Vinegar, The Uber Cleaner

This is from a newsletter I used to get called Ideal Bite. I quit getting it because most of it was geared for California, but I kept this one for posting:

Wanna conquer high cleaning-product costs?

The Bite
Drop the bed-sheet toga, and pick up a bottle of white vinegar. Uber-disinfecting and cheap as Hades, DIY vinegar cleaners really do the trick, so you can move onto conquering bigger things, such as, say, the Roman Empire.

The Benefits
• Costs less than a handmade olive-leaf crown. We found a 32-ounce bottle of white vinegar at the supermarket for just over a buck; the same size bottle of all-purpose cleaner was four times that (and you'll dilute the vinegar for most purposes).
• Treating kids like emperors. Conventional cleaning products are responsible for about 10% of toxic-exposure calls to poison control.
• Not stabbing our rivers in the back. High concentrations of detergents were found in 69% of waterways in a 2002 nationwide study.
• Smelling better than an ancient Roman. The vinegar smell disappears when it dries; it even acts as a mild deodorizer.

Personally Speaking
A little straight vinegar, sprayed directly on weeds, gets rid of 'em.

Wanna Try?
• Make sure to use white distilled vinegar - balsamic and red wine varieties will stain.
• All-purpose countertop and mildew cleaner: Mix vinegar and water 1:1 in a spray bottle.
• Fabric softener: Add 1/2 cup to the rinse cycle.
• Toilet bowl cleaner: Use pure vinegar to get rid of rings.
• Window cleaner: Mix vinegar and water 1:4 in a spray bottle.
• Weed killer: Use higher concentrations of vinegar (most household vinegar is 5%, so go for 10% or higher, available at hardware stores). (I also heard vinegar for canning vegetables works for this.)

More Green Recipes

This is a recipe for window cleaner that Sandra Bullock uses that she was showing on Oprah yesterday. She uses that Dr. Bronners soap (castile soap) I just bought so that's why I was interested. I need to invest in some spray bottles I think:)
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From Oprah 4/22/08
Though there are many "green" cleaners on the market, Sandra says you can get the same effect—and save money—by using items found in your cupboard. "An easy window cleaner is just a cabinet away," she says.

To get streak-free windows, Sandra mixes three tablespoons of vinegar, a third of a teaspoon of pure liquid vegetable soap, like castile soap, and two cups of water in a recycled spray bottle. "It cleans your windows like crazy," she says. "Oddly, the vinegar smell doesn't linger."

She also says to use lemon juice to clean counters and the restaurant she runs uses just regular baking soda and vinegar to clean their grill.
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Here's some more places to find recipes from the list provided at church this week too: The Green Guide - DIY Recipes
and
Care 2 Make a Difference

Environmental Committee

In honor of Earth Day our church distributed 500 bottles of a non-toxic All Purpose Cleaner with a recipe for how to make it and a pledge to use it and other recipes they provided for household cleaners. I missed most of church with a melt-down of a kiddo, but I did pick up some of the cleaner and the recipes. (And then so did Josh cuz my mom made him get one for me, she didn't know I already got a bottle!) So as not to disappoint my mom who assumed I'd post this recipe... Here's the All- Purpose Cleaner recipe:

1/4 cup white vinegar
2 tsp borax
3 1/2 cups hot water
20 drops lemon or lavender oil
1/4 liquid dish soap

In a 32 oz. spray bottle, mix the vinegar, borax and water thoroughly. Add essential oil if desired. Add dish soap last.



P.S. If anyone wants the extra bottle, I'd be happy to share!

Making Up for Lack of Pics

I haven't posted kiddo pics in a while, so here's the pics and I'll post video today too. There's a pic of the kids watching Great Grandma's favorite polka dance show and dancing with GG. And there are two pictures of our lunch date yesterday. Meg brought Adrienne over and made me a fancy Rachel Ray lunch. The Apple Jack things on her blog are WAY yummy! We (who am i kidding, Meg, not we) just used a colby/jack shreded cheese a little different than the recipe, but it was still yummy! Anyway, this is Riley's favorite book Gossie, and we were reading it to A-dee (again, we? more like Meg...I had to take the pictures!)

Dr. Bronners Soap for the Recipe

I was reading a blog I check pretty often (Cheap Chick link below). The recipe for facial cleanser I posted before uses Dr. Bronner's soap (Fair Trade Organic). Apparently Target is now selling small bottles for $1.99 in store and larger bottles online. Thought if you wanted to try out this recipe it would be a good way to start. If you go to the Cheap Chick link, read her April 1 post. (I really hope it wasn't an April Fool). Anyway, it links to Dr. Bronner's web site and some of the scents sound really yummy. And did I mention I LOVE this cleanser?

This brings me to something else I should mention. New to the blog, on the right hand side under our family picture is "Mo's Favorite Themes". This is a way to organize the past blogs into quick reference points. For example, if you want to see the recipe for the face cleanser, check out Fun Recipes or Living Green. A lot of people want to look back and see where you recycle light bulbs or plastic bags. Check Living Green. If you love watching videos of Roo, there's a section for that, etc. Some things are labeled with more than one theme too, so you might find a video of Roo wearing a hat under Riley's Many Hats AND under Riley Video. Thanks Meg, for teaching me how to do this, it's already helped me find stuff faster on my own site:)

Bath Fizzies recipe

Here's the instructions for the bath fizzies that Kim made for the shower. I tried them last night and they are yummy. Kim made them baby powder scented for the baby shower theme, blue because it's a boy. Thanks Kim for sharing the recipe!






Sift 1 3/4 cup baking soda, 1 cup citric acid, and 2 cups cornstarch
through a sieve to remove chunks. To make different tints, fill small
spritzer bottles with water and add about 6 drops of food coloring to
each. Pour 1 cup of powdered mixture into a glass bowl. Lightly
spritz, stirring after each spritz, until powder is desired color. Add
water slowly, so mixture does not fizz. If mixing two tints, alternate
colors as you spritz. Check the consistency of powder with your
fingertips; when it can be tightly packed or shaped, stop spritzing
(this may take a little while). Select an essential oil. Add 5 drops
if it's one of the stronger scents (peppermint, lavender), 6 if it's a
weaker one (lemon, grapefruit). Mix well. Firmly pack mixture into
small baking molds. Approximately use 1/4 cup for each fizzy, which is
good for one bath. Allow mixture to set for 2 hours, then pop out
carefully. Repeat with different tints for remaining powder.

To save a few steps I put the scent and color into a little spritzer
with water. I also used a mini-muffin pan as my mold, scooping the
mixture with the Pampered Chef Medium Scoop.

Enjoy!

Organic Face Cream Recipe

When I was out with my grade school girlfriends, we got onto the subject of organic stuff and all the toxins and hormones that are making our bodies sick, making kids bodies mature at younger ages and making our bodies decompose differently than people did years ago. Kinda an off topic, but my friend Danni said she knew someone that said you shouldn't use any shampoo, soap, etc. unless you could eat it, because essentially, that's what your body does with it. My friend Colleen mentioned that she makes her own facial cleanser out of organic stuff and it sounded yummy, so I asked her to share. She says the indredients are a bit "spendy" but I might try this out!

Here is the recipe:
1.5 cups sugar ( I use organic cane suger, smaller granules)
1/4 C oil (apricot kernal oil, organic)
1/4c soap (Peppermint pure-castille soap, Dr. Bonners)

You can get these ingredients at most whole foods markets. Just mix them all together and store in containers!