give a “green” Christmas gift this year

Ok, as promised, here’s a little post about the Green Christmas Gifts that I gave to friends and family last year.

It gets harder and harder each year to think of something original to give to family and friends, and I have to admit, the commercialism of Christmas, and the unnecessary buying, and the waste that goes along with the holidays can kind of put a damper on what it’s all about for me.  Last year, I decided to “go green” with my gifts, and give things that I knew people would use and appreciate, things that were easy on the environment, and that would save my loved ones a little bit of cash-o-la in the months that follow.

I started by making a 5 gallon batch of my homemade laundry detergent, and  everyone got a nice big jug or two of this awesome, natural, low-sudsing stuff.  Save your juice/milk and laundry detergent jugs now, if you’re planning to give this away.  (A SUPER easy way to remove the labels from your jugs is to blast them with the heat from your blow-dryer, while slowly peeling them off).

The recipe for my laundry soap is super-simple, and can be found here.  You can whip up a batch his in less time than it takes to run out and buy some, and a 5 gallon batch can be made for pennies.  Think of how long 5 gallons of laundry soap will last for!  I love this detergent for so many reasons.  A: it’s easy on the environment, B: it’s excellent for people with allergies and skin sensitivities, C: you’ll never run out of laundry detergent again, and D: you’ll be saving a TON of money.

I’m a huge fan of cleaning my home with environmentally friendly and natural products.  They not only are they easy on the earth, eliminating chemicals in the home means better air quality, and over-all better safety and health for humans and pets.   The cost-savings is a huge bonus as well. So along with the laundry detergent, I gave a shaker filled with Baking Soda (for scrubbing sinks, tubs, toilets and even grass/laundry stains when spritzed with a bit of vinegar).

A spray bottle filled with vinegar and water is excellent for cleaning kitchen surfaces, windows and glass. I’m sure you’ve heard about the many uses of vinegar.  If not, this is a great article to start with.  Vinegar is my go to cleaning product for everything: windows, glass, sinks, counters, floors etc.  I even use it as a rinse agent in my dishwasher and as fabric softener in my washing machine.   It. is. magic.

I LOVE my swiffer, but I didn’t love the expense and waste associated with commercial swiffer cloths, so I found an easy to knit pattern and made a bunch knitted swiffer cloths, and tucked one or two in with each “green gift”.  You can just give them a shake outside, when they get dusty, or when necessary, toss them into the laundry to give them a good cleaning.

A few homemade Christmas ornaments are a nice touch.  I made these by cutting stars out of corrugated cardboard, and wrapping them with wool.  

Each green gift also included a package of CFL bulbs and a power-bar.  Power bars are great for plugging the t.v. and its components into, or the computer and its components, but if you make it a power-bar with a timer, and your recipient won’t even have to worry about turning the bar off at night.  It will take care of itself.

Lastly, I tucked in a couple of bars of natural soaps from a health food shop, and a bottle of Martha Stewart’s eco-friendly Dish and Hand soap, which I picked up when it was on sale.

Package these items all together in a pretty basket or a cloth bag, and you have a really thoughtful, earth-friendly Christmas gift, that doesn’t break the bank.  I had a ton of fun putting these together last year, and felt a real sense of satisfaction knowing that I was giving something that would be appreciated and put to good use.

I hope this inspires you to give a little “green” this Christmas!  I’d love to hear about it, if it has.  Get creative!  And free to share your ideas and pictures on my facebook page anytime!  Or to include your links in a comment here on my blog.

Merry Christmas!!  :)

Home Made Laundry Detergent (for top load or front load washer)

I’m a huge fan of anything that will save me a buck, save a trip to the grocery store, and help the planet in some small way, so when I learned that I could make my own laundry detergent in less time than it takes to go out  and buy a jug of it, I was definitely up for giving it a try.

