Home-made Non-Toxic Chemical-Free Unhyphenated-Glue

So sorry about that title - I think I'm funny.

Anyhow I had a craft in mind that was going to call for glue and shocker of shockers I preferred to keep my project as natural and child-safe as I felt I could.

I found this recipe for home-made glue using a simple Google search.

I got all my materials together.

Put the flour into the jar first.

Then water.

Then the sugar and vinegar.

I gave it a good shake but saw there was still a noticable amount of flour at the bottom so I used an iced tea spoon to reach in and stir the rest of the mix.

I tried the glue out and it was a bit watery and didn't seem to be bonding my items at all.

I ended up just using Gorilla Glue to make sure my choking hazard wouldn't be coming off any time soon.

After letting the glue sit for a while the glue would separate so I would just  shake the jar a bit.

After all that work when I began to write my post I realized I spaced out on a pretty important step. I needed to heat the glue. No wonder it wasn't working for me!!!

Make Your Own Liquid Castille Soap

I've gotten to the point where I'm using quite a lot of liquid castille soap and that cost can really add up. Dr. Bonner's bars are cheaper than the liquid soap so I decided to try my hand at that.

I got out my new grater, a bar of Dr. Bonner's, and a bowl. I have no idea why I keep getting out these small bowls, the shavings always end up falling all over the place. Usually I begin over a bowl then remember I need to do it over my "making stuff" bucket.

Anyhow, grate your soap as fine as you dare. The finer the grating the less you need to worry about making sure everything will dissolve into water.

I transferred my shavings to my bucket then added 10 cups of hot water. Then I used my immersion blender to mix everything really well.

Then wait 24 hours.

It will have gelled up similar to how home-made laundry detergent will.

Then use an immersion blender to break it up really well and you're pretty much good to go.

This way your soap comes out a bit thick. So if you want it much closer to the consistency that it comes out of the bottle just add more water until you're happy with the consistency you now have.

I have to be honest, after using this method I still kinda prefer the liquid I buy. I'll just have to keep trying until I get the results I want.

Pintesting - Chemical-Free Body Wash

I was out of the body wash my mother was so kind to buy for me and feeling indignant about buying more. I mean why do that when I could make my own and have a lot more control over what would and would not be in it?

Today's pintest comes via this pin and the info found here.

You will need:

1/2 Gallon distilled water - I'd actually already bought a gallon. Yes, I see how it seems a bit silly to buy distilled water but not body wash.

2 cups grated bar soap - I knew I wanted something organic. I ended up choosing a Nubian Heritage soap because their products are certified organic, contain fair trade ingredients; and are free from parabens, sulfates, phthalates, mineral oil, petrolatum, DEA, PABA, synthetic fragrance, artificial color, and animal testing.

2 tbsp vegetable glycerine oil

I grated my soap and stored it in a Mason jar along with the label from the box so I wouldn't forget what was in the jar or what volume the soap had come in when I'd gotten it.

Melt 2 cups grated soap in 1/2 gallon distilled water

Along with 2TBSP of Vegetable Glycerin oil

I also chose to add a few drops of tamanau oil.

Mix well.

I poured the mixed soap, water, glycerine, and oil into half of a milk jug I had around and used the handle to neatly pour the  body wash into my container.

There was more there than it took to fill my original container so I also called upon a Mason jar to come to my aid.

The mix gelled in about an hour I'd say.

The body wash wash low-lather but definitely did its job. My skin was left soft and clean.

Pintesting - Crunchy Betty's Neosporin

My in-laws have a collection of wood and trash burning stoves around their house and this January my little lamb burned her hand when I wasn't in the room. Because she wasn't wailing and screaming about it my mother-in-law saw no cause for anyone to go get her some burn ointment.

This pin has been on my list for some time now and the burn made me wish I'd already made some of this. The information for this pin came from Crunchy Betty's blog post, "Not Your Mother's Neosporin: Healving Salve for Minor Scrapes and Burns".

