diy thursday: how to clean the microwave with vinegar

We don't use our microwave very much and it usually isn't very dirty. A quick wipe down usually does the trick. But the other day our microwave was more dirty than normal so I decided to use a quick trick to easily and effortlessly clean the microwave.

Ingredients

All you need is equal parts water and white distilled vinegar. I used 1/3 cup of each.

 

Directions

Add the water and white distilled vinegar to a microwave safe bowl.

Place the bowl in the microwave and cook on high for about 3 minutes.

When it is done let the bowl sit for another couple of minutes to avoid handling a hot bowl and to let the vinegar steam continue to work on the microwave grime.

After removing the bowl, just wipe down the microwave with a damp rag. You will notice how easily all the grime just wipes away.

This is such an easy and quick solution to an otherwise disagreeable task.

diy thursday: homemade garbage disposal freshener

The garbage disposal can emit some not so lovely odors from old food scraps and residue. In the past I have sometimes bought garbage disposal fresheners/cleaners to help eliminate the smell and these can get quite expensive. I have also sometimes thrown a lemon down the disposal to help freshen the smell, but that requires that I have lemon on hand regularly, which I don't. I found the perfect inexpensive solution - vinegar and lemon ice cubes!

This homemade garbage disposal freshener is super easy to make and inexpensive and completely natural.

Homemade Garbage Disposal Freshener

 

Ingredients

 

Lemon

Distilled White Vinegar

 

 

Directions

 

All you have to do is cut up the lemon.

 

Add a piece of lemon to each ice cube mold.

 

Fill each ice cube with vinegar (don't dilute it)

 

 

 

Freeze the ice cubes.

 

And voila, you have garbage disposal fresheners.

 

When you are ready to use, just take out some ice cubs and dump a couple in the garbage disposal and turn it on.

 

 

 

This is a great non-toxic and natural solution to freshen and clean your garbage disposal. Vinegar  is a great cleaning agent as it breaks down bacteria and dirt. Lemon is a wonderful degreaser and provides a fresh smell.

diy thursday: refrigerator pickles

 

This the season for cucumbers. Our friends' gardens are starting to produce vegetables which is a true feat in the desert of Arizona in my opinion. We therefore received some cucumbers and I decided to make some refrigerator pickles.

 

My husband enjoys pickles so I buy them for him. This year I have tried to not buy items with high fructose corn syrup, which somehow sneaks into everything ... including pickles. Really? It is actually pretty hard to buy pickles that don't have high fructose corn syrup and when you do, it is more expensive. I have been buying some to be nice to Michael, but had decided that I needed to start making my own to save money. Pickling seems like a lot of work and you have to buy canning jars etc. Again, we are trying to save money, so I decided to make refrigerator pickles instead. Refrigerator pickles are super easy, quick and inexpensive to make. To make the project even cheaper, I used old glass jars I had recycled and removed the labels from.

 

 

 

Refrigerator Pickles

 

 

Ingredients

 

 

Brine

1 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar

1 1/2 cups filtered water

4 tsp salt

2 Tbsp sugar

 

Include in each jar

2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved

1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns

1/2 tsp mustard seeds

Dill weed (even though fresh dill would be best)

Cucumbers

 

 

 

Directions

 

Slice the cucumbers. I used a mandolin.



 

 

 

Stir the brine ingredients together in a bowl.

 

 

To each jar, add the garlic, pepper, mustard seeds, and dill. Add the cucumbers last and add a little more dill.

 

 

Fill each jar with the brine. Screw the lids on and let them sit in the refrigerator for at least four days.

 

Enjoy!

diy thursday: natural fruit and veggie cleaner

 

 

As I mentioned in my berry wash post, I use a natural fruit and vegetable cleaner spray that I love. I have used the recipe for years now so I am not sure where I got it from. This spray is all natural, easy, budget friendly and super quick to make. It gets your fruit and veggies with hard skin clean and ready to eat. It helps get rid of the residue (dirt, pesticides etc. I have mentioned we try to buy mostly organic and especially the dirty dozen - check out the list) stuck on the skin of the fruit or veggies.

 

 



 

Ingredients

 

1 cup distilled water

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 Tbs lemon juice or 1/2 a lemon

1 cup distilled white vinegar

 

 

Directions

 

Blend all the ingredients together in a bowl. Add the vinegar last since combining baking soda and vinegar will cause a reaction and the mixture will bubble up. This is also why you don't want to mix the ingredients directly into the spray bottle.

 

 

Once the ingredients have reacted, pour the mixture into a spray bottle using a funnel. Keep the spray bottle nozzle closed when you are not using it since the pressure from the reaction can cause the spray bottle to leak fluid if it isn't closed.

