Bathroom Cleaner

I use baking soda and Castle soap to make my general bathroom cleaner. I use it to clean the bathtub, shower, toilets and the vanity.

I first start by putting about a quarter to a half of cup of baking soda in a cup. Not the best picture, but you get the idea. You do not need that much, as a little goes a long way.

 

I then pour some of the Castle soap into the cup with the baking soda and stir it up. You should put enough of the Castle soap until it gets to this consistency:

At this point it is ready to use. I simply put some on a wet cleaning cloth and clean what I need to. Remember that you will need to rinse off the cleaner. I usually just use a damp cloth to do this.

Toilet Cleaner

There will not be many pictures in this post, as I just do not think seeing pictures of my toilet is too exciting. To clean my toilets I use two simple ingredients: vinegar and baking soda.

To clean my toilets I simply pour in about a 1/2 cup of baking soda in the toilet. Then I pour in some vinegar - I do not measure how much, but I would say I use at least a cup of vinegar. At this point there are a lot of bubbles. I usually let it sit for about 15 minutes and let the baking soda and vinegar do their work. I then go back and scrub the toilet with my toilet cleaning brush. I usually clean my toilets this way once a week.

Felt Food

I am making some felt food for my children.  I found inspiration for my felt food here and from One Crafty Mumma and here.

For all the felt food here I just used the basic felt that you can buy at the craft store. However, if you want some better quality felt or need a bigger sheet you can go to the fabric store to get some felt as well. They can have a better selection, but I chose to get my felt at the craft store, as they had the colors I was looking for.

Here is a picture of the pancakes with syrup and butter I made:

For the pancakes I just cut out a few circles from light brown felt, using a big glass as my template. I then sewed the two circles together. For the syrup I used dark brown felt and cut out shapes that resemble the shape syrup makes. For the butter I cut out a bunch of squares from yellow felt and then sewed them together.

This is some ravoli I made (not the best picture):

For the ravoli I cut out a bunch of squares that were about 3" x 3". I then took pinking sheers along the outsides of them squares. Finally I sewed two squares together, while putting some stuffing in them.


I also make them some eggs, but I do not have a picture of them right now. They are very easy to make using white and yellow felt. I will updated this post with a picture of the eggs and how I made them.

I am also working on making some more felt food for them such as strawberries and burgers with the toppings.

Finding the Time

When I started this blog I had high intentions on keeping up with it; however, that did not happen. Other parts of my life took over. Sometimes being a SAHM who works from home makes it very difficult to get anything done. Not to say that I have not started about 10 different posts, but they are just sitting there in the draft stage. Some days it is difficult to find the balance between everything. Trying to keep a two-year-old happy during the day, while trying to do things that need to be done around the house, spending time with my seven-year-old when he comes home, and then somehow fit in doing work for my job becomes a big juggling act. I really enjoy writing in my blog and I have decided to make my best effort to do at least one post a week if not more. I think I will need to do a post about trying to juggle being a work at home mom.  What do you guys do to make it all work?

Birthday Ideas - Pirate Party

My son would like to have a birthday party this year as he always does, so I need to figure out what type of cake I will make. I have made my children's birthday cakes every year. I enjoy doing it and I feel it will give me something to remember and the joy in their faces seeing their cakes warms my heart.

Last year he had a pirate party. The kids loved it and were talking about it for months after, even the parents would mention it. I think it was for different reasons though, since we did give the kids gems, pirate coins, hats, swords, among other things. But I think it was all fair after seeing some of the gifts that he received.

Here are pictures of his cake:

Here is a picture of the cupcakes as well:

 

 

This is what the table looked like:

This years theme most likely will be a Lego theme, but need to make sure that is what he really wants. On to planning.

Tide Reduces Level of Cancer Causing Agent in their Detergent

I had been a use of Tide and Tide Free and Gentle for years until I learned about what ingredients they used to make their product. One of those being a suspected cancer-causing agent 1,4 dioxane. This toxin is not listed anywhere on the product label or on their website so the consumer had no way of knowing the ingredient was in there. The company has now agreed to greatly reduce the amount of 1,4 dioxane in their product. For the full story on how a great group of people achieved this please view this Article from Groovy, Green, Livin.

Homemade Cleaners - All Purpose Cleaner

In the first of my series about homemade cleaners I am going to talk about what I use for an all purpose clenaer in my home. Most of the time I use homemade cleaning products, but I do have few bottles of Method cleaners as well. However, I am slowly getting rid of those as well. The reason I choose to make my own is the amount of chemicals in the other cleaning ingredients does not make me feel comfortable to use and it saves me money.

I use to have a ton of cleaning products, one for every job, such as toilet cleaner, dusting, cleaning the bathrooms, window cleaner, ect. I know that it is hard not to resist all those cleaning products when they claim to do such wonderful things. However now I have learned that having all those products is just not necessary and can actually be harmful to you and your family (I will discuss this in future posts). The all purpose cleaner I use in my home is a mix of vinegar and water. I make it an equal mix of both, which I put in a spray bottle. Some people do not like the smell of vinegar, but I really do not smell it that much. If you like to make a scented cleaner you can add some orange peels to a container or big mason jar of vinegar and let it sit for a few weeks. After if has sat for a couple of weeks you can add it to your spray bottle with some water again 50/50 and you have a scented all purpose cleaner. Here is a picture of my mason jar with some orange peals. It does not have many peels in it right now though.

I use my all purpose cleaner in the kitchen, to wipe off tables, wife off dirt on the lightswiches, cleaning windows, ect.

In this series I will discuss more of my homemade cleaners and some ingredients you may want to avoid in cleaning products if you choose to buy your cleaning products. With that said for me making your own cleaning products is better for your family, better for the environment and not to mention cheaper.