CLOTHSLINE APRON

For a little while now, my two oldest bugs have been learning to sew. Every time we run across material on sale or patterns on sale, we try to get a little. We have accumulated quite a bit of material. Here recently, my second to oldest bug wanted to sew an apron.

We purchased a Simplicity Sew Simple pattern from Walmart months ago and decided it was time to get it out of our pattern box and learn to sew this simple apron.

Here is how it turned out:

I really like the way this looks. It was such a fun project to do with my second to oldest bug. We really had a good time.

Here she is wearing it:

 I said in the beginning of this post that this is a clothesline apron. That's not really the name of the little apron. This is the name girls and I gave it. We are planning to use these little aprons to hold our clothespins while we are hanging our clothes out on the line. The two little pockets on the front hold the clothespins like a charm!

This is a very easy and fun project to do with your "bugs"!

Honey and Lemon Pops

Well, as of yesterday, I have a couple of bugs with sore throats so I decided to make some honey and lemon suckers since one of the bugs is only three years old. I stumbled across a few recipes for this a while back and thought it was time to make some.

Here is how I did it.

1 cup honey (I used local)

2 teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice

Candy Thermometer

 Lollipop Sticks

Non-stick surface

Heat your honey and lemon juice to hard crack stage, stirring constantly. Spoon small amounts onto a non-stick surface, I used my silpat, and add sticks (in my case, I was out of lollipop sticks so I used craft sticks). Let cool.

There are some recipes that call for peppermint oil also. I might try those next!



It is that simple. Homemade, all natural, sore throat soother! Boy how I love to give my family all natural, homemade goodness!

Just another home remedy that is easy to whip up!

                        


Linked up to : Ben and Me, Like a Mustard Seed

                     

Natural Cleaning on the Homestead

We have been making homemade laundry detergent for a while now. I try to use as many natural products as I can. Here are some of our favorite natural products we use around here. Some of these I have been making for a while, others I have yet to try. Just thought I would share some of these recipes for any of you that would like to make your own natural cleaning products but don't know where to start. These are not all of my recipes. I  got my ideas from others! Thanks!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

4 cups hot  water
1 Bar Fels-Naptha Soap
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
5 gallon bucket

Grate your bar of soap and add it to a saucepan with 4 cups of water. Heat and stir until the soap is dissolved. While heating your soap, add your 1 cup washing soda and 1/2 cup borax to your 5 gallon bucket. When your soap has dissolved completely, pour it into your bucket with the powders. Mix really good and then fill the remainder of your bucket with hot tap water to the top. Let sit overnight. It will be a gel the next morning. Stir it up really good before using. I use 1 cup per load in my HE washing machine. It cleans really well. I use a fabric softener with it to make my clothes soft.


Pre-Wash Spray

1/2 cup household ammonia

1/4 cup baking soda

1/2 cup vinegar

1/2 gallon water

Essential oils (optional)

After mixing this solution, put part of it into a small spray bottle to keep handy by the washing machine when doing laundry. Spray liberally onto clothes where needed.

All-Purpose Cleaner

 Fill a spray bottle with 1/3rd vinegar. Top off with water. Add 10 drops of lemon or tea tree oil, 10 drops of GSE (Grapefruit Seed Extract) and 1 teaspoon liquid castile soap.

All-Purpose Cream Cleaner

Mix 1/2 cup baking soda, 1/2 cup castile soap, 10 drops of essential oil together in a container. Great for sinks, bath tubs, etc.

Heavy Duty Degreaser

Mix in a spray bottle, 2-3 Tablespoons vinegar, 1 teaspoon borax and fill almost to the top with hot water and shake. Add 1/2 teaspoon liquid castile soap and 5-10 drops of essential oils with a few drops of GSE. Great for stove tops and ovens.

Toilet Cleaner Spray

Mix 2 cups hot water, 4 tablespoons liquid castile soap, 5 drops each of lemon, tea tree, eucalyptus and GSE. Put in a spray bottle. Also a great cleaner for countertops in the bathrooms.

Toilet Bowl Cleaner

Spray toilet with vinegar and sprinkle it with baking soda. Scrub.

Antibacterial Cleaner

In a spray bottle, mix 1 cup water, 5 drops tea tree oil, 5 drops lemon oil, 5 drops orange oil, 5 drops eucalyptus oil and 10 drops of GSE. Spray onto surfaces and wipe with a damp cloth.

Scouring Powder

Mix 1 cup salt, 1 cup borax and 1 cup baking soda together. Sprinkle onto surface and clean. Just mix equal parts of everything. Can make a big batch and store in an airtight container.

Hope this is helpful !

God Bless!

Homemade Christmas Goodies!

Every year around our home, we make everyone in the family some neat little homemade gifts. This year, so far, we decided to make really good taco seasoning, peppermint bath salts and whipped honey. Here is how we did it!