 

When ready to clean your fruits and/or vegetables, first wash them with water and then spray them with the cleaner. Let them sit for about 5- 10 minutes. Rinse them with water and dry them. Now they are clean and ready to be eaten.

 

 

 

 

 

This mixture works great because of the combination of ingredients. Vinegar kills any mold and other bacteria that might be on the surface on the fruits/veggies. When acids like vinegar and lemon are added to baking soda, the reaction helps lift soil. Lemon also is great at killing bacteria. So together they all make a great team.

 

 

 

diy thursday: natural homemade berry wash

 

 

We eat lots of fruits and vegetables. We try to buy organic when possible, at least the dirty dozen. But even if they are organic, they are dirty. Non-organic fruits and veggies of course have many more substances on them such as pesticides and wax.  I have a fabulous fruit and veggie spray that I have been using for years that works really well to remove such things on the skin of fruit and veggies. I will share the spray recipe at a later time, but I wanted to share this super simple way to wash your berries and other soft skinned fruits and veggies. My spray works great on larger fruits and veggies with hard skin such as apples and bell peppers, but it would be a little tedious to use on smaller fruits such as berries.

 

 

 

The recipe is simple. All you need is a bowl of water and distilled white vinegar. Use about 1/2-1cup of vinegar depending on how big your bowl is.

 

After adding the water and vinegar, just dump your berries, in this case strawberries, into the bowl. Give it a swirl and let it soak for about 10 minutes.

The vinegar kills any mold and other bacteria that might be on the surface of the berries.

 

Then pour out the dirty water, rinse the berries with cold water and dry them.

 

 

And voila, they are clean. They will also last much longer.

 

 

diy thursday: natural toilet bowl cleaner

 

 

In my pursuit of natural cleaners on a budget, I set out to find a recipe for homemade natural toilet bowl cleaner ... on a budget. After trying many different recipes, I found this one was the easiest and worked the best.

 

 

Ingredients

2 cups of distilled white vinegar

4-8 drops of tea tree essential oil (or your favorite essential oil)

Baking Soda

 

 

Directions

 

In a spray bottle, mix the vinegar and tea tree oil. Shake.

 

When you are ready to clean the toilet bowl, sprinkle baking soda on the toilet bowl walls.

 

Then spray the vinegar mixture on top of the baking soda.  You may see/hear the baking soda and vinegar reacting.

 

Let it sit for about 10 minutes.

Finally scrub your toilet as you normally do with a toilet brush.

 

And you are done!

 

 

I really like this toilet bowl cleaner because it is easy to make, super cheap, and natural.  It includes my trusted distilled white vinegar which is effective in killing mold, bacteria, and germs.  And as I have mentioned in other posts,  tea tree oil is a natural antibacterial and antifungal essential oil. Baking soda is a mild scouring agent and is great at lifting soil.  Together they make a great team for cleaning the toilet bowl.



diy thurday: natural glass cleaner

 

  

Continuing in my quest to use all natural cleaners, I decided it was time to make a natural glass cleaner. In the past I have tried buying natural glass cleaners, but they leave annoying streaks and aren't cheap. I have tried a mixture of vinegar and water, which has worked better than store bought natural cleaners, but still leave some streaks. But then after some research, I learned that if you add a little cornstarch to the mixture it eliminates streaking. And it works really well!

 

 

Homemade Natural Glass Cleaner

 

 

Ingredients

1 cup distilled water

2 Tbsp distilled white vinegar

2 Tbsp rubbing alcohol

1 1/2 tsp cornstarch

 

 

Directions

 

Add all the ingredients to the spray bottle using a funnel. Shake the bottle and it is ready to use!

The cornstarch will settle at the bottom, so you need to shake the bottle right before you use it.

 

 

 

Enjoy this natural budget friendly streak free glass cleaner.

 

diy thursday: homemade natural dish soap

 

 

 

I finally got around to making my own dish soap. One of the first diy projects I made last year was liquid hand soap and I have really liked it. So now I am finally ready to share the natural soap experience with my dishes.

 

I found a homemade dish soap recipe on Pinterest as always. It is super easy and cheap to make and takes no time. Another thing I liked about this recipe is that it only makes one portion of dish soap instead of a gallon, allowing me to test it out before I make enough to last me the year.
 

 

Ingredients

1/4 cup soap flakes

2 cups distilled water

1 Tbs distilled white vinegar

1 Tbs glycerin

 

 

 
Directions
 

First, grate the soap. You don't have to grate very much to make 1/4 cup.

 

Next pour the distilled water into a pot and then add the grated soap flakes.

