Veggie Wash

White vinegar, bet you're saying "Really, another cleaning recipe with vinegar, is she serious?" But yes, yes I am. White vinegar has amazing cleaning and disinfecting properties. Not to mention it's natural so it makes a great veggie wash! All you have to do is mix equal parts water and distilled white vinegar in a spray bottle. Spray on your fruits and veggies, rub, rinse. With soft skinned fruits it's better to soak in a bowl of cleaning solution and rinse. Don't buy expensive veggie wash, try this! It's great! Very economical!

Compost Crackers Fail and Natural Odor Eliminator

Compost Crackers (using pulp from juicing to dehydrate and make crackers)-I've seen others make them but have never actually seen a recipe for them. For as long as we've been juicing I can't believe I've never tried this before! Normally I give the juicing pulp to our chickens...who look at it, and then look at me with a "Pulp again, seriously?" kind of look. The roosters rustle their feathers, coc-a-doodle at me, and get in a fighting stance. So using the pulp for another use would be a blessing to my relationship with our flock! But sadly, they didn't turn out well. After 5 patches (I was doing a juice fast and had a ton of pulp to play with) I finally got a few batches that was thick enough it didn't crumble when you picked it up and even though I heavily seasoned them, they didn't taste very good. All the kids tasted them and spit them out. I took a bite and had a hard time swallowing them. Not to mention, with all these batches in the dehydrator for something like three days straight, the house smelled horrid! I had our air purifier going on high and still the smell knocked you out when you walked in the house. Then sitting at my oldest sons wrestling practice, I could still smell them. My jacket had absorbed the smell. I couldn't even stand to smell myself!!! My jacket is the first thing around the corner from the kitchen, so it got the worst of it. It made me realize how much I love dehydrating fruit and sweet smelling foods, it makes the house smell so nice. So I went on a mission to de-funkify the house. First, I tossed all the crackers outside for the chickens...maybe, just maybe, the won't notice it's pulp in a cracker form =) Then I wiped out the inside of the dehydrator in case there was even one little smelly crumb. Which now brings me to my homemade natural air freshener/odor eliminator. Commercial air fresheners just mask the smell, they don't eliminate it, meanwhile floating all sorts of toxins and chemicals through the air you breathe. A simple combination of water and vinegar will do the trick just fine! Maybe I'll try saving the pulp to try veggie burgers some time, though I'm not super hopefully that will be any good either!

Natural Odor Eliminator-Air Freshener
1 part white vinegar
5 parts water
Spray bottle

Mix the water and vinegar in a spray bottle and spray. That's it! For REALLY tough jobs you can do a 2:1 or 1:1 combination if you wish. For everyday use the 5:1 ratio will work fine.

I also did this:

Natural Kitchen Deodorizer:
Place a pot of water on the stove. For every cup of water you have, put 1 tb of white vinegar in. Cook on medium for about half an hour. Remove from heat and let it sit there. The smell of vinegar will disappear with the food smell. This worked WONDERS in my kitchen to remove the compost cracker smell.

Homemade Natural Carpet Cleaner (Spot Cleaner)

Along with the joys of having a new puppy, there's also housebreaking, and carpet stains...sigh. I've made carpet cleaner for my steam cleaner before, but never actually needed a spot stain-treater (4 kids...amazing huh?) I'm longing for the days when we had a house with all wood floors, boy were those easier to clean up messes on! Puking bug? No problem, wipes right up. Pet accident, no problem. Now...we have carpet. We are currently renting this green-colored-carpet house (I mean like dark green, very dark green, bla) while we are looking for a new house. So trashing the carpet is NOT an option! So not paying for that when we move out. Did I mention that getting a puppy was my idea? I've been begging for a puppy since last spring. What was I thinking? It's freezing outside. So we have to stand outside in the freezing cold and convince this tiny little puppy to go to the bathroom. Who eventually goes...and then comes inside and goes again, sigh. Then there's the weekends when we actually want to sleep in a little....and the little puppy says "NO" (hear: whine, whine, whine, whine, WHINE, WHINE, WHINE) until we get up. When we got the puppy, my sister-in-law said she would rather have twin infants than a puppy. Minus the twins, but I agree that somehow an infant is easier than this puppy. I run around trying to get things done while she's sleeping because I know there's no risk of her pooping behind the couch if she's asleep! Then there's the need to go to bed early, because the dog is already asleep and will be up nice and early. Of course there's meal time. She has to be restrained at meal time or she'll go potty on the carpet or harass us the whole time we're eating! Seriously, it's like having an infant without the joy of having an infant you brought into this world. But she's a sweetheart and will eventually be housebroken. Not to mention she'll get bigger and we'll miss the days when she's this little. As with when a child grows, we won't remember the hard times. Since this spot cleaner works so well, there won't even be any evidence!

Homemade Natural Carpet Cleaner (Spot Cleaner)
You need:
Baking Soda
White Vinegar
An old toothbrush or some kind of scrub brush
That's it!
Mix together a little baking soda and vinegar (how much you need depends on how many stains you have) If you have never mixed baking soda and vinegar together, be WARNED that it fizzes up like crazy, so do the mixing over the sink. Start with a little baking soda in the bowl and pour in a little vinegar at a time while mixing until you have a paste. Rub the paste on to the stain and scrub with toothbrush. Let dry. Rough it up a a bit and then vacuum. With our dark carpet the baking soda left a white mark but with a bit more roughing up it went away, along with the stain.

This is a natural stain remover and deodorizer that is safe to use around kids and pets, not to mention super cheap! As with any cleaner, test a small part of your carpet first. Also keep away from your eyes and face.

Mold and Mildew remover from walls

Since moving to the northeast I have learned that humidity causes mold and mildew on bathrooms walls. Seriously, in Cali that never happened! But here, it's a fact of life. To safely remove from walls, spray the walls with white distilled vinegar or lemon juice and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. Then wipe away with a rag! I actually found it to be good practice as a preventive measure, while cleaning the bathroom I will spray the walls where I know mildew likes to grow with my homemade all purpose  cleaner. When I wash the floor at the end I wipe off the walls too. This will help the mildew from growing in the first place! Happy Safe Cleaning!

Rust remover

For mild rust remover, rub a lemon on the rust and scrub with a scrubby! So easy and safe! For serious rust...hmmm...haven't tackled that yet (maybe you should have tackled it before it got that bad hehe)

Natural drain cleaner

To naturally clean drains...

• Pour about a cup of baking soda into the drain
• Follow with about a cup of white vinegar (Warning, this will fizz up like crazy)
• Wait about ten minutes and pour boiling water down the drain

My favorite cleaner

I will start with my favorite all purpose cleaner.
Fill a spray bottle half-way with white vinegar. Add a ts of borax. A few drops of tea trea oil or orange oil (your choice). Fill the rest of the bottle with water. Great disinfector! And it won't make you lose brain cells while cleaning!