DIY Window Cleaning Solution

It's the third Monday in June, that means I'm sharing our DIY recipe for the month! I've been using this recipe for DIY Window Cleaning Solution for many years now- in fact, I think it's superior to the stuff you can buy and it's easy to make! In less than 5 minutes and with only three ingredients, you can make DIY Glass Cleaner yourself.

Easy DIY Spray Starch & $200 Giveaway

I partnered with several bloggers and coupons.com to bring you a simple home care recipe AND a $200 Giveaway!! I love to live healthily, but I hate a bunch of extra work to make that happen. Do you know what I mean? I want living well to be effortless, and I believe DIY cleaning recipes are. By the time you go to the store and buy a cleaner, you could have made your own and used it! 

DIY All-Natural, All-Purpose Cleaner

Green! Green! Green! 

That's what this world is boiling down too! And thank goodness for that, tomorrow is St. Patrick's day and I don't want to get pinched. So here's the deal, I find St. Patrick's day incredibly amusing. As many of you know, I'm from New England and we LOVE St. Patrick's day! 

We have a huge parade, we die the bay green, we wear funny green hats, we chase leprechauns, we find pots of gold at the end of rainbows. We pretty much roll out the green rug and give green hugs. 

DIY Air Freshener Replacement

As many of you know I am a full-time MBA program and I have recently invented a wood stain. I've decided to start posting more of those adventures so this will be the beginning of my business world. I'll begin with what my product is. My product is incredibly unique. You take normal looking wood, dip and let it dry. Once it dries it has an incredible weathered drift reclaimed look.

Super Easy & Amazing DIY Laundry Detergent

Holy freaking crap! Did you know you can save a butt load of dough mixing a few ingredients with your laundry detergent? Oh yeah, it's true girl friends! There are a few things in this world that make me laugh just like the Pillsbury dough boy-- and numero uno is saving dough! 

DIY Dove Body Wash

Hello DIY land! Today I honor Dove (No, this is not a paid post.) Dove is a product that you can shape, mold, scrape, suds, wear, tear, sculpt, and do pretty much anything you like with. Today, I honor you, great white bar of Dove. I have heard you pleas of loneliness and I have answered with a companion. I call it, body wash and here is its ode. 

DIY Soft Scrub

Today I'm sharing my all time favorite DIY recipe. It just felt like that sort of day- the day I bestow upon you the biggest cleaning gem in my DIY All Natural Cleaning Product jewelry box. Are you ready for it? I know you're sitting there, reading this in your PJs, while you sip your mornin cup of jo, and all of a sudden, BAM! You had no idea you were about to be so lucky!  So get ready, this will change you're life!

DIY Fabric Softener Recipe & Printable

Hola, my earth friendly DIY'ers! After inventing an all natural wood stain, I started thinking about other products I could improve upon, things that would be kinder to Mother Earth. Here in Utah, we suffer with hard water issues because our H20 is way mineral rich. When I lived in Boston, laundry detergent was a constant source of grey water. 

➷ DIY OxyClean Recipe + Printable Recipe & Label ➹

Yo! My husband was watching Rocky last night and saying, "Yo Adrianne!" over and over again, repeatedly. I'm not sure why, but anytime he gets into one of "those 'key word' moods," as he calls them, I buy everything he sells. 

When he gets and my throat is dry, I shout, "Yo! Rocky, I'm thirsty," and he gets me water. If I'm up and he shouts, "Yo Adrianne, I'm hungry!" I get him food. I imagine if anyone were to walk in on this spectacle, they would laugh themselves silly! Or they may be just incredibly confused. A little while back, Zack got me watching that commercial where the guy is interviewing for a job and has a stain on his shirt. If you haven't seen it, well you should!

This one is also super funny too- seriously,

->> don't worry, this all comes together in a minute.

Anyways, whenever we go out to eat Zackers has a this confounded way of getting something on his shirt every. single. time. I don't know how he manages to do it?? But it's so frequent, now he bends the shirt and makes the stain scream-talk while he talks to me. It's super funny! But when we get home, that stain has got to come out. 

I know many of you probably use OxyClean, but at the rate I use the stuff I needed to make my own. Did you know you could do that? 

All you need is a 4 things, which you most likely have at your home.  

▲  Materials ▲  ↴

 ➲ Hydrogen Peroxide ⫿ ➲ Baking Soda or Washing Soda ⫿ ➲ Water ⫿ ➲ Spray Bottle

▲  Tools ▲  ↴

⫿ ➲ Measuring Cup, Whisk

And no this is not a paid post for either Tide or Arm and Hammer- that's just what we're using today, promise. 