Peppermint Bath Salts

8 cups Epsom Salt

3 cups sea salt

1/2 tsp. vegetable glycerin

6 - 8 drops peppermint essential oil

1/4 cup dried peppermint leaves (optional)

Mix all ingredients together and put in a jar. We used 1/2 pint jelly jars.

Taco Seasoning

1/2 cup chili powder

1/4 cup onion powder

1/8 cup ground cumin

1 Tablespoon garlic powder

1 Tablespoon paprika

1 Tablespoon sea salt

Mix all ingredients together and put in a container of your choice. We used 1/2 pint jelly jars with this also.

We buy our honey from a local farmer. We had a lot of honey on our shelves so we decided to whip some up and give it as gifts. I took about 1 cup of honey and used my Kitchenaid mixer with the whisk attachment. It only takes a few minutes to make this delicious whipped honey!

These are just a few of the homemade gifts we will be giving for Christmas. The girls and I really  enjoy making these together and giving them to our loved ones.

God Bless!

Dana

Homemade Christmas Ornaments

The day before Thanksgiving we all decided to make these cute Christmas ornaments.

Every month in our homeschool group, the girls and moms get together for the Keepers at Home meeting. Its alot like girl scouts but more Christ-centered. For mothers, I believe its the most important time in our lives, THE most important time God has given us to teach our girls about our Lord Jesus Christ, about one day being a Christian woman and being prepared to be a wife, a mother, and how to manage a home. Being a "keeper at home" is a very enjoyable, sometimes hard and very worthwhile job.

A few weeks ago, I was suppose to teach the girls something new at our meeting and our whole family came down with a stomach bug and we had to cancel. So, the other day, we decided to make these little ornaments for our family to enjoy for Christmas this year. We gave each grandmother, aunt and great-grandmother one. They are really easy to make. We came across the idea in this Martha Stewart Christmas Book entitled "Parties and Projects for the Holidays".

In the book, they didn't make these gumdrop ornaments, they made a gumdrop ball into a gumdrop topiary. We decided to make the gumdrop balls and turn them into gumdrop Christmas ornaments. Here is how we did it.

You will need a 2" styrofoam ball, or whatever size styrofoam ball you want your ornaments to be, small gumdrop candies, toothpicks, ribbon and a hot glue gun.

First, cut your ribbon the length you want your ornaments to hang. If using them on your Christmas tree, I would cut them no less them six inches in length. If you want to use them as decorations, I would cut the ribbon alot longer. 

Take your styrofoam ball and punch a small hole in it big enough to glue your ribbon. We put the hot glue into the hole first (do this fast because the glue will start melting the styrofoam) and then we folded our ribbon in half and stuck it down in the hole with a toothpick so it would stick to the glue. Once your glue has dried, start breaking your toothpicks in half and poke the pointed ends into the foam; push small gumdrops onto exposed ends. Your ornament is complete once you cover the whole styrofoam ball.

Let me know if you try these cute ornaments and how it went. If you blog and have pictures, post your link so we can see how yours turned out.

Dana

HOMEMADE HOUSEHOLD GOODIES!

All day today I have been catching up on washing clothes,folding clothes and putting away clothes. I am sure everyone loves to do the same. I realized this morning that we are very, very low on our homemade washing detergent. We usually make this detergent about every two months. We have been making homemade detergent for some time now. The recipe we use came out of the Duggars book entitled "The Duggars: 20 and Counting!" As agreed with the Duggars, this laundry detergent saves a huge amount of money. There are seven of us so, as you can imagine, we have lots and lots of laundry to keep up with.

Not everyone will like homemade laundry detergent as it is a watery gel that produces very low suds. It doesn't have a refreshing smell like the store bought brands but we add essential oils to the finished product to give it a nice, clean smell. We usually use Lemon grass essential oil. We have also in the past used Lemon, Tangerine and Orange oils. The ingredients for this detergent is available in the laundry section at most supermarkets. We have found all of them available at Walmart and Kroger.

1 Fels Naptha soap bar, grated
1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax

Grate the soap into a small saucepan. Cover it with hot water and cook it over medium-low heat, stirring continually, until the soap is completely dissolved.

Put washing soda and borax in a 5-gallon bucket. Pour in the melted, hot soap mixture and stir well, until all the powder is dissolved. Fill the bucket to the top with more hot tap water. Stir and cover securely, and let sit overnight. The next morning, stir the mixture. It will be gel. This will be the time you want to add your essential oils. After stirring the gel mixture, add your oils and stir to combine.

For top-loading machines: Use about a cup of the soap mixture per load.
For front-loading machines: Use about 1/3 cup of the soap mixture per load.


We also make homemade Pre-Wash Spray:

1/2 cup household ammonia
1/4 cup baking soda
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 gallon water
Essential oils (optional)

Mix all of the ingredients together and put the mixture into a small spray bottle and spray liberally onto clothes where needed.