DIY mouthwash

I wrote this post this morning and when I was all done I touched the button Publish and something happened and my post got erased!! And I was not happy to say the least:-)
But here I am again so today I will tell you all,about my mouthwash I made last night.. It is super good and tasty too.
I will write about the benefits of the spices I used to make this super smell good mouthwash..

 Cinnamon improves taste and aroma, in addition to being antimicrobial and a modest pain reliever. The inner bark is the part of the plant from which either the powder or the more concentrated oil is derived, and is the only part approved for use as a medicinal herb by the prestigious German Commission E. 

Cinnamon has properties that are antimicrobial, antiviral, antifungal, and slightly anesthetic, which can be beneficial for sore tissues. The oil and bark have been traditional folk remedies for many years. For example, the oil was listed as part of the household inventory of herbal medicines in 1834 of Maryland's Homewood House, built by one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. It has historically been used to numb teeth and gums, including the gums of teething infants.

Cinnamon is also considered one of the most concentrated sources of antioxidants.

Clove:

The reason clove is helpful to oral pain and disease is because it is an antiseptic, antifungal, antibacterial and anesthetic. Over the centuries clove was often used for pain relief and infection control during oral procedures. Clove has a numbing affect that eases pain, and it's other properties can help prevent or even reverse infection or soreness.

So lets get on with our mouthwash :

• 2 tsp cinnamon 
• 2 tsp clove
• 1 tsp nutmeg 
• 1cup vodka
• 1 cup boiling water
• 2 tsp stevia( optional) I didn't use it in mine I like the taste of the spices as they are.
• I empty clean bottle

So you boil your water and add your spices , give a nice stir with a spoon and  now you will have to leave them to soak for about 4 hours or overnight. When the time is up you use a sieve and strain out the water, add the vodka and stevia if using and transfer the mouthwash to a clean bottle .. 

To use: Poor about 1/4 off the mouthwash to your cup and 1/2 of water , swish it in your mouth spit out and repeat until all the mixture is done from the cup .

You will have a fresh clean mouth ,breath that smells good and a bacteria free mouth.. You will feel a tinkling in your mouth but that is just the mouthwash working and killing the nasty little bacteria in your mouth.. If you feel you want it stronger add more mouthwash or less for weaker one..

Hope you try this out .. Have a good day:-)

Laundry detergent borax free..

I ran out off my borax and I needed to do the laundry today as I have piles of dirty stinky cloths to wash.. So until my borax arrives in the mail I made a liquid Landry detergent that doesn't use BORAX.. This would make it easy for people that can't get a hold of borax and its super cheap ..
This is a little bit  more time consipuming but it turned out well..  I filled up 4 litters with this recipe and one cup extra.. So to will need.:

• I cup baking soda
• I green soap grated   that is 2cups( found in the laundry isle) or 2 cups grated Castile soap.
• 4 liters water
• 1 cup water
• Essential oils ( I used , pergamont ,tea tree) 40 drops of pergamont and 10 of tea tree
• I 4 liter container
• 1 large pot

So you crate your soap and place 2 cups of it in a pot, my soap made exactly 2 cups grated  soap.

Add the one cup water and heat up and whisk while the soap dissolves and melts, when its all melted add the baking soda and whisk well, add the 4 liters off water and mix very very well. Transfer the mixture in your container and add the essential oils. 

Use 1 cup to you load and shake well before using each time..

Easy as pie .. 

Painting with spices..

We had a fun afternoon yesterday , we were on our afternoon walks with our bikes and dogs and my eldest had an idea to paint with flowers. So we collected what flowers we found , and it was a limited selection since now is autumn and there are loads of fields around us and not so many flowers. We found orange , red ,pink ones and some purple ones from our garden. We got home and placed them in to boiling water to get the color our of them.. The flowers we found were on shrubs.. I read that poppies are great for red , daisies for yellow and some other spring flowers.. However we tried and didn't get the strong desired color that we were looking for.. 

So then I had the idea to try out spices , I know this was done in the olden days with added egg yolk to make vibrant colors.. . So I got out my beet root powder ,cinnamon , cocoa, turmeric.. We mixed them with some hot water and white vinigar to make our paints.. I tell you our kitchen smelled wonderful ..
We got some paper and paint brushes a glass of water to clean out each color and we started painting.. The colors were so vibrant and earthy and the paintings turned out so great..
Kids loved every minute of this activity and wanted more and more paper to create more paintings.. We spend an hour painting and mixing colors in to get new shades..
We let our painting  dry and then went back to look at them and talk about what we had painted, the paints were autumn colors and shades so the kids based the paintings on Autumn , leafes , trees and wind.. I hope you try this out it is worth every minute and try with other spices and herbs to get more colors.. I used what I had and the turn out was excellent .. I will say that when paintings dry they do go a deeper not so vibrant color..
Have a great day..

