mix to freshen up and hopefully clean and kills some germs on our furniture and throw pillows during this wacky Ohio winter. To be sure, I don’t know how clean or disinfected this makes things but I do believe it’s a good thing to try. You can look up the benefits of white vinegar cleaning and benefits of clove oil.

My Spring Cleaning Home Hack

I take my tall spray bottle filled mostly with white vinegar and about 30 drops of clove oil and a little water, optional. Shake the bottle and you’re ready to go.

• Spray thoroughly on front and back of throw pillows and then toss in the dryer.
• Spray well on furniture and allow to air-dry.
• Spritz on silk flowers and allow to air-dry.

Do you clean with vinegar or essential oils? Tell me your favorite spring cleaning hack in the comments!

If you liked my beautiful artificial rose wreath you can find it and *save 10% off of it or something else at SilkPlantsDirect.com using code “ BLOGGER10 “. Custom orders do not apply.