Homemade Home By Amanda Blake Soule

I have already blogged about this book before but there are little tips with different sewing projects. I believe that these tips can be easily found on the internet.

All-Purpose Spray
She gives a recipe for about a half gallon mixture but I make small batches in use in a 24 oz spray bottle.
Here is my recipe
2 cups water
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
Then I add 20 drops of lavender oil for a lovely scent

Decoupage Glue
Equal parts of white glue and water. Add more glue or water as needed to create a smooth, paintlike consistency.

Recycling
need to know where to recycle something go to Earth911.com

Ironing Starch
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1 pint of water
1/2 teaspoon vinegar
Dissolve the cornstarch in water. Put the solution inside a spray bottle and shake it throughly before using.

Homemade Diaper Rash Cream ..

My boy gets really bad diaper rashes so I am on the hunt for anything that will help him. I found this blog and I think it will help. We will soon find out because we are currently fighting one.

Go to this blog for the recipe. She is a very much a nature mamma but she writes about many different things. Click here for the link to here

http://www.hippiedippiebebe.com will take you to her main page.

Lotion

A friend and I were chatting on FB about a homemade lotion that she made and loved. I suggested that she post it to her blog so that I could try it. That was a couple of weeks ago and I am just now slowing down to make some while the kids are napping... I am already in love with it...

Here is my friend's blog on how to...

Mother's Day Project

This afternoon, the kids and I are going to start making Mother's Day present. I will not be making mine. I will leave that up to B next week. However, we will start making a total of 5 presents. I wanted to go ahead and post the how to make a homemade paper-mache paste. I got this out of the book "Handmade Home" by Amanda Blake Soule on page 45.

This is what she wrote:
Crafty Tip
Making you own paper-mache paste is economical, easy, and fun. Simply combine 1/2 cup of flour, 2 1/2 cups of water, and a tablespoon of salt in a saucepan. Cook the mixture on medium heat, stirring often, until it forms a gluelike paste (about five minutes). Add one drop of clove oil to prevent the glue from turning molding. Let mixture cool. Stir before using. Unused paste can be stored in a glass jar to be used within seven days.

I will post pictures and explain more of what we did after Mother's Day.

It has been a while...

I have fallen in love with a book called Handmade Home by Amanda Blake Soule. She has lots of homemade cleaning products in the book which I have started using. I will start adding them soon. The book has lots of sewing projects for the family, home, and kids. She has also written a book called The Creative Home which I will be borrowing from the library soon.

My other blog

I have more followers on this one therefore if you check out my other blog, http://colbyrileydesigns.blogspot.com/, you can see what I have done with some things that I have found at thrift stores...

Window Cleaner

I used a small spray bottle of equal parts of water and vinegar. I wipe the windows with a cloth diaper that I have left over from the kids. They are the kind that looks like burp cloths but you can use any kind of cotton cloth. I have heard that you can also use newspaper and it wont leave streaks.

I also use this as a disinfectant.

While talking to a friend this morning, she uses straight vinegar.

Toilet Cleaner

Again this is very cheap and easy.... Sprinkle about 1/4 cup of baking soda in the toilet. Then add either about 1/2 cup of vinegar or lemon juice, I use lemon juice because of lemon smell. Let sit for about 5 minutes, then scrub clean. I use my All-purpose cleaner to wipe around the rim and the rest of the toilet....

Chore Charts

My daughter, who is four has a chore chart that she has to complete daily. Where it has put up silverware, I use it for setting the table. When she finally get a smiley face in all the boxes, I will make her a new dress. I put an X in the box if we are not here to complete the task.


I also have a chore chart for the week. It is broken down by rooms. I basically do a room or an area a day. If I can not do it one day, then I have to make it up at some point before or after. I have left the weekends free so that if we go out of town or do something it does not interfere.



I hope this helps you to be more organized...

Over the past week...

First off, I will go ahead and say this is going to sound really harsh and have been told that by strangers but we live in a house of about 1600 square feet. We have 3 bedrooms and each of those now have a closet (my husband put on in our bedroom last summer). I hope this inspires you to do the same. I did this because I was tired of living with all the possessions we had. I really want to teach my children the value of things without all the "stuff".

Over a week ago, My husband and I cleaned out my daughter's room of everything but furniture. The next day was Saturday which is usually a crazy day around here.. dance class, egg hunt, moving lots of dirt in the backyard, therefore we did not do much cleaning. Sunday was a different story, my husband and I rearranged my daughter's room. Then my daughter (who is four) and I went through each bag that was taken out on Friday and found a home for everything or decided to get rid of it. She loves her room. She now cleans it up, makes her bed, and knows that everything has a home. I took all of her clothes out of her dresser and put everything in her closet. I down sized her clothing. She now has a handful of all types of clothes. All of her toys are now organized. Her dress up stuff is in one drawer of her dresser. Another drawer has four organizers that each have a different type of toy in it. My son's room is now the same as my daughter's except he does not have shelves in the closet therefore his pajamas and socks are in his top drawer, all transportation stuff in another, and blocks in another. I also sorted the kids clothes according to size. I bought 35 quart tubs, put clothes of the same size in one. If the tub was too full, I got rid of clothes. My kids get a good amount of new clothes from relatives, get hand me downs, and I buy or make the fillers, so they are not deprived.

On Monday, I attacked our bedroom. I took the same approach to our room as I did the kids room. I still have a couple of things left to take care of in the room but most of it is sewing stuff that needs to be put up in there home or hung on the wall.

On Tuesday, I hit the kitchen (which is a constant battle) and the living room. All the toys are now upstairs in the kids rooms. They bring toys downstairs but every night, all toys are brought back upstairs to their rooms.

Wednesday, I took the day to go job hunting. During this time, I dropped off a dirty diaper holder, a baby bathtub, and four more garage bags to the consignment. I went the week before to drop off a 45 gallon tub of clothes. I now have about half of another 45 gallon tub waiting to be taken in the fall. My kids had a lot of clothes.

Thursday was the day I was kinda dreading. I went through and sorted my material. I have been down sizing for a while but stored them in card board boxes. Now, I have them in clear plastic containers. All of my prints are now in the china cabinet, which is where I store most of my notions. Everything else is sorted by solids, holiday, dress, knits, trims.... Now I am ready to sew. I did get rid of about 3 garbage bags of material and scrapes to a neighbor who makes quilts and Barbie clothes.

Friday was an errand and fun day. My kids and I did a bunch of errands, then meet a friend for lunch at a local park. We played in the creek and had a blast. At the end I gave her four more bags of clothes and a changing pad.

Today and tomorrow are family days. We have cleaned but it is mostly quick pick ups here and there.

During the week, I came up with a chore chart for me. Instead of cleaning all in day, I broke it up so that I am cleaning a room a day and washing a couple of loads of laundry a day. I will post a copy of it at later day.

I know I did not actually share a trick to save money but by sorting my sewing and selling with the consignment store I will make money. I hope you will consider to consign somewhere.