Making My Own Cleaning Products

The first thing I made on my quest to make my own cleaning products was laundry detergent.  I found my recipe and immediately doubled it because I am my mother's daughter and that's just what we do.

Laundry Detergent (yields 36 loads, 2 tablespoons per load)

2 cups Borax

2 cups Washing Soda

2 cups Zote soap flakes

Combine everything.  That’s it.  This recipe took me 10 minutes to make and that included the grating of the soap flakes.  I just used a cheese grater on a paper plate.  Easy peasy.

Funny conversation between me and my husband.  He came home from work Thursday night  and I was standing at the counter happily grating my soap onto a paper plate.  He then seen the Borax boxes, washing soda, vinegar and other various things I bought:

Him:  What in the world are you doing?

Me: I’m making my own laundry detergent!!!  (smiling and happy)

Him:  Are we poor?

Me:  No.  (confused)

Him:  Have you spent a bunch of money I don’t know about?

Me:  No!

Him:  Okay.  Carry on.

Ha ha.  I love that he just lets me be me even if he thinks I’m crazy. 

Anyways back to the detergent.  The recipe above will make enough for 36 loads (2 tablespoons per load).

The verdict?  So far, so good.  Now, if you try this at home, please remember a few things: 

*it does not ‘suds’ up like normal detergent.  Don’t be alarmed, this is normal.  It is still working hard and cleaning your clothes. 

*I have no clue how it would hold up against heavily soiled clothing.  My husband and I both have office jobs.  We are not outdoorsy people.  We don’t work on cars.  We have no kids.  In other words, our clothes do not get stained often.  So this detergent worked well on our not-horribly-dirty clothes.  I don’t know how it would do on seriously dirty dirty clothes.  Although while I was doing my research, most of these recipes came from ‘mommy blogger’ sites.  So they would probably clean kids clothes just fine.

*Some people have had issues with the soap not dissolving as it should (as all powdered soap does sometimes), so I filled up the washer a little and then put my soap in, followed by the clothes.  I didn’t have any residue left on the clothing by doing it this way.

The cost?  About .09 per load.  Not bad at all.  To compare, we had been using Tide Pods, which are .25 per pod.  So if this works out long-term, I will save significantly on laundry costs.

Here’s another random little funny thing.  One of my favorite shows to watching when I was younger was ‘Designing Women’.  I still love it (the early episodes especially).  If I happen to catch a re-run sometime I get super excited.  Anyways, whenever I see a box of Borax, I think of this show.  In one episode, Julia’s 19 year old son comes home from college for a visit.  He brings his 41 year old girlfriend with him.  Julia is appalled at the age difference, and the 41 year old girlfriend is just a pretentious piece of work.  She asks really snotty like:

“I was wondering if you might have some lavender for my bath”

And Julia responds:

“No, but I have some 20 Mule Team Borax!”

Just the way she says it is hilarious.  So now Borax and Julia Sugarbaker will also be linked in my head.

Next recipe:

Fabric Softener (8 loads, ¼ cup per load)

2 cups vinegar

10 drops lavender oil

This took about 2 minutes.  Put the two ingredients in some sort of shaker with a lid, because you will need to shake this one before each use (to mix the oil and vinegar)

The verdict?  So far, so good.  The lavender cuts the vinegar scent and leaves a nice lavender-y scent behind, but it’s definitely not too strong.

The cost?

A whopping .04 per load.

Compared to Downey, which is .26 per load

So my cost of doing laundry just went from .51 per load to .13 per load!

Here’s the rest I made.  I didn’t break down the prices of these because honestly I just don’t have the time and don’t enjoy math ha ha.  They were cheap though.  Probably ¼ of the cost or less of store-bought cleaners.

All Purpose Cleaner

1 Cup Distilled Water

1 tbsp castile soap

10 drops essential oil (lemon)

Dusting Spray (I tested this and discovered that a little bit goes a LONG way)

¾ Cup Olive Oil

¼ Cup White Vinegar

30-40 drops of essential oil (I used lemon)

*shake well before each use

Glass Cleaner  (I tested this on both glass and my faucets in both bathrooms and it worked great!)

¼ Cup White Vinegar

¼ Cup Rubbing Alcohol

2 Cups Distilled Water

1 tbsp cornstarch (apparently the cornstarch prevents streaking)

Oven Cleaner

1 Cup Distilled Water

1 TBSP castile soap

10 drops essential oil (I used lavender)

*Spray oven with cleaner, let sit for 5-10 minutes, repeat spray, sprinkle baking soda over mixture and scrub with scouring brush

Floor Cleaner

1.5 Cups Distilled Water

1.5 Cups White Vinegar

10 drops dish soap

10 drops essential oil (I used lemon)

*This is specifically for laminate flooring, but it works great on tile as well

Granite Cleaner

½ Cup Rubbing Alcohol

2 Cups Water

8 drops dish soap

10 drops essential oil (I used lemon)

I also put vinegar in a spray bottle and baking soda in a shaker.  Baking soda and vinegar can be used to clean just about anything, including the toilet (spray vinegar, sprinkle baking soda and scrub with a toilet brush.  I do this every other day in each toilet…..it only takes about 30 seconds).

