Homemade Clorox Clean Wipes

A few months ago I was researching homemade cleaning wipes for my kitchen and bathroom, and I ran across several recipes for them.  The first was from Instructables - How to make your own (cheap and green) cleaning wipes and the other one was from One Good Thing by Jillee's Homemade Clorox Wipes.  I liked the idea of being able to clean my counters and table without throwing away wipes every time.

One Good Thing by Jillee's Homemade Clorox Wipes uses rags, and I did not have any rags around so I kept looking for different ideas.  I then came across the idea at Instructables - How to make your own (cheap and green) cleaning wipes which uses Mr. Clean Wipes.  The store had Handi Wipes on sale, so that was great and then I also found Fabuloso in a Citrus and Fruit Scent, which I love.  At that point I had what I needed to make my own Homemade Clorox Wipes.  I found that the directions from Instructables used too much Fabuloso for the wipes.  It was too soapy and took too long to rinse off of my counters and tables.  So I cut the soap to water ratio.

Here are the directions for:

Homemade Cloxox Clean Wipes

Ingredients:

1/4 cup Fabuloso ( any scent that you like, I like the Citrus and Fruit Scent)
1 cup water
2 6packs of Handi Wipes
Old Clorox Wipes container

Directions

Cut your Handi Wipes in half width wise rather then lengthwise.

Next lay first wipe flat and then lay the next wipe over the left 1/2 of the first wipe.  Fold the single half of the first wipe over the first half of the second wipe.  Then lay a third wipe over the right half of the second wipe ( so it is on top of the first wipe also).  Fold like previously and keep going until all of your wipes are folded.

Next roll your wipes up so that they fit in your old clorox wipes container.  You can trim them down if necessary to fit in your container.  Make sure to pull the very center sheet up to start your wipes.

Then mix the Fabuloso and water and pour over your wipes inside the container. 

I then turn the container shake the container several times, so that all of the cleaning mix gets absorbed into the wipes.

Next use as you would your usual wipes.  You should have 24 wipes.

After I use them, I just rinse the wipe and let it dry.  I then put it in my laundry, and I have a basket on top of my dryer to put them in until I make my next batch.

Let me know what you think of these wipes.  I try not to use chemicals in my cleaning supplies, but I have not found something that is chemical free yet, that I like as much as this.  When I do I will post an update.

Enjoy!!!
Debi
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DIY Laundry Detergent

Today I am going to share a recipe for DIY Laundry Detergent from Busy At Home's - DIY Laundry Detergent.  This is the 2nd batch that I have made, and I love this stuff.  It is just as good as Tide, and works great in my HE washing machine.  This is a recipe that I highly recommend.  So here goes.

DIY Laundry Detergent

  
Ingredients:

1/4 bar Fels Naptha Soap
2 TBL Borax Powder
1/4 cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda (not baking soda)

Directions:

Cut your bar of Fels Naptha Soap into quarters, and save 3 of the quarters for future batches.  Grate 1/4 bar of the Fels Naptha.


Heat 1 cup of water in a pan on the stove and add the Fels Naptha soap.  Stir constantly until the soap dissolves.  I use a whisk.  It will get foamy on top, but you can use a large spoon or ladle to look at the water / soap mixture to see if it has totally dissolved.  Just try to get the mixture without the foam.  It took me about 10 to 15 minutes with the water lightly boiling.

Once the soap has dissolved turn off the heat and add the borax and washing soda, and whisk together well.  Make sure that there are no lumps.  It will be thick, but I found that it is easier to do it this way, then the to add it after after you add the additional water.  The recipe at Busy At Home tells you add them once you add the additional water, but I found that it was harder to get rid of the clumps that way.

Next put this mixture in a bucket and add 10 cups of water.  Whisk together well.  Then add another 10 cups of water.  Cover the bucket or put in a container with a lid and let sit overnight.

The next day stir well again.  It will have thickened up overnight.  Then pour this mixture into containers, and only fill containers half full.  Then fill the next half of the containers with water.  Shake well to mix detergent.  I have used different containers and they all seem to work well.  I have an old tide bottle that I use, but I have also used 1 gallon empty water jugs, and also large juice containers.  I save empty containers, because I never know what I am going to need them for.

My suggestion is to shake the bottles before each use, so that you do not get lumps.  Otherwise, use as you would any other laundry detergent.  I use about 1/4 cup or a little less per load. 

Makes approximately 2 1/2 gallons of laundry detergent.

