Homemade Baby Wipe Solution

This is a recipe you can use with cloth wipes, or make your own disposable wipes with it and paper towels or something similar. It works great!

2 cups purified water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons baby soap (such as Burts Bees or Dr Bronners works well too)

or

2 cups purified water
2 tablespoons olive oil (etc)
several drops tea tree essential oil

I mix the ingredients together in my squirty bottle (an old seventh generation dish soap bottle) and shake. So simple and easy. I know what is in it, and what is going on my baby's skin. Just shake before use, and squirt onto cloth wipes. You can also pour it over your wipes/paper towels in an old wipe tub, dispensing as needed. Just be sure to check for mold often.
I also found this website, that I thought had some fun wipe solution ideas: http://www.zany-zebra.com/cloth-wipe-solution.shtml

Have fun experimenting with essential oils!

Homemade Laudry Soap

My experimenting lately has been with personal care and home care products. I got this fabulous Dr. Bronner's soap, and this is just one of the zillion things you can do with it. I love the way it smells! (I used the almond scented soap)

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Recipe adapted from Green Clean by Linda Hunter

1 cup castile liquid soap (Dr. Bronner’s or Mountain Rose Herbs are good choices as they are organic and main ingredients are coconut oil & olive oil) OR Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds
2 cups water
1/3 cup salt
1 cup baking soda or washing soda
vinegar

Warm the salt and baking soda in water until mostly dissolved. Transfer to a one gallon container. Add your soap fill the rest of the jar with water, this giving you 1 gallon of detergent. Use 1/4 -1/2 cup per load, depending upon how dirty the load is. Add a tablespoon or two of vinegar to your wash during the rinse cycle. This works as an effective fabric softener and disinfectant. Depending upon the hardness of your water, you may want to decrease the water quantity or increase the soap quantity.

Please note: do not add essential oils to your detergent. These oils will break down the fiber in your clothing. If you want a particular fragrance, try putting a few drops of essential oils on a rag and throwing it in the dryer. This will add fragrance but not transfer to your clothing.

Review: This recipe does clean very well, although I was not impressed by the cleaning job it did on my cloth diapers. Hard to give an exact price calculation on this one, but I figured this recipe makes enough detergent for 64 loads (at 1/4 cup per load) and with the ingredients costing no more than $4.00 (on the generous side), your total cost is most likely less than $0.06 per load

Dana's notes: I got this from passionatehomemaking.com and I happen to think it works just fine on my cloth diapers. :)

Homemade Toothpaste

Yes, I said it- Homemade toothpaste! Buying fluoride free toothpaste can be expensive. We ran out, and I realized after looking at this recipe that I already had all of the ingredients. So I gave it a try. For a homemade toothpaste, it's not half bad! Give it a try. And just a tip, xylitol is a great sweetener for toothpaste, because it is actually really good for your teeth anyway!

http://www.oldpathsfamilyfarm.net/blog/2008/04/04/yummy-homemade-toothpaste/

So you can use stevia or xylitol...

Good for you for giving it a try! ;)

PESTO!

Fresh Basil Pesto Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup pine nuts or walnuts (I used walnuts)
  
• 3 medium sized garlic cloves
  
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

1 Combine the basil in with the pine nuts, pulse a few times in a food processor. (If you are using walnuts instead of pine nuts and they are not already chopped, pulse them a few times first, before adding the basil.) Add the garlic, pulse a few times more.

2 Slowly add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Stop to scrape down the sides of the food processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

Makes 1 cup.

Serve with pasta, or over baked potatoes, or spread over toasted baguette slices. Yummy!