Once I had finished making my products, I cleaned under the sink and then put down two mats that I got from Dollar Tree.  

Then I organized everything and put it all back. 

SO.  MUCH.  BETTER!!!!

I can’t tell you how much better I feel about this cabinet ha ha.  I no longer feel stressed when I open it!

As far as the non-cleaning supplies, I got most everything at the Dollar Store (spray bottles, blue and green bins for the rags).  I had the large glass jar already for the laundry detergent, along with the little measuring scoop, the container for fabric softener, etc.).  If you don’t have any of these things on hand already, I’m pretty sure all of these things can be purchased at Dollar Tree.  

I’ve been using these things for a few days now, and so far, so good.  I was very pleasantly surprised by the oven cleaner.  I had burned green chile stuck to the inside of my upper oven for quite some time and this cleaner took it right off!!!  I also LOVE using anything with the lemon essential oil in it.  Lemony stuff smells so good and it lingers too, which is nice.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

My cabinets look and feel lighter!

Reclaiming My House - Project #5 - Cleaning Cabinet

I'm about to share a horrible photo with you.  A photo that is embarrassing and makes me a little twitchy when I look at it.


Ready?


Are you sure?

Here's another:

This, my friends, was the current state of my cleaning products, a.k.a. the cabinet under the kitchen sink and the cabinet in the laundry room.  Oh my.  To say this is mortifying is an understatement.  I pride myself on having organized drawers and cabinets (most of the time).  But this?  There is no excuse for this.  It, like everything else, just got neglected and fell apart earlier this year. 

But….enough was enough.  Just  opening up these cabinet doors was stressful.  And then digging around what seemed like 1,000 bottles (I’m only slightly exaggerating) and 1,000 rags was just too much for me to handle.

So I did what every rational, normal person would do….I went out and bought MORE cleaning products.

Huh???

You heard me right.  Here’s how I got from Point A (the messy cabinet stress) to Point B (the buying of MORE cleaning products).

First, I pulled everything out of the cabinet. 

Awful.  Even Macy is stunned.

I threw out almost-empty bottles and combined other half-empty bottles of like products.  Then I assessed what I had left and started thinking.

I realized that I am TIRED of buying expensive cleaning products full of all kinds of chemicals.

I am TIRED of having sneezing attacks because the scents on some of these products are so overwhelming.  I’ve discovered that as I get older I’m becoming more sensitive to the strong smells and chemicals.  After I clean I usually get a headache and I’m plugged up and sneezing.

I am TIRED of re-buying stuff I already have because the first bottle has gotten lost in the depths of the cabinets and/or is not where it should be. 

I am TIRED of having 4 different products JUST to clean the bathroom, 3 different products JUST to clean the kitchen and multiple products for the floors.  And don’t even get me started on the big ugly bottles that do our laundry.

So I decided to make my own.

I’m trying to simplify.  Trying to get my house back to the point where it’s not busting at the seams.  So I decided to give this a shot to see if it helps.  I’d much rather have 6 or 7 bottles under the sink as opposed to 40 or 50.  And I’d much rather not be inhaling harmful chemicals that give me headaches and make me sneeze. 

I did a bunch of research, read reviews, read what worked, what didn’t work, how these homemade products held up against high traffic areas, pets, etc.  I did tons of reading on the subject.  And there are plenty of recipes and articles online.  I then settled on some ‘recipes’ and went to 2 different places to get what I needed:  Walmart and Whole Foods.  As much as I love Target, I knew they would not have a couple of the ingredients that I needed (Zote and Washing Soda, both can be found at Walmart)

Here’s what I came home with:

Everything in this picture was cheap (and shockingly natural) except the items I got at Whole Foods, i.e. Whole Paycheck.  Of course.  I got the castile soap and the essential oils there.  However, I have since checked Amazon for both the soap and oils and they were about the same price that I paid at Whole Paycheck.  I was shocked!

I boxed up my old cleaning products and put them in the garage.  Which, after I went through them and got rid of the ones that were ¾ empty, I only had maybe 8 or 9 bottles left.  I didn’t want to throw them out just yet.  I wanted to give my homemade cleaners a try for a couple of months.  So they will live in the garage for a while. 