Then heat the soap flakes in the water over medium heat stirring and making sure it doesn't boil.

Once the soap flakes have dissolved in the water, add the glycerin.

 

  Pour the soap mixture into a bowl and let it cool off.

 



 

 

When it is a little cooler add the vinegar (do not add vinegar if you used castile soap - see recipe below).

 

Let it cool completely and then add your soap to your dish soap bottle and you are ready to use it!

 

 

Modified recipe if using castile soap

 

As I mentioned in my previous post about making cleaners with castile soap, castile soap and vinegar cancel each other out.
 

I already had a castile bar of soap with citrus which I thought would smell yummy in a dish soap and citrus is a great degreaser so I decided to make a batch of dish soap with it. Knowing I couldn't use distilled white vinegar with the soap flakes, I adjusted the recipe. Instead of vinegar I added 10 drops of tea tree oil which is a natural antibacterial and antifungal essential oil. Otherwise the recipe is the same.

 

 

 

 

The difference between the two dish soaps ....

The dish soap using the castile bar of soap smelled very yummy naturally. It was however a lot thicker than the other dish soap. One of the reasons may be that I noticed the vinegar made the first soap a little thinner after I added it. The castile dish soap consistency was more snotty:) which is a common thing for homemade liquid soaps.  The first dish soap is more runny and thinner than store bought dish soap. Also, some people complain about castile soap leaving a film on their dishes. All in all, both of the dish soaps seemed to clean the dishes which is the idea behind dish soap:)

 

 

The difference between homemade dish soap and store bought dish soap...

As I mentioned above, the consistency of homemade dish soap is different than store bought dish soap which may be hard to get used to.

Another difference is that it doesn't really bubble.

Consistency and bubbles however don't indicate whether something is clean.
It is also a lot cheaper to make your own dish soap than buying natural dish soap.  

So whether or not you use natural homemade dish soap is a matter of preference ...

diy thursday: cleaning the washing machine

 

 

After remedying the smelly towel situation, I decided to go ahead and just clean my top loading washing machine to make sure it wasn't contributing to the problem. I found a solution on pinterest on how to clean your top loader washing machine that worked well.

  



 

 

First I filled the washer with hot water (the hottest water my washer offers). I then added 4 cups of bleach with no detergent.  Then I set it to the longest wash and spin cycle. After a couple of minutes of letting it agitate I stopped the cycle and let it sit for one hour. After one hour of sitting I let the cycle finish.

 

Right after the cycle was finished I filled the washer with hot water again and this time I added 4 cups of my trusted white distilled vinegar (again no detergent or bleach). I repeated the process of setting it to the longest wash and spin cycle, letting it agitate for a couple of minutes, stopping the cycle for an hour, and then letting the cycle finish.

 

During this whole process I also cleaned off the entire washing machine outwardly and its dispensers where the water wouldn't reach to clean.

 

And voila - I now have a clean and sparkling washing machine. 

 

 

 

This is obviously not something you want to do super often as it requires much water etc., but it is a good idea to do once in a while. 

diy thursday: homemade natural all-purpose cleaner (part 2)

 

 

As I have mentioned before, I have been on a quest to make my own natural cleaners this year. The all-purpose cleaner I made earlier this year seemed to work well. I really liked it. The smell was great and it seemed to get things clean.

 

As I have been researching natural homemade cleaners, however,  I have learned that borax and washing soda can be somewhat harsh. I, therefore, decided I wanted to try to make a natural cleaner that didn't include borax and washing soda, but still gets things clean. While I think some cleaning jobs probably require borax and washing soda (and they are better alternatives to their toxic cleaning counterparts), I don't think I need them in an all-purpose cleaner. Researching natural homemade all-purpose cleaners I noticed that most of them include both castile soap and distilled white vinegar; which I thought sounded fine to me. BUT, after doing some further research I realized that since vinegar is an acid and castile soap is a base, they cancel each other out. Not cool. To read more about this go here.

 

Finding an all natural homemade all-purpose cleaner recipe without both castile soap and white vinegar proved very difficult. After much research and leaning on what I have learned thus far,  I finally settled on this concoction.

 

 

Natural Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner

 

 

Ingredients

 

1 cup distilled white vinegar

4 Tbs lemon juice

1 cup filtered warm water

20-30 drops tea tree essential oil

You will also need an empty spray bottle (do not use one that has housed toxic cleaners) and a funnel.




 

Directions

Using a funnel pour all the ingredients into the spray bottle. Shake the bottle to combine all the ingredients, and the cleaner is ready to use.