 The windy trees

Autumn storm

Autumn leaf collection 

 The golden pirate ship

The autumn tree

The golden flower

Our paints

An autumn tree..

Making butter at home!!

For our activity yesterday afternoon we made  home made butter and bread.. We had made jam (jelly) the day before so it went very well together.. I will share that recipe in another post..
So for the butter!! Well if your doing it with kids then you do it manually, kids get to see what is happening with the cream when shaken for a looooong time.. This takes some arm muscle here, you get a very good arm workout. You could explain how the cream turns to butter, when the water separates from the fat .
Now I do this in the stand up mixer normally if I want to make butter and the kids don't feel like getting some exercise done, you could make it with any kind if mixer , just mix until it turns to cream and then mix more until the fat separates from the water, this water is the buttercream ..You could use this for making pancakes, cakes, bread ,scones and many others recipes..

So what we did is this:
I pored cream in jars with lids, you might want to use plastic ones for this project as mine dropped it many times on the floor with over excitement :-)
So you fill it half way through ,you need to give it some space to be shaken, and then just shake like your life depends on it. SHAKE SHAKE.. Soon it will turn to cream and it will feel like its not shaking anymore but don't stop shake a bit longer ( much) and it will soon make the sound of shaking   Water and slush like sound.. The longer you shake it will turn to a mild light yellow ,off white color..
Now you open your lid and poor out your buttermilk and save it in an other clean jar.. Scoop out the butter in a cheese cloth and wash it in cold water, do not wash it with hot as this will melt the butter and all will be for nothing.. And trust me after all that shaking workout you don't want to do that..
When your done washing  squeeze  the access water out and put it in a clean jar. If you like your butter salted then add some salt mix and store in the refrigerator ...
Follow the same steps if using a stand up mixer ...

 The finished butter

What it's looked like half way through.

Hope you try this out ...have a great day !!!!

Dairy free ,refined sugar free,egg free coconut cookies...

This recipe turned out really yummy, I do admit I made the recipe up my self ..  This uses no butter no eggs no milk..
The ingredients you will need:

1. 1 . 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour sifted
2. 1/2 cups of oats
3. 1/4 cups of oat flour
4. 1 tsp baking soda or baking powder
5. 1 cup of unrefined organic sugar fine or brown sugar if you like
6. 2 medium sized ripe bananas
7. 1/2 cup coconut oil ,(I use raw virgin ..)
8. 4 tbsp of kefir ,orange juice or coconut milk..( I used kefir)
9. 3 tbsp of pumpkin seeds
10. 3 tbsp of raisins 
11. 1 tsp vanilla optional

Turn oven to preheat on 150 degrees Celsius
Mash your 2 ripe bananas in your blender add them to a big bowl , add your sugar and mix well with a whisk, add your vanilla if using . I didn't use my stand up mixer for these ones.
Add your  coconut oil and mix well until all combined in too nice creamy consistency , sift your flour and mix ,sift your oat flour ,your baking soda and mix again , at this point you would like to switch to a fork.. Add in your oats ,raisins ,pumpkins seeds.   Mix well and add your kefir.. Now you don't want these to be dry if they are add a little bit more kefir until you could pick up the mixture with a spoon and roll it with your hands..
When all is done scoop out and roll in to ping pom ball sized balls.. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place your ball on the sheet, press with your palm to flatten them..
When your cookie dough is done and you have all of your cookies in the sheet put them in the oven and turn oven on to 185 Celsius . Cook until edges are golden brown, around 15 minutes..
You could now lick your spoon and bowl and wait.. You could eat these raw too since the aren't any eggs..  Leave them out on the counter to cool down and store them in an airtight container..

PS you could try to use one cup of Agave syrup   You might ought to use more flour though.. I haven't done this so I don't know how they will turn out.. Good luck..

Recycled pink pig

Make a little pink pig with things in your recycling box

We used a old tissue box tea light foils, yogurt container, toilet tubes,paper tape,acrylic paints.

Assemble your pig putting all the parts together and paper taping them in place, the tissue box will be the body ,the yogurt container the snout the tea light foils the eyes and 2 toilet tubes cut in half the legs.

Stick them all in place then cover the whole thing in tape.. Cover until the whole thing is all covered nicely ,this will make it easier to get a smooth finish when you paint it..

 Choose a color that you like and paint it all up, we did a red like pink color and made ours a pirate pig..  Have fun...