Then I got to work on making my own stuff.  That will be in the next blog post, along with the ‘after’ photos of my project.

Par-Tay

Yesterday, we hosted a party at our clubhouse.  It was for a couple returning to our hall (specifically to our French group), so it was a welcome back party.  It was so much work but so much fun!

My mother-in-law did all of the organizing and coordinating between the gals in our hall as to who brought what food, drinks, etc.  We had Italian food.

Unfortunately, I did not take many pictures.  You know how it goes....once we got there things got nuts right away.

I snapped this poor picture of the inside of our clubhouse:

 This was before the tablecloths were on the tables with my little flower centerpieces.  The clubhouse on the inside seats around 50.  Plus, there's a game room which got used to the full (many ping pong tournaments happened last night).  But my favorite part was opening up those double doors you see to the back and we had an additional three tables set up out there (seating about 30 more people) right by the pool.

Here's a far shot, and you can't see too many people but I did that on purpose because I have a rule about not posting pictures on my blog of people without their permission.

On the other side of the pool, all of the kids (and a few adults) were playing with the footballs, soccer balls, dodge balls, etc. that my husband had bought that afternoon.  We had around 75 people show up, which is about what we were expecting.  It was an overcast day which kept the temperatures down.  Thankfully it didn't rain!

We had tons of food!  And tons of desserts.  I got two 1/2 sheet cakes from Costco (their cakes are so good!), plus other people brought goodies as well.

I kept the decorations pretty simple.  Plastic colorful tablecloths, tissue pom poms, and I made little flower arrangements for each table.

I got a box of 12 jelly jars from Target, and then tied a little ribbon (from my stash) around each one of them.

Then while at Costco I picked up a $10 bouquet of daisies.

They were cute and I paid a grand total of $17 for 12 little centerpieces.  Not bad!

We got there around 1:30 to start setting up, the party started at 5:00, most people left by 8:30 and we were home and in bed by 9:30.  My stomach was not nice to me last night though, so I didn't go to work today.  I was beat.  I slept until about 10:30, then took my husband some lunch around 1:30, then came home and went back to sleep from 2:30 - 4:30.  And I am still beat!  I'm hoping it's just from the crazy day yesterday (I was literally on my feet 'hosting' from 4:30 to 9:00) and I'm not coming down with something.

So, it was a success!  Everyone had a great time, there was tons of good food, and it was the coolest thing ever to be walking around mingling and hear English AND French being spoken.  Our French group is flourishing!  It makes my heart happy.

Iced Coffee

When we were in Tucson for our convention, my husband had to be there by 7:00.  He was an attendant.  So my mother-in-law and I would take care of the dogs, get ready, eat breakfast and then head out around 8:30 or so.  We would stop at Starbucks to get coffee for us and to bring my husband an iced coffee.

I think that was his inspiration when he bought this on Amazon a couple of weeks ago:

It is a brewing system for iced coffee.  I used to think that iced coffee was made by just making regular coffee, letting it cool and then pouring it over ice.  I was wrong.  The Pioneer Woman has an iced coffee brew recipe on her site, and I did try it once.  Honestly, the coffee turned out great the brewing was a HUGE pain.  I only ever did it that once.

This system is soooo much easier.

Basically, you put coffee and water into this white thing (very technical):

There is a filter in the bottom of it and a stopper, but those come into play later.  I won't get into the measurements and all of that because my husband did all of this and I wasn't paying attention.

When you're done adding your ground coffee (we used Dunkin Donuts) and filtered water, it should look kind of sludgy like this:

Then you put it in the fridge and let it do it's thing for 12 - 24 hours (the longer, the stronger).

Then you take it out of the fridge and pull the plug out of the bottom and let it filter into the glass carafe provided:

What is filtered out is a concentrate.  You use one part concentrate to two parts water/ice, etc.

It can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks.

It turned out so good!  The Toddy system is rated high on Amazon and we have since found out that it is the cold brew system of choice of many coffee shops.

July

I think the month of July may go down as the busiest month we’ve ever had.

Here’s a rundown: 

July 3 – 6 – Regional Convention, Tucson, AZ 

July 9 – Josh French Bible Highlights 

July 11 – meet Monica for dinner to practice Josh’s public talk/translations for Saturday 

July 12 – Josh’s English public talk (with French translation), followed by hospitality
July 15 – 20 – French Circuit Overseer visit 

July 16 – take a meal to an elderly brother in our hall whose wife is in the hospital
July 18 – dinner plans with a friend 

July 19 – French meeting (C.O. visit) 

July 20 – hosting a congregation gathering at our clubhouse for 75 – 100 people 

July 23 – Angie French talk, Josh French Draw Close book 

July 26 – French meeting 

We have three Saturday French meetings in a row this month because of the circuit overseer visit. Which also means that we will have three free Sundays, which will help. Except one of them won’t be ‘free’ because that’s when we will host our congregation gathering.

