DIY Cleaning

I've been working on my daughter's room.. I'll have pictures and details soon. I'm not sure how these other bloggers get everything done in just a couple days?! Do they have a crew like Martha Stewart or HGTV? or do they really do it themselves? All I know is that it's taking me time with some fails along the way. ha ha ha

But until I can do the reveal...here is some "recipes" I found for DIY cleaning supplies from a couple sites. I'm gonna try these ASAP!

DIY Dishwasher Soap

http://ladywiththeredrocker.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/diy-dishwasher-detergent
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup citric acid (double if you have hard water) Can use Lemishine found next to the rinse aids at walmart **UPDATE** you can also use 2 small pkg sugear-free lemon kool-aid!!

Mix everything together and store in a plastic container. Use 1 Tablespoon per load.
Use white vinegar in your rinse aid compartment compared to the blue rinse stuff.
If you want to make pellets here's how:

Start with your DIY dishwasher detergent, and put it in a large bowl. Begin spritzing it with water and stirring the water into the detergent. Not too much water, just a little at a time. (If you get the detergent too wet it will go all volcano on you. Trust me… NOT COOL.) Get the detergent just wet enough that when you squeeze it in your hand it starts to stick together, like damp sand.

Then start scooping out 1 Tablespoon mounds. I packed mine into a mini muffin pan lined with coffee filters that I had cut into fourths. I could only fit 20 in the pan (the detergent recipe I use makes about 40 or so), so then, I lined my measuring spoon with a piece of the coffee filter and packed the detergent in to form pre-portioned little mounds in their own little wrappers. Like so…

Let them air dry for about an hour or so, and store them in something with a lid. I just used my old store bought dishwasher-detergent container, and it works well.

DIY Laundry Soap
http://ladywiththeredrocker.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/no-im-not-a-crunchy-granola-kind-of-mom/

You only need three ingredients:

1 cup Borax, 1 cup washing soda (this is different from baking soda), and a bar of soap. (most laundry-soap-maker connoisseurs recommend Fels-Naptha or Zote for the bar of soap, but I do know that some people like to use dove, or ivory because they are a softer soap.)

Here is a picture of what to look for in the store. (’cause I had no idea.)

Here is what you do:

You need to grate your bar of soap.I wanted to be sure that I could wash my stuff on cold, if I wanted, so I also ran the soap in the food processor until it was really fine. ** UPDATE** The bar is really soft and stuck to my blades...so add the dry ingredients and it turns out perfect!! Plus I lOVE this stuff!!

Then you mix 1 cup Borax and 1 cup washing soda with the grated bar of soap and put it in a container.
Mix it all up…and Voila! You have laundry soap!I did 3 batches at once and put it in this 11 cup container, and only filled it half full. The best part is you only use 1 Tbsp per load.

**UPDATE** you can also put 1/2 cup vinegar for  fabric softner!! Works great and clothes DO NOT smell like vinegar lol:)

DIY Febreeze

1/8 cup favorite fabric softener

2 Tablespoons Baking soda

Hot water to fill 32 oz febreeze bottle.

DIY Swiffer Refill

I offer Merwing-Little Dear's super-easy tutorial for making your own Swiffer duster covers! When you're done using them, toss 'em into the laundry! Now you have no excuse for not mopping and dusting! Evil, I know!

You can make them out of fleece blankets from the dollar store, or better yet, microfiber dusting cloths (yes, they sell those at the DS too!).

Happy Cleaning!