 

This cleaner is easy to make and doesn't include ingredients that cancel each other out or cause irritation. It includes my trusted distilled white vinegar which is effective in killing mold, bacteria, and germs.  Lemon juice is great degreaser and it smells good. Tea tree oil is a natural antibacterial and antifungal essential oil. To me these are all components that are great to have in an all-purpose cleaner.



 

diy thursday: natural shower head cleaner

 

 

We have hard water so after some time our shower heads get calcium buildup. The solution to get rid of it is super simple and of course involves distilled white vinegar.

 

 

 

 

In order to get rid of the nasty buildup, all I do is fill a little bag with some pure distilled white vinegar and fasten it around the shower head with a rubber band. As soon as the shower head comes in contact with the vinegar the calcium deposits start dissolving. I let it sit for several hours before I remove the bag with the vinegar and the shower head looks as good as new.

 

 

 

I told you - SUPER simple and no scrubbing or anything involved.

 

diy thursday: freshen smelly towels

 

 

The other day I noticed our clean towels were smelling kinda funky after they had just been washed.  Our detergent and dryer sheets are fragrance free because of allergies, but our laundry doesn't usually smell bad after being washed.  I turned to Pinterest for a solution. I found a good link to better smelling towels that was very helpful. The process seemed a little tedious, but it isn't something you have to do often. I have had the towels in question for three years and am just now having an issue.

 

All the solution requires is baking soda and the trusted white vinegar I seem to rely on most of the time.  The process requires two wash cycles.  Both cycles require hot water so make sure your washing machine is set to the hottest water setting. Also, your towels have to be clean before you start the process. After reading a couple of blog posts regarding whether you can include detergent with one of the cycles, they all advised not to because the soap would cancel out the other ingredients. Whatever that means, I decided to follow the instructions.

 

Starting with clean towels, I first washed the towels in hot water with one cup of white vinegar. When that cycle was complete then I started a new cycle, this time with half a cup of baking soda. Once those two cylces were complete I dried the towels. And voila, the smell was gone.

What a great trick. This prolongs the life of the towels as well. The blog post about better smelling towels also indicated this process makes the towels more absorbent. I hadn't noticed my towels were less absorbent, but hey I am ok with making them even more absorbent.

diy thursday: getting rid of underarm smell on clothes

 

 

Staying with the armpit theme from last week, here is a trick I learned a couple of years ago.  Now that I am married, this trick comes in especially handy;)

 

It is a super simple and easy trick that relies on  ... yep, you guessed it, white vinegar. All I do before I wash shirts is squirt the underarms of the shirts with white vinegar.  Then I wash them like normal in the washing machine and voila, no more sweat smell left on the shirt. 

diy thursday: 100% natural ant spray

There is nothing worse than ants in your house. While it doesn't happen often - anytime is too often:) I don't like spraying toxic bug spray inside the house, let alone the kitchen. In an effort to not mix bug spray toxins with the dinner of the day I set out to find a natural solution. A couple of years ago I discovered an inexpensive and completely natural ant repellent - white vinegar. Yes, white vinegar seems to do everything! Ants seem to hate white vinegar. If I see any ants in the kitchen I simply spray vinegar on the ants and they die immediately. Then as a preventative I just spray the countertops with vinegar and they wont come near it.

I thought I would share this simple solution if you didn't already know about it. 

diy thursday: natural drain cleaner

This week our drain started showing signs of draining slower (which could be because of my lovely hair loss over the past year). In our quest to try to use natural cleaners I turned away from buying the usual Drano. Instead, I searched on the lovely Pinterest once again and found this Natural Homemade Drain Cleaner using ingredients I already had at home (yay for saving a trip to the store). All it requires is distilled white vinegar and baking soda. The recipe says to use about a cup of baking soda and half a cup of vinegar. As you may know, together baking soda and vinegar react - so it is best to put the baking soda in the drain first and then add the vinegar. And because of the reaction you need to cover the drain as quickly as possible after you have added the baking soda and vinegar (letting it react in the drain rather than in your tub or sink).

Our drain stopper, however, made it a more difficult to complete this easy task. Our stopper doesn't come out and there is a very small space between the stopper and the drain - so trying to get the baking soda in the drain was a little challenging. I ended up using a little more vinegar than it called for in order to try to get the baking soda down where it needed to be (letting it react a little before I covered the drain). I then waited about 30 minutes and then uncovered the drain and let hot water run through the pipes for a couple of minutes.

Since this venture did not go exactly as planned I didn't have high hopes that it would actually work.  But it did! It worked! I would recommend you trying it as an alternative to using chemicals. If you have a tough clog you may want to repeat the natural homemade drain cleaner an additional time.