I've written up the formula for you a few ways, on a pic so you can pin it or whatever you need. I also gave you a digital copy of the label I made and use. Just drag it onto your desktop, or go ▻ here to download it. I added the recipe right to it, that way I can remember what I need, without pulling open the computer.

Once you have everything, just mix it up. I used a whisk this last time and I liked how it turned out to I added that to your list. All you do is combine all three wet ingredients very well. I read that washing soda does a better job on laundry due to a higher pH or something. I just baking soda because I have like 9 million and 3 of them in the house. 

The ingredients will look something like this, with a little more bubbling in real life. But you get my drift. You can use this mixture as a laundry pre-treater or just add it to a load. Just use a couple tablespoons for pretreating stains, like Zack's shirts, and add a cup of DIY OxyClean to each load. I usually make a couple batches of this stuff at once, cause around here, we need it!

I added links to some of my similar posts, in case you're looking to make more of your own Cleaning Products or maybe just want more Free Printables!

▲ For more Printables  ↴  ▲

 ▵▲▵

▲ & For more Cleaning Supply Recipes ↴  ▲

 ▵▲▵

▲▵▲

Here's the recap- an easy peasy way to DIY a cleaner ->

Tell me, do you have the same troubles with stains?  Does your husband repeat movie catch phrases until he gets you to say them?

Cleaning Supply Recipes & Printable Labels

This would be the 3rd post with all-natural, homemade cleaning supply recipes. But this time, I'm also posting a collection of downloadable labels for them. {yay} If you missed the other cleaning suply posts, you should definitely check the out. I posted quite a few recipes for all types of cleaners. You can click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

For the first label source, head over to Making Chicken Salad and grab these cuties for glass cleaner, soft scrub, counter cleaner, and powder cleaner. She even provides you with recipes for these four cleaners, but hopefully you've been grabbing the ones I've been posting and will only need the one for soft scrub. Here's my soft scrub recipe and she has another option posted!

Soft Scrub for Fixtures:

• ½ c. Baking Soda

• Castile Soap
• 10 drops of Antibacterial Essential Oil (optional)

Add enough Castile soap until you have a frosting-like consistency
Scrub, then rinse with water

I have to say these labels from Vinnie Pearce are my personal favorite. I heart them and will printing these off pronto! 

From this site you get labels for all purpose cleaner and carpet refresher- perfect to go with the recipes I've already given you. But I snagged this recipe for lemon dusters, from Wendy at Wendyl's Green Goddess, I wanted to make sure you guys had one handy.

Lemon Dusters 

• 1/2 c. Water
•  1/2 c. White Vinegar
• 3-4 Lemons 
• 6 drops Lemon Essential Oil
• 6-8 pieces of Cloth to be used for dusting

Mix equal parts water and white vinegar in a bowl

Add essential oil a and soak dusters until they're damp 

Peel the rind of lemons and lay a few on each piece of cloth

Roll clothes lengthwise then roll that into a ball

Use as needed

How cute are these next labels?! They are from the unceasingly creative Martha Stewart. 

Are you surprised? You should have all the recipes you need for this one, especially with the clever- but vague- label titles.

I really like these labels- my only wish would be more of them! I bet you could print some blank ones and write in your own name. We have the Darling Octopus to thank for these guys.

Next we have laundry soap labels from Yum Universe. These are fantastically cute AND she offers them to us in 12 colors! Count them, 12! Uhh, thank you! I know I gave you guys a recipe or two for dry laundry soap, but in order to do these cute labels justice I thought I'd share my liquid detergent recipe as well. Be warned! It is not as easy as the other one!

Liquid Landry Detergent

• 3 pints Water
• 1/3 bar Fels Naptha Soap {grated}
• ½ c. Washing Soda
• ½ c. Borax
• 2 gallon bucket
• 1 quart hot Water

Mix soap in saucepan with 3 pints of water. Heat on low until dissolved. 
Stir in soda and borax until thickened. 
Remove from heat. Add 1 quart hot water to bucket, then soap mixture, mix well. 
Fill rest of bucket with hot water, mix and let sit for 24 hours. Use ½ c. per laundry load.

 

These next ones are not a download (*darn). But they are just lovely! So, for all those of you out there who own Cricuts, and the like, now you have some inspiration! Get on it and make your labels!

I'm pretty sure this goes to show our labels can be cute, even if they're just on cleaning supplies. I for one enjoy looking at beautiful things, even when it's while reaching for the toilet bowl cleaner...in fact, maybe a little but more then!

Make sure you check out my other posts, so you can bulk up your cleaning supply recipe lists!

 Check your basic supplies out here.

Add to your list here.

