Picture this: it’s the day after New Year’s Eve.
You wake up and walk out of your bedroom only to find that your friends and family have gotten glitter and confetti all over the place in your house. Maybe those confetti cannons weren’t such a good idea after all.
So you sweep up the floors, dust the furniture and go about your life. A week goes by and there’s still glitter EVERYWHERE. Where is it coming from? How do you get rid of it?
Well, we here at Maid Zen happen to experts in home and apartment cleaning, so we’ve got some helpful tips on how you can clean up two of the peskiest party decorations: glitter and confetti.
How to Clean Up Glitter
While glitter is a great way to celebrate a birthday, graduation, or other special events, it’s notorious for getting all over the place and being impossible to clean up.
There are numerous types of glitter available at most party supply stores, including iridescent glitter, gem powder, metallic glitter, holographic glitter, and more. While all of them are great, they are also a frustrating challenge to remove once they’ve been used.
In order to get rid of glitter, follow these steps:
- First, take a wet paper towel and use this to sweep all of the glitter and sparkles into a single pile. Once in a pile, you can use a vacuum to quickly take care of the vast majority of the mess.
- There are going to be some smaller specks left behind. One creative strategy is to use the static electricity or a balloon to soak up the glitter that might have been left behind on fabric upholstery and on the carpet. To maximize the static electricity, rub the balloon on your hair. After rolling the charged balloon over glitter that has been left behind on fabric and carpet, the balloon should be covered in sparkles.
- There are probably still going to be a few flecks left behind. In this situation, we recommend that you take a lint roller and clean up any stubborn glitter that might be left.
Keep in mind, if a serious glitter bomb goes off, it’s going to be nearly impossible to get every single speck, but with a wet paper towel, a balloon, a vacuum, and a lint roller, you should be able to get up the vast majority of the glitter that was left behind following your celebration. Then, you can rest easy, knowing your house has been de-sparkled.
How to Clean Up Confetti
Even though confetti is great during celebrations, it is also challenging to clean up. Not to mention, there are multiple types of confetti ranging from dried rose petals, to metallic confetti, rice, paper, and even fabric confetti.
For those who have recently gone through a celebration using confetti, there are a few steps that people should follow in order to get it cleaned up.
Depending on where the confetti is located, the cleanup process is going to be different. Some of the key steps to note include:
First, sweep away any confetti from on top of furniture, fixtures, shelving, tables, etc. Your goal should be to get it all on to the floor.
- If the confetti is located on bookshelves and tables, use a feather duster to knock it onto the floor.
- In some cases, confetti might have landed on the keyboard. Use a can of compressed air to blow the leftover particles away.
- Finally, you can also use a small hand vacuum to remove confetti from fabric upholstery that you can’t simply sweep off.
Once the confetti is in a pile on the floor, use your hands to clean up as much as possible. If you try to vacuum it up right away, large quantities may clog the vacuum. Once you’ve got the majority of the confetti scooped up and thrown away, you can then use a vacuum to remove the rest.
If you’ve got carpeting, you can also use your vacuum to pick up stray confetti there.