A few favorite recipes for the home

I came across a few fabulous recipes lately and am having fun trying them out and tweaking them. Because I always do! I have three blogs I'm really enjoying.  Thank your body and Maria's self and Being Frugal by Choice.


And then I've been devouring Robin's blog over at Thank your body.  I can't wait to make the dishwasher detergent and when my laundry detergent is empty try her Borax Free Laundry Detergent. I also want to make up some Natural Hair spray Key ingredient- sugar. We will see how that goes. I'm a leeettle bit nervous about bees, but she says she hasn't had a problem. I will trust her and report back :)

At Maria's self,  I made the toilet bombs and I pinned the Homemade Christmas spray for next year. I love fake trees, can't stand no smell and WILL NOT use the fake sprays.  She has a bunch of fun recipes on her blog I can't wait to try.

I loved the  Homemade shower disks in From Sarah at Being Frugal by Choice I can't wait to try her water Kefir recipe. I have my grains and am ready to get started. And I've also been having fun getting my January mantle up! Yes a bit late, but it will be fabulous and totally ready for Jan 1 next year! The kids and I are crafting our way to a beauty! I hope to have that post up shortly complete with pictures! Enjoy!

Dairy free Healthy Chocolate syrup for Dang good Chocolate Milk (Hot or cold)

We've recently re-discovered chocolate milk!! We found a choclate recipe we love over at Penniless Parenting.   I tweaked it a bit to our tastes. This was too dark chocolate tasting for us, so I added a bit more honey. Another recipe I used was too sweet. I can't seem to find the very first one I found that was perfection. Sigh! Need to save that link before I try something JUST IN CASE it's a winner :) Oh well live and learn. In the mean time my  kids are in heaven trying out different chocolate recipes- And I am in heaven because my house is clean. I am a mean mom and when they ask for Chocolate milk ( a TOTAL treat at our house) I say yes as soon as  (fill in the blank with the messiest room) is clean. They sigh and moan a bit and then get to it so they can have this delicious chocolatey treat ASAP! I'm loving my tidy house and they chocolate milk too. It's a toss up which I enjoy more though :) I AM loving that this recipe is totally healthy AND that I can pronounce EVERY ingredient AND  have them all in my cupboard!
 Here you go!

1 cup local honey- give or take. Make it to your taste buds approval. Local is good but raw not necessary because its going to come to a boil and you will kill the good raw honey properties. But if all you have is raw honey- use it :)
1 cup of water.  This made it super thick. Next time I will use more water.
1 cup cocoa powder
2 pinches of salt
1/8 tsp vanilla (optional- I didn't use it. I'm all about simplicity- and my store bought vanilla is missing and my homemade is still brewing. I gave it all away and didn't keep the finished for myself- what was I thinking :) I need to be more Scrooge-like next time I guess!!  )

Mix it all up in a pot and bring it to a boil. Make sure there are no clumps. Store it in a mason jar and wah-lah ready to go! I doubled this recipe and it fit in a quart mason jar.
Enjoy it wil your favorite milk (cow, goat, coconut, rice, hemp, almond or whatever you have in your fridge at the moment! :)

Powdered DIY Laundry Detergent Recipe for Hard Water

Laundry soap is very personal and depends on the type of water you have. I've tried several kinds ofver the years and I either had to use too much or it didn't continue to work on our clothes for a longer period of time. I love this powder. Super simple to mix together, no boiling and no grating. I'm all for ease! There is quite a bit of powder kick back into the air, so you might want to wear a mask and not have the littles nearby when you are dumping the ingredients into your bucket.Our water is pretty hard and since we are on public water so there is some chlorine in the water- which bleaches out the whites more than on a well. This is a the recipe I am trying out. It wad to to me by a friend. I'm not sure where she got it. If it looks familiar to you I'd love to give credit where credit is due.  I've been using it for 3 weeks and it's been great in our hard water so far.So far we've used I've filled my 16 oz jar 3 times. We still have A LOT in the frosting bucket (not sure if it's a 2 or 3 gallon bucket). Will we keep to this recipe?? I don't know.  I think it takes 2-3 months to really find out if the detergent is a keeper and if it keeps the white clean looking and smelling and leaves no build up.

As far as cost I'm not sure how much this cost me, since I had quite a few of the ingredients. I'm thinking it was around $22. We have no dollar stores that carry Oxiclean like some of my friends do in other areas. SO if you can get your Oxiclean cheaper or get your Epsom salts at Costco it would save you money. Still $22 for potentially 3-6 months detergent is a great deal. We'll see how long it actually lasts us. I do a lot of laundry. 2 loads a day M-F and 1 on Sat. If you don't wash that much then yours will last longer. I'm super excited that this is working in our hard water!! Fingers crossed that it's good long term!!!  I did tweaked it a bit- more Borax and more Epsom salts. They are both water softeners and we have really hard water and no softener. Here it is:
Hard water powder detergent:
1 1/2 boxes Borax ( 76 ounces each)
1 & 1/2 box Washing Soda ( 55 ounces each)
2 cups of baking soda
1 largest you can find containers of any Oxiclean (I used the big box at target that is around $12- think it’s 128 oz?)
2 1/2 bags Epsom salts (64 ounces each) (Costco- drug stores have them but the cheapest I found was Costco)
Essential oil  (I used 30 drops of lemon)

Add the Essential oil  directly to the salt prior to mixing salt into laundry mix. Mix it all together and use 2 Tablespoons for each load. The Oxiclean came with a scoop that was ever so slightly bigger than 2 scoops- so that's what we use.
I store it in a Frosting bucket I got for free for the asking from the bakery at a grocery store. I put half the contents in the bucket and rolled it around and then added the rest of the contents in layers and rolled it around.

Hope that helps you with your laundry dilemma!!!

Sewing weights DIY

I am so of proud of this project! Fast and easy and done! I had seen this idea on Pinterest here and thought that using weights instead of pins would help a ton decrease my sewing time and increase my desire to sew. I like the sewing part and the finished product in sewing. The cutting is necessary, the pinning is a necessary evil in my mind.
When I had a sudden need to go to the Hardware store to grab a part for the toilet, I saw the washers nuts and grabbed them  I bought 8 for $4. I bought the largest they had!  If you got them used at a yard sale or had them around, this could be a free project.

nuts + scrap fabric + glue = new fabric weights for $4.00 out of our pocket :)
I made double the fabric weights for HALF the price amazon is charging! Their price is $10.5 for 4!
Amazon price per weight- $2.71
My price per weight- $0.50
Savings of $2.21!!

I may grab some more next time I'm at the hardware store- occasionally I am short a few, or transferring them from one pattern piece to the next. I love their usefulness and how fast they went together! The tutorial I linked above has you glue them with hot glue on the inside before and after I did see the need to do it int he beginning- just tucked it in and  I haven't gotten there yet for the end and they work just fine! I'm sure next time I pull out the glue gun, I will get it done.
Fast, cheap and useful! Yay!

Willow