The most challenging part of the recipe is finding a 5 gallon bucket with a lid.  My hubby brought mine home from work, but I’ve been told that the  bulk stores and, a friend said she gets them for $2.50 at Wine-Making places.  Paint stores or hardware stores likely have them too.  With a sharpie, I make a line on the outside of the bucket at the 2.5 and 5 gallon marks to eliminate the need to measure when I’m filling it.

You need only 3 ingredients for this detergent.  Borax, Arm & Hammer Washing Soda and a bar of soap.  I went out and bought this stuff and the grand total came to about 12 dollars.  But you only use a little bit of each for one batch of detergent.  After 10 months of using my detergent, supplying some daycare families, and some of my friends and family,  I’ve hardly put a dent in my ingredients. I figure I have enough Borax and Washing Soda to see make detergent for another year or two – for TWELVE BUCKS!!

I’m posting the recipe for a full batch, but I only ever make 1/2 batch at a time.  That way it doesn’t slosh over the top of the bucket when I move it, or dip in to re-fill a container.

Ok, here it is! * I’ll just mention now that I use Ivory bar soap in mine but you can use any mild bar soap, or a bar of laundry soap such as sunlight bar soap, fels naptha etc.

HOMEMADE LAUNDRY SOAP  use 1/4 cup for front loader & 1/2 cup for top loader

1 bar Ivory Soap (original, not olive oil or anything fancy), grated 

1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (found in your grocer’s LAUNDRY aisle)

1 cup Borax (also found in laundry aisle)

.

This is what the Washing Soda (not to be confused with baking soda) & Borax look like. (you can see I’ve written the recipe for the soap on the Arm and Hammer box – kinda handy to have it there).

Grate the bar of Ivory (I use my cheese grater), and put it in a pot with about 4 cups of water.  No need to be exact with the water, you’ll be adding lots more in a few minutes.

Heat over medium-high, stirring until soap has melted. (I wouldn’t recommend bringing it to a boil – soapy boil-overs are slick and messy to clean up – not that I’m speaking from experience or anything).

Pour melted mixture into your bucket and add Washing Soda and Borax.  Give it a good stir to dissolve those powders.

Fill to 5 gallon mark with hot water.   Give another good stir, and now with the lid OFF the bucket, let it sit for a min of 12 hours.

****YOU NOW HAVE HALF-STRENGTH DETERGENT***

Now you’re going to find yourself an old laundry jug, or juice jug and HALF FILL it with your detergent.

Fill the rest of jug with water, allowing some air space so you can give it a good shake before using.

I find my detergent can take up to 24 hours to “set up”, so that’s how long I ignore it for.  Sometimes I put the lid on while it sits, sometimes I don’t.  Results are different every single time.  Sometimes it gels up, and gets really thick.  Sometimes it’s thinner with blobs of gel in it, other times it’s super watery with a curdled look to it.  Don’t worry about how it looks.  Seriously!  All the essential ingredients are in there so it’s going to do the job.

Over time it tends to gel and separate, so be sure to give it a good shake before each use.

This soap is very LOW SUDSING; don’t be alarmed when you don’t see a lot of bubbling action.  Not to worry: sudsing agents are apparently only added to commercial detergents so they look all soapy-sudsy-fantastic, when in truth, they’re not necessary for getting clothes clean.

And there you go….you’re now doing your laundry for pennies a load.  You’ll spend less in a year than you used to spend in a month, when it comes to your laundry.  Who doesn’t love that?  Another awesome way to save is to switch to vinegar instead of commercial fabric softener.  Commercial softeners contain many hazardous chemicals that coat the fibres in your clothing.  There is a real health risk as we constantly breathe in these chemicals.  Do some googling about the toxic risk of fabric softeners, and that alone may be enough to make you want to switch to vinegar.  It is a natural fabric softener, is safe for your family, and costs significantly less than commercial softeners.  And don’t worry, your clothes will not smell like vinegar!

There…you just saved even more money!  Aren’t you glad you dropped by today.

If you liked this thrifty post, you’ll probably like this one too!