I also didn't include our family worship evenings each Tuesday night when my mother-in-law comes over.

Oh and I'm in charge of decorations for the gathering.  I have no clue what I'm doing yet.  And I think I'm going to order a cake too.  Hmm....

And I need to start working on my French talk NOW.

I keep telling myself that it will go fast and August will be here soon.  But in August we have more of the same....plus one wedding to attend...plus one graduation party to attend (and we're going to both).  Oh.  And we're pioneering. 

 Nuts!!!  But....it's a good 'nuts'.  Anytime things are crazy because of spiritual things, it's just really not that bad.  :)

Tucson, AZ

Last Thursday around 1:00 we left for Tucson, Arizona for our convention.  

And we took the dogs.

We took two cars.  Me, my mother-in-law, Watson and Bella (my mother-in-law's dog) in my CRV, and my husband and Hannah in his Elantra (along with most of our luggage).  Our luggage consisted of clothes for three days, lunch food and snacks for three days, two large dog crates, and dog food and snacks for three days.  It was a lot.

It went really, really well.  Was it easy?  No.  Did it go better than I thought it would?  YES.  The dogs did soooooo well.  So much better than we thought they would.  We only had one 'incident' the entire trip.  Well, two if you count the dust storm, ha ha.  The first time we stopped, Watson lost his breakfast in the car.  But thankfully, it was easy to clean up.  I had folded down my seats so they had plenty of space and also laid down a waterproof canvas-like pet cover to protect the seat backs as well.  Clean up was easy. 

In Arizona on the way out we ran into a dust storm.  We've had dust storms here in Albuquerque (fairly frequently), but this was pretty intense.  Usually they shut down the interstate because the visibility is so bad.  We thought they were going too, but then it cleared a bit thank goodness.  The joys of living in the desert!

We arrived in Tucson around 8:00 p.m. Thursday night.  It took us 7 hours, but that included making two stops with the dogs - each stop about 30 minutes).

We checked into our hotel.  We stayed at La Quinta, because they are pet friendly.

It was a brand new hotel, and it was beautiful!

Everything was so nice and clean and new!  There was a free breakfast each morning that included eggs, breakfast meats, waffles, toast, pastries, cereal, oatmeal, etc.  Our room was large (we didn't feel cramped with three adults and three dogs!) and there was plenty of space.

We set up the dog crates right away.

We stacked them to give us more room.  Watson on the bottom, Bella on top.  Hannah did not have to be crated while we were gone at the convention because she is not destructive like the other two can be, ha ha.

Each day over lunch, my mother-in-law and I would come back to the hotel (about a 10 minute drive from the convention center) and take the dogs out to do their business.  

The dogs made themselves at home right away on my mother-in-law's bed.

The weather was decent.  It was hot, but it rained each day and the cloud cover really helped keep the temperatures down.  I loved the rain!  And the palm trees.

The convention was wonderful, of course.  The best one I've ever been too.  I'm still on a spiritual high.  :)

Here's a collage I did on Instagram:

It went sooooo fast.  We left Sunday evening.  After the convention we packed up, loaded up the cars and the dogs and headed home.  Again, the dogs did great.  It took about 7 hours and 15 minutes to get home, stopping twice just like we did on the way out.

It was a very pretty drive home.

We got home at 2:30 a.m. this morning.  I did not go to work today.  I had taken the day off thank goodness.  I am still tired, but I slept until about 11:30 this morning so that helped!

It was a great weekend.  The dogs did well, I really liked Tucson, and the convention was amazing.  

I am by no means an expert on traveling with dogs, but here's what I found most helpful on our trip:

*I brought their toys and blankets that they use and love at home.  I brought their bowls that they use every day, even the place mat that they set on.  Anything that is familiar to them will help them adjust to their new surroundings.

*Gulpys

I found these at Homegoods.  They are portable water bowls.  These were sooooo helpful on the drive.  I filled the water bottles (I got two) before I left and then when we stopped it was so easy to give them each a drink.

*Lysol wipes.  Enough said.

*Nudges Premium Jerky Cuts

These are just dog treats, but when we stopped the dogs weren't all that interested in eating their 'usual' dinner.  So I got these just in case and they were a hit.  They're also made in the U.S.A. which is a MUST if you're buying jerky treats for dogs.  Make sure they are made in the U.S.A. and not anywhere else.

It was a lot of work to bring the dogs, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.  They did not seem stressed out at all and we didn't have to kennel them or worry about them at all.  

It was a great weekend!