At the beginning of the post "Betty" mentions how you could steep your herbs for two to three weeks but that she didn't feel the herbs would really blend well with the solid coconut oil you will be using. I chose to use all the herbs she mentions and boil them together with double the oil. When it came time to strain the herbs I strained everything into one sterilized jar. Marked the top of the liquid. Marked the center of the liquid. Then I poured half of it out to continue on as she explains for the quick brew, but then I put as many of the strained herbs back into my container with my heated oil to see how that may work as far as long-term steeping to get maximum potency of the herbs.

It took me a while to get all of the necessary items to make this in stock around my house.

Pulling everything out is always good but for this I think you should do a little additional prepping. For instance put the herbs you are intending to use in a bowl or something so that you won't have to measure as you're already in progress.

The same really should be said for your bees wax.

While I prepped I also sterilized my containers.

 Alright, you're ready to go now. Take your 1/2 c of coconut oil.

And your 1/2 c of grapeseed oil.

I don't own a proper one so I rigged one of my own by mostly filling a large pot with water.

And then placing a smaller pot inside of it. This creates your necessary double boiler. The smaller pot will be your working pot. Place your oils in there.

On low heat combine your oils with your herbs to infuse the oil with the healing goodness of your herbs.

I also was out of cheesecloth but I did have some undyed, fair trade, organic mesh that I failed at using to make re-usable produce bags. This worked as a great strainer after my 30 minutes of frequent stirring.

Strain your herbs into yet another sterilized container.

Wipe out your working pot, place the strained oil

 back into the pot with your beeswax and heat until the wax has melted.

Once it melted I put everything into my half pint jar, mixed in the honey using the same teaspoon I used to measure it, and then used that teaspoon to put some of the mixture into two other containers.

Instead of standing and doing even more storing I put everything in the freezer. That would be frozen table scraps to compost in the back.

 Ever year my in-laws have a yearly firework war. There's nothing green about this and depending upon what kind of person you are this doesn't even sound like fun. This past year was the first year we bothered to incorporate protective eye-ware - via mandate of my father-in-law. But things like this are the reason I don't think it's such a horrible thing that this made so much Neosporin.

I separated mine into one large container (that's a half-pint jar), and two 2-ounce tins (one for traveling for me and one for a friend.)

I waited the ten minutes and peeked at the "Neosporin" and it didn't seem ready yet so I chose to just get back to it when I felt like it. "Betty" warns against separating with the honey - it seems mine did anyway.

To fix this just reheat until your salve has liquified again.

Then stir, stir, stir, stir to get that honey mixed in better than it previously was.

Six weeks after all of this I made anot her batch using the healing herbs that had been steeping and shaken daily. Despite my best efforts I still ended up with a puddle of honey at the bottom.

Pintest -Chemical-Free Cleaning - Dishwashing Detergent

I do a lot of dishes and when I say a lot I mean I pretty much have to do them every day. Frequently I do more than one load a day. Dish-washing detergent is another one of those extra expenses I've just been living with.

Having long-since switched to an ecologically safe brand I could at least take solace in that fact. Not having to run out and buy more whenever I run out would be even nicer though.

I've tried other pins about making your own dish-washing detergent and have so far been left feeling incredibly unimpressed. This one is supposed to gel - a trait I found promising.

Today's pintest comes via this pin and the info found here.

Bring 8 cups of water to boil.

Turn off heat (I didn't have space to move the pot someplace else) and stir in washing soda, borax, and liquid castille until they dissolve.

 I used a whisk to do this. It dissolved quite quickly.

 Add 8 more cups of water and stir it in.

Pour cooled liquid into container of your choice.

I waited 24 hours for it to "gel" but it didn't look quite right so I waited another 24 hours. My gel was watery in places and chunky in others.

My husband tried it in the dishwasher and it left film all over our dishes.

