i love the quote above. what better advice is there? good reminders for all of us, i think. it was such a busy weekend! i hope you liked my first "open" post about beehive sewing studio + workspace, one of the coolest businesses in my town. the next post (in a series of four to celebrate small business saturday) will be ready soon, but in the meantime, i want to share a few of my favorite home product diy's. they're surprisingly easy to make, and can help your household save money + use products that are more natural, but still super effective. all of these are used on a daily basis in our household, and it feels good to know that we can support ourselves this way rather than rely on a huge corporation for certain cleaning products + home products.
the diy we use most often is a homemade laundry detergent recipe that works better than any storebrought brand i've ever used (results may vary of course). it's a mixture of borax, arm + hammer washing soda (not baking!), and fels-naptha laundry bar soap. get ready to read a ton about borax, by the way. this mineral is a miracle when it comes to natural cleaning, and is also used in cosmetics, enamel glazes, fire retardants, fiberglass, metallurgy, cooking -- basically everything. borax can be produced synthetically, but was first found as a result of evaporation in dry lake beds around the world, and has been used as a cleaning product since...well, cleaning. anyway, yellow brick home's recipe for laundry detergent works amazingly on all our clothes (usually washed in cold water). the fels-naptha (which unfortunately i've only been able to find at wal-mart so far...does anybody have any tips for buying it from a smaller business?) lends the loveliest smell to the laundry while it's washing, and really perfumes our kitchen, but leaves no odor once the clothes have been dried -- a major plus for me. at the end of the day, it's also an incredible savings vs. buying regular detergent.
the laundry was the first thing kristie + i tried in terms of making our own home products. we were so impressed, it inspired the bravery to keep going. next, i noticed how much we were spending on samson's dog treats. and the fewer ingredients we wanted (i.e., the more natural), the more money it cost. thanks to pinterest, i found a recipe for homemade dog treats that looked really easy, especially because we already had all the ingredients. come on ilene's recipe is awesome, and samson loves the cookies. we've been baking these for him instead of buying treats for the past six months or so, and have never looked back. i typically mix up the dough, and then wrap about half of it in saran wrap and stick it in the freezer, since the canister for sam's cookies is only so big (i have to admit i like baking for dogs...they will literally eat anything and don't whine about it! we subbed the beef boullion for vegetable since that's what we had, and got no complaints). these make great gifts for other dog-lovers.
next i found a recipe for general household cleaner...i guess what you would use formula 409 for, or fantastik. you definitely already have the ingredients for this one -- white vinegar, water, baking soda, and liquid dish soap! we use a natural liquid dish soap that smells like lavender, and that was a nice extra touch to the household cleaner. big box even posted a comparison between their recipe and brand name cleaners.
one of my biggest pet peeves is that mildew smell that gets stuck in towels. how awful is it to step out of the shower and grab a towel that's clean, but doesn't smell like it? yuck. huffington post home posted a really easy way to get that smell out, almost for good (i've had to wash the towels this way twice in six months.) all it takes is baking soda, vinegar + regular laundry detergent. we used it with the borax mixture above and it worked great.
here's one i really wish we didn't have to know... samson got fleas last month for the first time (damn you, dog park). i happen to be one of those people that fleas also have a taste for, so both of us were itchy and cranky. we changed up samson's flea prevention, and did a major clean on the house, which involved making our own flea powder thanks to this website. i cut the recipe in half (so 4 cups of borax + 1/2 cup of table salt), and we sprinkled it on the carpets and the mattress, waited awhile, and vaccuumed it up. i'm sure in this case it was the combination of everything we did that got rid of the fleas, but it felt good to incorporate something natural and homemade into that kind of regimen, that's usually pretty chemical-heavy.
i've got a few more diy's on the horizon that i can't wait to try... like room spritz from design*sponge, martha stewart's home remedies for pets, oil reed diffusers from live in art, bath salts from say yes to hoboken, and armelle's bubble solution. i'll certainly let you know how those go.
what are your favorite home product diy's? share a link + we'll add it to our arsenal!
