Declutter Challenge Week Five

We did it, we did the full five weeks of the declutter challenge! How is your home looking? Things feeling a bit more organised? I know that when my home feels more organised and there’s less “stuff” all around, my mind feels so much calmer. I’ve had so much support and engagement in this declutter challenge that I decided to add a little giveaway in this, the last week of getting organised so make sure you read all the way to the bottom of this blog post.

So, ready to dig into the last few days? Let’s go!

Sort and purge all the kids toys: And I’d go so far as to say books too. This is something I feel quite strongly about; kids really and truly do not need piles and piles of toys, in fact if they have less, it helps them to develop their imaginations more. The first thing you’ll want to do is wait until your kids are out the house or are fast asleep… haha! Then bring every single toy to one area and start going through everything; one pile for keep, one pile for donation and one pile for toys that cannot be repaired and aren’t suitable to be donated. If you are in the JHB area, on Wednesday 19 February we are meeting at 10am and bringing all of our donations together, they will then be sorted and donated to different antenatal clinics in and around Soweto. You can RSVP to me. But back to the sorting and purging of toys. I have found it really helpful to separate different toys into different containers where I can and then I have one or two baskets for the random toys that are one offs. Many people keep bundles of toys in their cupboard and rotate toys bi-weekly so that their children always have new toys in a sense.

Untangle and sort through all your loose cables: Please tell me that I’m not the only one with about a million different cables in a box and zero idea what they’re all for? Today’s task is to go through them all and store the ones that you need neatly. It’s also probably a good idea to label them. This is easy enough to do with masking tape and a marker and that way you will always know what each one is for.

Wipe down kitchen cabinets inside and outside: This is a bit of a mammoth task so feel free to do it over a few days but jeepers, kitchen cabinets collect a whole lotta gunk. Sticky handprints, food splatters and just general dust all gathers on them so I’m sure you will be super suprised at how dirty your cloth will be as you get cleaning.

Organise your bookshelves: This is something that I really need to do, we have so many books that can be donated and I also need to move all the books from the bottom two shelves on our main bookshelf up, Maia has taken a liking to tearing out pages. When you put your all the books back, group authors together and arrange series of books in order. Make sure to give the shelves a good wipe down as well.

Wipe down all surfaces and vacuum: Now that your home is pretty much completely decluttered, the final touch is to give everything a really good wipe down and vacuum so that your home looks extra clean and sparkly.

I’ve had such a great month with you all, decluttering our homes. I’ve received some really great ideas from some of you and if you’re anything like me, there are a ton of goodies that will be going to those that need things more than we do.

You would have noticed that cleaning goes hand in hand with decluttering, there’s a lot of scrubbing and wiping down and I’ve tried really hard to keep my cleaning as green as possible. And so in keeping with that, I’ve teamed up with Faithful to Nature to give one of you a hamper full of great GREEN cleaning products! The hamper consists of:

Sweet Sheets roller towel: We go through so much roller towel in our kitchen, it’s just so handy! This specific one from Faithful to Nature is made from sugar cane, elemental chlorine free, wrapped in recyclable paper (so plastic free) and has a 100% recycled inner roll

Eco Egg Reusable Bamboo Towels: In the same vein as the product above, the Eco Egg paper towel is also going to be replacing our regular roller towel. There are 20 towels per roll and each towel can be used up to 85 times! Simply chuck it into the washing machine and line dry. How amazing?! Saving the planet and money!

Living Naturally dishwasher tablets: You all know how much I love my dishwasher, it goes at least once a day!
These dishwasher tablets from Living Naturally are a green alternative to the normal ones that are full of chemicals and consist of only 4 ingredients including salt and lemongrass oil.

EarthSap oven and hob cleaner: Remember the task when we had to clean our oven, this will be your new bestie! It removed tough grease and baked on food and leaves behind a pleasant citrus scent with no chemical fumes.

EarthSap Ultra Power all purpose cleanser: I literally use an all purpose cleanser for everything and anything that needs cleaning. The Ultra Power all purpose cleanser from EarthSap is packed full of effective essential oils that remove dirt, stains and grease but don’t damage your surfaces. A household essential!

Natural Orange all purpose cleaning spray: This my friends is no ordinary cleaning spray. Not only is it completely natural and cut through dirt and grease like a beast, but its also deters flies and mosquitoes! Best you know that I’ve basically drowned my kitchen in this.

Pretty amazing hamper am I right? I’m sure you want a shot at winning it! Here’s how to do just that:

1. Comment on this blog post and let me know which product you’re the most excited about.
2. Tag one friend on this Instagram post or this Facebook post

Gain extra entries by:

1. Sharing some of your decluttering tasks on your social media channels and tag me (Instagram stories is great!)
2. Share this blog post on your social media channels and tag me

This giveaway ends at 12pm Monday 3 February and I will announce the winner withing a week.

The winner has 48 hours to claim their prize, failing which, a new winner will be drawn

Faithful to Nature is responsible for delivering the prize to the winner

Missed the previous weeks declutter challenges? Play catch up:

Week one

Week two

Week three

Week four