As most of you know, I had a car accident a few weeks ago that totaled my car. I've always heard to wear clean underwear in case you get in a wreck, but no one told me to keep my car clean. (Um, yes that is my responsibility and I should know better.) I was mortified when I had to transfer all my belongings at the scene of the accident. They towed the car to the body shop and when the owner called me to let me know it had arrived, he apologized that he was at lunch and didn't contact me sooner. I said, "It's too bad you spent money on lunch, I probably had enough fries, cheerios, dried fruit, and peanut butter sandwiches on the floor of my car to feed the whole office–haha." It really wasn't funny.
We have a different car now and new rules. The kiddoes are learning to take everything in the house when they get out of the car and we're learning that trash doesn't go on the floor. We've added a twice montly car wash to the budget and our local car wash includes free vacuum and window wipes–yay.
I used to think that washing my car was a waste of money, but after premature rust on our last vehicle I learned it's part of taking care of my property. I found a bunch of fun tutorials to help me keep my car clean. Check these out:
I've seen lots of car organizers, but this one from Alicia at the Mayfly is the best of them all. The pockets are thoughtfully sized to hold common items and the bottom is attached to the car seat to keep it from swinging around when passengers slide past. It's on my must sew list. Click here http://www.themayfly.com/weblog/2007/10/the_car_organizer_howto.html to get the instrustions. While you're there poke around a little. She lives in Kansas City too, but we've never met yet. I bet we'd be great friends.
This next tutorial for a car visor cd holder is from Puking Pastilles. What a fun way to use up leftover scraps of fabric and keep your cds where you can find them easily! Check out her blog http://pukingpastilles.com/?p=517 for instructions. She has lots of other fabulous posts too.
And then there's solutions for trash!
Make it and Love it has simple instructions for this little beauty. With a trash holder like this you can put one on the back of every seat.
This one from A spoonful of sugar Girls uses an old margarine tub to secure a shopping bag as a liner. It's genuis!
I'm going to develop my own pattern for a facial tissue pattern that attaches to the car visor. It will hold FULL SIZE tissues. Am I the only one that gets annoyed at how much those little travel pouches of tissues cost? And they aren't soft at all. We keep a box of tissues in our car but it seems to float around, gets stepped on and even finds its way under the driver's seat. It's almost like a pet. If you see a tutorial like that let me know–it will save me some time–grin.
How do you keep your car clean? Add your tips as a comment to this post.
i love the car seat organizers! my husband and i don’t have any children yet, but even without kids i think i would use them! how cool. definitely on my must- sew list.
My car is an SUV but with getting kids in and out of the car, there just isn’t enough room for the fancy trash containers. I throw away (and my 3 year old helps, too) my trash that I have collected in the pockets on the side of the doors or ashtrays….at whatever store I am going to (i.e. outside of Target, etc). That way the trash doesn’t pile up.
OHhhh this was a big one for us. And it made me really mad and I was ashamed to open the car door if anyone was near. I had bought the organizers, But unless I physically put the items in the organizers the kids never did. We live in a small town in kansas, And have to drive out of town quite often to shop or get hubby to and from work. I don’t want to health wise and money wise spend on food out. So I have snacks in the car and juices. The only thing that truly worked for us for keeping stuff picked up and trash out was… I bought each kid and myself and hubby a tote from dollar tree, The good thing about these is there are so many to choose from I could a different one for each one of us. I then put each persons name on theirs with permanent marker. These go everywhere with us, with each persons snack and drink and any little toys napkins and an empty plastic grocery bag. I pack these each trip kinda like you would a lunch box. Noone leaves the car without these coming back out each time. I even put a sign up in the car, DO NOT GET OUT OF CAR WITHOUT TOTE!!! When in the house these are cleaned out and stacked up until the next use. So the scenario is we go do our stuff. We park the car in the driveway, Everyone loads up any of their stuff in their tote, Takes out their plastic bag, fills up with any and all trash, Takes everything in. This takes some getting used to, But really does work, For us anyway. The best part is I don’t have to worry about opening the back door at the store and having a diaper, someones sock, an oreo, 3 matchbox cars, a half eaten peanut butter sandwhich all falling out and attacking me and the woman trying to get into her car next to me, haha. **HINT The small pringles containers make excellent baby wipe holders for each persons tote to wipe hands or behindies and they also work well for putting in tissues, take out about 15 tissues…roll up…put in pringels can….cut slit in platic lid, and pull out as you need. Michelle