I decided this may be one of those times where I was best off employing the use of my handy dandy immersion blender. I was really worried it was too late for this batch and that I would have to just try this again and use the immersion blender from the get go.

My first wash with the newly blended dish-washing detergent and a vinegar chaser produce sparkling clean dishes.  My second attempt without the vinegar chaser left me with filmy dishes that I felt needed to be washed again.

Try, try again - I tried one more time but this time again with the vinegar in the jet dry again.

What To Do About A Dishwasher Full of Beeswax Pt. 2

I really wish this didn't have to be a two-parter but sometimes that's just way the beeswax crumbles . . . all. Over. Your. Dishes.

You really can't go on very long with no clean dishes. If nothing else, this kind of mess attracts pests.

We removed all the offending dishes from the dishwasher and set them out to wait while we tried to clean the rest of them.

My husband expressed the completely reasonable concern that we should run the dishwasher with only one dish in it just in case there were gunk left in there. I suggested we run the dishwasher with a cup full of vinegar on the top rack.

This whole thing was so intensely wasteful of water that frankly I'm pretty ashamed and disgusted to admit to and post about my waste.

The next morning I tried boiling those mason jars you see in some water and seeing if they yielded a positive result.

It did not.

In the end every dish had to be scrubbed by hand in the hottest water we could stand. My grater will never be the same . . .

What To Do About A Dishwasher Full of Beeswax Pt. 1

After my recent attempt to make cotton beeswax cloth you may remember I made a little mess of my new food processor. I put it into the dishwasher without a second thought and I really wish I would have thought a few minutes more before I did it.

Wash, after wash, after wash, after wash, after wash and my dishes still looked like this.

I tried my usual seventh generation dishwasher cleaner a couple times.

I tried seventh generation with a white vinegar chaser.

I tried baking soda in the washing compartment and a vinegar chaser.

It still looked bad . . verging on hopeless.

When you search online for ways to clean beeswax off of your dishes you really don't come back with much. This fact is only made worse when you have a dishwasher full of really messed up, beeswax coated dishes.

Eventually I came across a post where a woman mentioned the use of Goo Gone. I don't have any and I don't know a lot of about what's in it. Did I mention it was also snowing?

Alright Pintrest don't fail me now. I looked up DIY Goo Gone, deciding to put whatever I came up with into the dishwasher and hope that I didn't make the problem 917,230,127,471,934,279,842,703,827,598,709,835,709,482 times worse - which at the rate I was going seemed a lock.

The first pin I clicked and began to look at involved vitamin E oil, already having a lot of other uses for my vitamin E oil and preferring not to use it for this until I had to I chose a different one.

This one called for a 1:1 ratio of baking soda and vegetable oil. I knew I had baking soda and was relatively certain that I had vegetable oil. I thought to myself, "I'm DOIN' this!" - not like I felt like I had much other choice at this point.

Things get really serious in my kitchen pretty quickly.

I mixed my 1:1 using the last clean measuring cup I could find.

Mix it well - I only had about 4 spoons left, two of which were absinthe spoons, and another was an iced tea spoon.

Classy right? For anyone interested my absinthe spoons are reproductions of the type Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec used.

I poured approximately 1/3 cup of my goo gone into the washing compartment, turned on my washing machine and hoped my greatest hope that it would work.

After a cycle through the washing machine things were looking a bit cleaner albeit they felt a little oily.

Considering this a good sign I ran it again with my homemade Goo Gone to be followed up with vinegar.

Still oily but everything looked clean enough to clean it the usual way. The result was a bit dissapointing. Still oily, looked cleaner than it all began, but it seemed quite a bit of residue was still there!

I opted to change my game a bit and use this pin which calls to do the same thing as before but uses borax. I put the mixture on the dishes and left it to sit for a little while and then ran the dishwasher with the previous mix.

The dishes were improving but they still weren't coming out as clean as I needed. But after a day of trying to ash them the usual way and without any dish washing detergent and then today I needed a break. I'd have to try again the next day.