I hope you like this recipe.  It is amazingly easy.  Let me know if you like this recipe.  I would love to hear from you.

Enjoy!!!
Debi

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DIY Dish Soap - Flop

My Flop

Now is the time to show one of my flops.  We all have them every once in a while.  Well this is certainly mine.

I have been making the Homemade Liquid Dish Soap - Frugally Sustainable, and it does work.  I would just prefer to make it a little thicker.

This is what I have been having a hard time with.  I have been using and tweaking this recipe for some time, and I thought I finally had it.  I dissolved 3 additional tablespoons of Dr Bonner's castille soap in this last batch.  It was finally thicker, but, and here is the big but, after it cooled it separated.  So now I have white soap floating in my dish soap.

Oh well,  I will keep trying to make a thicker dish soap, but in the meantime the Homemade Liquid Dish Soap from Frugally Sustainable is a really great recipe.

Tell me if you have the secret to making a thicker liquid dish soap.  I would love to hear your solutions to this problem.

Enjoy!!!

Debi
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Natural Lemon Oil - Furniture Oil

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to let everyone know that I am reading everyones' messages, but since I am traveling I will not be able to respond until after I am home.  Thank you for all of your wonderful comments.
Cyber hugs to all.
Debi


When I was making my Natural Furniture Polish Spray last week, I also decided that I needed to make a Natural Lemon Oil for my furniture.  I live in Colorado and it is really dry, so a lot of our antiques need to be oiled, not just polished.  Otherwise, they get really dry and the finish will crack.

When I was researching furniture oil the majority of them have olive oil or mineral oil, which is fine, but I also wanted to add jojoba oil for it absorption qualities.  I will also add my old standby of tea tree oil for its antibacterial qualities.

Natural Lemon Oil

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup jojoba oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
10 drops tea tree oil
10 drops lemon essential oil.

Pour all ingredients into a squirt bottle, and shake well.  Use as you would any other type of furniture oil.

Lemon Oil Finished

 

The table to the right is with nothing done, the center table has some  oil on it, and the table to the right has the bottom left corner oiled.  There is a marked improvement in the wood.  I think the oil had done a great job.  After I took the picture, I finished the table.  It looks great.

Let me know what you think.  Have you made your own furniture oil?  What recipe did you use?  I would love to hear from you.

Enjoy!!!
Debi

Homemade Furniture Spray Polish

In my quest for  a chemical free home,  I am making my own homemade Pledge.  I did some research, and decided that I was going to mix a couple of recipes together.  So here it is, my Homemade Furniture Spray Polish.

 Ingredients:

1 cup olive oil
1 cup water
1/2 cup lemon juice
10 drops tea tree oil
5 drips lemon essential oil

Cut Lemons

Olive Oil and Water

Fresh Lemon Juice & Olive Oil and Water

Put all ingredients in a spray bottle and shake before each use.  I have added tea tree oil and lemon essential oil for their antibacterial qualities.  I figure with all of the animals in my house I wanted to make sure that the furniture is really clean.

Unpolished Table

Homemade Furniture Spray Polish on Table

Polished Table

Let me know what you think of this furniture polish.  It seems to work well on my dining room table.  I would love to hear from you.

Enjoy!!!
Debi

Natural Swiffer Floor Cleaner and Wood Floor Cleaner

Wood Floor Cleaner Ingredients

I came home from my daughter's house last Friday with several new tasks for myself.  She was out of Swiffer refillable spray for cleaning her floors.  This presented me with a challenge.  You see I have told my family that as they start running out of cleaning supplies do not replace the cleaning product.  The challenge is to see if I can make it myself, and to make it all natural and safe for the environment.  This is especially important for my daughter, because she has an auto immune disorder which chemicals and certain foods cause flareups.  We normally buy green cleaning products, which are very expensive.  In these difficult financial times, I am trying to make as much as possible to help save money for all of us.  That is why I will try my best to only give recipes for natural beauty products and cleaning supplies on this blog.

Now,  we have all wood floors in our home, and we are only supposed to use vinegar and water on the floors, but that is not as great at cleaning the linoleum at my daughter's.  I also wanted to try to kick up the anti-bacterial and disinfecting qualities, because our family is very big on pets, so I wanted to make sure the the floors were getting as clean as possible.  So, at this point I decided that I was going to use some Dr. Bonner's Baby-Mild Castille Soap, Tea Tree oil, and Lemon Essential oil.   I figured that would be great for her linoleum floors, but I did not want to use the soap for our wood floors.  I decided to make the wood floor cleaner without the Dr. Bonner's, but still wanted to kick up the disinfecting qualities with the tea tree oil and the lemon essential oil.

