Where can you go to find easy, affordable home made project plans suitable for gift giving? My absolute favourite are these felted house slippers made from a used sweater with a brown sugar foot scrub, you have to check it out!  You can also pick up frugal, crafty ideas for decorating the holiday table, free tasty recipes and organizational tips AND an interactive online homemaking community?    I’m talking about Home Made Simple, brought to those caring for the home by Proctor and Gamble, manufacturers of the top brands in home care today.  I haven’t even mentioned the contests, coupons and free newsletter – make sure you set some time aside before you visit, this site is loaded with information and offers.

If you’ve been keeping your eyes peeled to the latest cleaning products on store shelves you’ve likely noticed some brand new products for cleaning, scenting and disinfecting your home.

I’ve certainly noticed as I browse the aisles, and I’ve had a chance to take a peek at some of these new products and let you know how they measure up.  I’ll be doing a series of posts featuring two – three items in each installment.

Even better, I’ve done a bit of online research and found some online coupons.  Woohoo – read on for coupon links!  Because I’m in Canada, the links are for the Canadian sites, but never fear, US equivalents exist, just do a search for the product name and visit the main website for the product and the default country is the U.S.A.

Our family has found some favourites amongst the new offerings.  Every family faces specific housekeeping challenges, and we have our share of them!

Febreze has released a new line of refillable scented oil warmers that scent the home – Febreze NOTICEables.  The starter packs include the plug in device, and one dual oil refill in a wide range of scents.  The scents alternate back and forth, with a soft, green light indicating which oil is currently in use.  I was amazed to learn that each refill lasts for 30 days on the low setting.  The high setting is quite strong, almost overpowering in our small home, but the low setting provides an effective level of scent that refreshes without being obtrusive.  We were able to test the Lavender and Vanilla starter pack, but once established with the device, any new scent can be chosen as a refill.  Some of them sound delicious, each pair is selected to provide two complementary fragrances.  The citrus duo, berry/melon and clothesline/meadow sets sound so yummy!  Our family suffers from some fragrance sensitivities, we had the plug-in working for several hours and overnight before any hint of a headache was detected.  That being said, we obviously can’t run it for 30 days straight, but it’s great to plug in for a few hours on high for an emergency, systemic home scenting.

Next up, Mr. Clean a housecleaning superstar has teamed up with Febreze to offer a disposable, scented disinfecting wipe.  I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t use disinfecting wipes on a regular basis, but we’ve run into a few situations where they were a God-send.  Now maybe this is too much info…but we often run into poop related events in our home.  With a baby and 3 kittens on the loose, it seems like we have poopy incidents more often than we’d like to.  For these kinds of emergencies, these wipes can’t be beat.

We had the opportunity to test out the Mr. Clean Disinfecting Wipes with Febreze, scented with the meadows and rain aroma (that’s the green kind).  When baby Sarah’s diaper exploded – for lack of a better word – in her Bumbo seat, it was Mr. Clean to the rescue!  I grabbed a wipe, swabbed the seat down and within a minute the seat was clean, disinfected and smelling fresh.  Left it to sit for 10 minutes for the bacteria killing action to take full effect and we were ready to go!  These handy wipes can be kept on hand to clean any non-porous surface.  Kitchens, bathrooms, cat poop on the floor – yep you name it, just give any food contact surfaces a rinse with clean water when you’re done.  Here’s a list with some more cleaning ideas and tips.  And like I said, I dug up some coupon codes!  A Canadian coupon for $1.00 off any Mr. Clean disinfecting wipe product – enjoy!

Don’t forget to check back for some more reviews on the new cleaning and home care products from Proctor & Gamble!