Diy book sling

Check out the tutorial on how to make a book sling, book slings are convenient for little kids bedrooms , they can choose the books they want to read for that week from the big book self and take them to there rooms. Easy to get out and put back in and it also looks cool. They can be ideal in next to there beds or in a reading corner..

Here's is the how to:
PS if you are like me and sawing is not your strong point, I use a good fabric adhesive ,or those iron on strips. You could get these at stores that sell stuff for sawing ,knitting and trimmings .  I get mine online..ikea also sells the webbing fabric iron on adhesive ..you could get the fabric there to and your list is done:-)

Supply List

1 1/3 yard of fabric
2 Double Curtain Rod Brackets (found at Ikea for as cheap as €3
2 Dowel Rods to fit the brackets, each 4 foot long (found again at Ikea)

Drill, Sewing Machine, Level, etc

I actually ended up making closer to a three foot long sling, which of course meant my measurements were different, because the wall I wanted to put it on was not quite four feet in length.
To try to avoid confusion I’ll just stick with the measurements found on the original tutorial (again, found here).

• First, cut your fabric to 47″ x 42″.

• Fold lengthwise with right sides together.  You should now have a 47″ x 21″ piece of fabric.  (I also added a piece of heavyweight interfacing between the layers of fabric for added stability, but this is optional).

• Sew, using a 1/2″ seam allowance down one short side, the long side, and halfway down the other short side.

• Turn right side out through the opening.

• Turn the raw edges toward each other and top stitch over the opening, closing up the unfinished edge.  Press with an iron so it lays nice and flat.

• To make the dowel casings, fold over two inches on each long side, pin, and then stitch all the way down each side.

Here's is the original link:http://somewhere-in-the-middle.com/diy-book-sling-tutorial/

Pistachio shell craft...

Well if you eat pistachios and you anything like me is am sure that you have had the thought : What to do with all these shells? I thought its a shame to trash out these cool looking things that are dying to be reused in too something cool.. And I can tell you that I have jars of them saved away for a cool craft..

So I was online looking at some craft ideas and just out of the blue here it was was a really cool looking craft with  pistachio shells..:-)

This one is easy ... You will however need a hot glue gun..and spray paints in the colors you desire..

You will also need some cardboard , cereal boxes are good for this.

Cut your box  in circles ,you could use round cookie cutters and go around them with a pen and then cut them out, or if you have round large punchers ..Punch away..Hot glue your shells in upright position ,watch out for those fingers ,the glue is extremely HOT..I got so many burns I once required strong pain killers to make the pain go away!!  Yiakkks...

So glue the first round and then just go around and keep gluing until you are at the end of the circle.. Allow to dry , this takes 10 minutes ,hot glue dries really fast and then spray paint your flowers with paint.  Super simple...and pretty 

You could use these to make a art piece by gluing a bunch of them together on canvas, or you could stick them on ribbon and hang them in a corner, glue them around a lamp shade  and use them as really original corsages :-) 

So go on and eat up and craft away.. Wishing you all a blessed and happy day!!  

Diy vapor rub

With winter coming up so do runny noses and sore throats, bad chesty coughs and upset tummies, so I've got a good recipe for you to make your own vapor rub at home with pure ingridients.
There is the commercial Vicks vapor rub but basically what you are doing is rubbing petroleum all over your chest and your kiddos..And all that is ubsorbed by your body..
So with this one made with ,coco butter or coconut oil it makes it safe and good for your skin too..

So here are the ingridients that you will need:

 2 Tablespoons cocoa butter

2 Tablespoons sweet almond oil

20 drops eucalyptus oil

5 drops peppermint oil

4 drops lemon oil

Eucalyptus Oil - The active ingredient in aromatherapy eucalyptus species is cineol. Cineol’s aroma has both antiseptic and expectorant properties, making it the perfect ingredient for vapor rub.

Peppermint Oil – You’ll recognize the strong, penetrating menthol aroma of peppermint oil. When applied to the skin, it feels cool on the skin, so the body brings more blood to the area, which in turns warms the body.

Lemon Oil - Lemon oil is such a powerful astringent and antiseptic it can cause skin irritation. It should not be applied undiluted to skin. Five drops or less of lemon oil should be added to this recipe.

So in a double boiler melt the coco butter or coconut oil until melted or creamy, add the sweet almond oil and mix with a wooden spoon or plastic. Add in your essential oils and mix to compbine. 

In the mean time have you glass jar washed and sanitized (sterilized) do this by washing your jar with soap and them boil it in water or poor boiling water from the kettle in the jar.. 