I mixed up several batches of the wood floor cleaner, and it worked great.  I put it in a small quart  sized bottle with a small mouth, that way I could pour small amounts.  I did not want to soak my wood floors.  This worked great.  Since it is concentrated I could just pour a small amount on the floor, mop, and then go and rinse the mop.  My floors looked beautiful.  I also made a batch for my son, and put it in an old squirt bottle.

For my daughter, I mixed up a batch of this recipe for Homemade Swiffer Cleaner Spray, and I put it in a spray bottle.  That way she could just spray it on her floor, and then use her Swiffer to mop it up.  This apparently worked great on her floor.  So TAH-DAH, here are the two recipes.

Homemade Swiffer Floor Cleaner Spray

Print Screen

1 cup vinegar

2 oz Dr Bonner’s Baby Mild Castille Soap

3 cups water

10 drops tea tree oil

10 drops lemon essential oil

Mix all ingredients together in a spray bottle and spray on floor and use your mop or swiffer to clean, rinse the mop and move on to the next area.

Homemade Wood Floor Cleaner

Print Screen

1 cup vinegar

3 cups water

10 drops tea tree oil

10 drops lemon essential oil

Mix all ingredients together in a container and pour on floor and mop as usual.

This was so easy to make and use.  I did not need to use a lot, since it is pretty concentrated.  I maybe used about 1/2 cup on my first floor, and mopped about 900 square feet, so it goes a long way.  It also left a great citrusy ( probably not a word according to my spell checker ) smell, which I like much better then the smell of the plain vinegar and water mixture.

I hope that these DIY solutions work for you.  I would love to hear from you.  I am always open to suggestions or a better idea.  So let me know what you think and how it works for you.

As always, Enjoy.

Debi

How to Unclog Your Drain Without Chemicals

I just watched this video about how to unclog your drain without chemicals.  I just tried it on my slow drainging bathtub.  It worked.  I use so many oils in my bath products that it causes a build up in my drain.  This just cleaned out my drain and now the water drains much faster.  I am posting a link to a video of Julie Edelman's video of how to do it. 

Ingredients:
Baking Soda
Vinegar
Boiling Water

Pour Baking Soda down drain, add vinegar.  When it stops foaming, pour boiling down the drain and presto it is cleaned out. 

What a great helpful hint!!!  Love That!!!

Julie Edelman's video on how to unclog your drain without harmful chemicals

Natural Cleaning Product Recipe Links

 I have come to love reading blogs.  I have favorite blogs that I read all of the time.  I wait impatiently for them to post their next blog, because they are so full of wonderful hints and recipes for everything from laundry detergent to coconut shampoo.  Now I am sure you are saying, really, this girl must have nothing else to do with her time, but I can guarantee you that my time is pretty full. 

I can tell you that they all inspire me.  Whether it is to do something for the community  or find something beautiful to read in The Bible like the blog Thoughts by Natalie http://thoughtsbynatalie.blogspot.com/, or making Jillee's Oxykleen from One Good Thing by Jillee http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/05/my-top-ten-favorite-homemade-cleaners.html,  I am most certainly always inspired. 

Today I am going to show how the blog One Good Thing by Jillee helped me to organize my laundry room.  Her pictures are always so pretty.  Then, when I am done, I am going to post a list of links to some of these sites.  I hope that you will explore them and let me know what you think.

Laundry room washer, dryer, and storage shelf


I, of course, did not think about taking a before picture.  Seems like I am always doing that.  Before cleaning this room I had all of the laundry products on the other side of the room around the sink, and towels and one of the baskets on the washer and dryer.  I also had a box of things the clean the lint from the dryer on top of the rack along one of the baskets. 



Laundry room sink area all cleaned up

The jar that is on top of the washer is full of Washing Soda, so that I can easily make Jillee's OxyKleen,
which I absolutely love.  The stuff works wonders.  I had a set of white sheets that were several years old and starting to grey.  I used Jillee's OxyKleen recipe and they are now white like snow.  It is amazing.

Here is a list of a few of the websites that I go to to find new things to make to help clean my house.  I hope that you find them useful also.

A Delightful Home

One Good Thing by Jillee

Frugal Granola