Welcome to the March 2013 Natural Living Blog Carnival: Naturally Spring Cleaning.
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Natural Living Blog Carnival hosted by Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project through the Green Moms Network. This month our carnival participants have written posts about how they keep their homes clean - naturally.
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When we moved into our home last July, I expected we would need to clean every surface top to bottom. What I didn't expect was that we actually were moving into a spotlessly clean home, filled with remnant gallons of chemical-ridden cleaners.Under every sink and in every closet there was a bottle of ammonia-based cleaner or bleach! This place was filled with stinky, yucky stuff...but boy was it clean.
Knowing I wanted to keep the home as clean as possible, I considered just using the cleaners that were left for us. I hate to waste anything, and there were gallons of these cleaners!
However, the universe had other ideas. I immediately got pregnant and knew using any and all chemicals to clean was not a possibility.
My trusty friend Pinterest never leads me astray and taught me how many ways three simple ingredients can clean a home. Vinegar, baking soda and citrus fruit.
I started small, by soaking clementine peels in vinegar for a few weeks and making my own multipurpose cleaner for sinks and counters.
From there, I realized I could use old newspapers with the multipurpose cleaner to keep windows and mirrors spotless.
When I refinished my childhood desk, painting it red from white, not only did Princess step through the red paint and trek it up our staircase (with ivory carpeting), but Hubs accidentally followed suit and drug the red paint through our home as well.
How do you get red paint out of ivory carpet? Baking soda, vinegar and a lot of scrubbing.
You can imagine when it comes to spring cleaning, especially since we are prepping for little Billy's arrival in a mere seven weeks, I will use my three trusty ingredients: vinegar, baking soda and citrus fruit!
I buy everything in bulk, so Costco saves the day yet again with bulk lemons, white vinegar and thirteen pound bags of baking soda. I can get a lot of cleaning done for pennies!!
From sinks to faucets to toilets to tubs, with these three ingredients, some reusable rags and a little elbow grease I can get anything clean.
What's your spring cleaning secret?
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Visit Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project to learn more about participating in next month’s Natural Living Blog Carnival!
Please take some time to enjoy the posts our other carnival participants have contributed:
I use baking soda and vinegar all the time too! I want to infuse my vinegar with citrus instead of adding essential oils - I just keep forgetting to save the peels!
ReplyDeleteYeah! I never seem to get to Whole Foods or the Vitamin Shop for essential oils so I love just using the peels since we get those "Cuties" from Costco every few weeks anyway. Healthy and delicious snack, plus the peels power our vinegar! Keep a mason jar on the counter and toss peels in as you go - that's what we do!
DeleteCongrats on your new baby on the way. Oh my, so glad you were able to get the red paint out naturally!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much!!! Believe me, my heart skipped a beat when I had finished getting the doggie prints out and saw Hubs accidentally trekked it in behind her as well. I couldn't believe just BS & vinegar worked!! Hallelujah.
DeleteI hate to be super out of the know, but how do you do the peels? Do you put them in the ginormous bottle and the divvy it out into spray bottles? Thanks for the tips!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the question - I like to keep a large mason jar filled w/ vinegar on the counter so every time I have an orange or clementine I toss the peel into the jar. This keeps the vinegar steeping until I need to refill my spray bottles. I use a 50/50 ratio of orange vinegar to water :)
DeleteI so need to go to Costco now!
ReplyDelete