Transfer your vapor rub in the clean jar and close the lid, the mixture will harden up , if your using coconut oil it will not be so hard . I prefer to use coconut oil as I find it easier to get it out and it rubs on easier. Some people say that it lasts longer if its made with coco butter .. You could try and see what one you like better. 

Uses of your homemade vapor rub:

You could rub on your chest , this is good for those nasty coughs and blocked nose. Good for kids when they have blocked nose before bed time, helps them sleep better.

Put a spoon in hot bath and breath in the fumes ,it also helps congested nose and chesty coughs.

Rub it on feet after bath time and put on warm socks. Helps with coughs.

Rub it on sore musles and joints.

Rub some on your forehead and temples if you have a headache .

Hope you enjoyed this post have a great day!!!!!!

Winter chap stick DIY

In the winter time our lips need a little more caring and love .. So I've got a good diy recipe for a lip balm that will keep your lips soft and moistened form that cold wint that is on its way...

INGREDIENTS:

8 Drops peppermint oil

2 Tbsp carrier oil (such as almond oil—this dilutes the peppermint oil from a burn to a tingle)

1 Tbsp beeswax pellets

Glass dropper

Glass jar

Containers (hit up a department store for sample jars or order your own)

Put the carrier oil and the beeswax in a glass jar and close the lid. Heat the jar in a double boiler with water on medium-high heat until wax is melted. Remove jar from pot and stir mixture. Add peppermint oil with a dropper (not too much or it’ll burn your lips, something  like 10 drops.  If you’d like your balm to be tinted, stir in some coco or beet root powder until your desired color is achieved. Then immediately pour the mixture into your containers. Let stand for two hours until hard. ..stick a pretty label and you have a cute and useful gift or basket filler..

Toilet tube recycled ghost.

Mummy votives

Happy kids helping out..

   

I like to involve the kids in some of the stuff we do in the kitchen , today I would like to share with you what these things are and maybe give you some ideas to use in your household with your kids.

Bread making.

We make our own bread so when I plan to make it I call the kids to come help, the love to measure out the cups ,poor in the water and squirt the honey in. I divide the dough and they will kneel it and make the dough, this  makes them get a work out too witch is always a good thing:-) 

Making fabric detergent 

If you make our own cleaning products this is also good to involve them in. I let them grate the soap for the fabric detergent ,put the essential oils in and measure out the washing soda. I measure out the borax. And then when laundry time is up the little one loves to press the buttons to start the machine going..

Baking

We bake a lot in our house and kids are always up for a good help in doing this.. They love to crack the eggs ,mix the butter and sugar, measure the flour out and poor it in and scoop the dough out in to cookie balls in the tray. And they always insist in putting there own trays in the oven. But be careful this bit is hot and little hands can burn..so I help the little one..

Gardening 

Kids love to play and roll in mud and dirt, so we often go to the flower garden and buy veggies or flowers to plant, they each have there own shovel and little rake and they go out and dig and plant there stuff. If there planting seeds then they do this in little containers or egg cartons. I help them make there own labels too ..

Making pizza

This is great time for my kiddos. They love pizza and we don't buy it from a pizza place for health conscious reasons and  that we don't eat white flour. So when the opportunity comes up they are very excited and enthusiastic to make and specially eat it..the oldest one helps out with cutting the veggies and stuff to go on, the little one helps out with the making of the dough and grating the cheese is a shared thing as is the eating part:-)

Making a salad

My oldest boy loves to surprise hes dad with a salad , so he goes in he kitchen and gets all the stuff and cuts all the veggies with pride ..This is something he takes very very serious....

Preparing the family movie night
This happens on  the weekend and we  have snacks and goodies for this, so they come in most times not always and help out with the cutting and preparing . They help take the stuff to were the movie is being held and also help bring back the dirty dishes and glasses when the night is out.. They both get tokens for being helpful and this goes for any positive behavior.  

Involving the kids in activities around the house and specially in the kitchen were they get to eat it too gives a sense of achievement and belonging.. it makes them take pride in what they do and they feel appreciated.  It also helps them from getting bored and you to rest when kids are in bed rather than preparing stuff all night..
I hope you enjoyed this post and i hope it will make you want to make stuff with your kids or if you already do give you ideas and what to make.. 

 

Stamping fun

Afternoon activity: stamping with potato stamps, toilet tubes and cookie cutters.
Cut a potato in half and cut our your pattern with a sharp knife, get some plastic plates and put paints ,press the stamp or toilet tube in the paints and stamp on paper or card stock..
We had fun doing this for about 1 hour and a half..or more:-)
Try stamping in different colors to get a nice two tone or rainbow effect..

Having fun