Cleaning Thirft Store Lampshades

Today's post is featuring adventures in decontaminating cleaning thrift store lampshades! I have been sitting on several lamps that need major makeovers- but the weather is REFUSING to COOPERATE! 

I haven't been able to spray paint a thing for a WEEK!

Since I plan to remake several lamps, for two of them I thought it would be interesting to buy thrift store lampshades and try to clean them. I found some fabric lampshades to go with the bases. One looks pretty cheap- like a Walmart shade or something, and the other is a Restoration Hardware find, yay!. They both have visible stains/dirt and I can recover them if need be- but wanted to explore cleaning methods first.

HOW TO

1.] To clean a lampshade you should start with vacuuming it or wiping it with a dry cloth. Since these shades were visibly dirty I skipped the first choice and started with the next safest for fabric.

2.] You can mix some water and dish washing detergent in a 1:4 ratio with an egg beater until foam forms.  FYI- If your shade is silk the Internet says only to use Dreft or Ivory Snow, not dish soap. Apply foam to the whole shade and wipe with a clean cloth. If you only wet part there may be some fabric discoloration. This method is perfect for delicate materials and for shades that have glued on trim which will not hold up to water.

This probably would have worked for a shade that is lightly soiled. Something that hasn't been dusted regularly (or ever like my home!) and maybe some of the dust has ingrained into the fabric. If that method doesn't work you want to go extreme!

3.] Fill the bathtub with water and some dish soap and DUNK the shade making sure it is fully submerged each time. Don't leave the shade in the water! Pull it out and use a cloth to work the soap into the shade, especially any stains! You can then hang it to dry on the shower rod.

I washed the Restoration Hardware shade first and my experience was that this shade held up to the water well. It could easily withstand the washing. I dunked it quite a few times and worked soapy water all over the fabric. It turned out looking pretty good.

The cheaper shade had a much lower water tolerance. I dunked it about the same amount of times and then tried to scrub it but it had pulled in too much water too quickly. I let it sit to dry out but it was too far gone and the form was ruined. I would suggest scrubbing the highly soiled areas and then dunking the shade only once or at most twice if it's of a poorer quality.

So, umm-you can see the results for yourself. Here's an updated image of the lampshade today- if you want to know how to recover a lampshade, check it out! Hope this helps you guys!

- Becca
  Linked up here.

Homemade Cleaning Supply Recipes ▻ Part 2

I received a ton of hits on the homemade cleaning supplies and I'm stoked people are so interested! So today I'm posting additional recipes that people have asked for. As I previously mentioned here these are recipes I've either discovered for myself or collected off the Internet over the years.

I love making my own products for several reasons:

1) They're cost efficient.

2) I never run out because I keep all the basic supplies stocked up and they're always on hand to make another batch.

3) You know exactly what cleaning products you have in your home and they all ALL NATURAL & NON-TOXIC!

4)They work as well, if not better, as the "real" cleaning products.

 

 

All-Purpose Abrasive Cleaner

Liquid Castile Soap

2 tbsp. Baking Soda

Apply liquid soap until a foamy paste is formed.

All-Purpose Carpet Cleaner

1st- Vacuum...Then clean with:

3 cups Boiling Water mixed with

1 cup White Vinegar

Depending on degree of soiled carpet- either blot or scrub the mixture into the carpet. 

Air dry and vacuum again.

Drain Cleaner

1st-  Pour 1 cup of Baking Soda down your drain

2nd- Pour 1 cup of White Vinegar down the drain

Drain will FOAM- let sit for 5-10 minutes

3rd- Pour a gallon of BOILING WATER down the Drain

Refrigerator Cleaner

1 qt Warm Water

2 tbsp Baking Soda

Wipe down the inside of the fridge then rinse with a clean cloth.

 

Oven Cleaner

Wet the oven

Sprinkle Baking Soda Generously 

Let sit in the oven for 30 min and then scrub off.

Microwave Cleaner

2 cups of Water

1/2 cup White Vinegar

Heat in a microwave safe bowl for 3 minutes, then wipe down microwave.

Tub & Tile Cleaner

Apply White Vinegar to a Sponge

Use Baking Soda to Scour

Fruit & Vegetable Wash

1 cup Water

Small Spray Bottle

1 1/2 tbsp Baking Soda

1 1/2 tbsp Lemon Juice

Spray on produce, let sit, then rinse off.

Mildew & Germ Cleaner

Small Spray Bottle

2 parts Water

1 part Hydrogen Peroxide

Spray on mildew, let it sit and rinse off after 1 hr.

Don't miss my other posts for all your cleaning basics- 
right here:

Here:

And Here:

I hope these recipes make your lives easier and your homes cleaner! Have a happy day!