Pepper Paints

Cheap and Easy Homemade Cleaners

Spring is just around the corner (thank the heavens above)!!!! I love Spring cleaning. Strike that-I love my house when I am done Spring cleaning. I purge and scrub and always move things around for a fresh new look. I am not big on buying lots of cleaning supplies. They are super simple to make and I almost always have the ingredients on hand.

Here are two easy and cheap  homemade cleaners that contain no harmful chemicals and still smell good!

Homemade Soft Scrub

Mix together

1/4 cup borax

1 cup baking soda

1 T biodegradable liquid soap (I use citrus castille)

Add enough water to make a pasty consistency

add 10 drops essential oils ( I like the smell of lemon and orange for cleaning)

If the scrub gets dry add a few more drops of water.

Anti-Bacterial Spray

To 1 cup white vinegar add

3 cups water

10 drops grapefruit seed extract

10 drops tea tree oil

1 teaspoon castille soap

10 to 20 drops lemon, lavender and/or orange essential oils

I am hoping to find my blogging mojo again. We are still creating messes all over the place–I promise to share more soon!!

I Am Sharing My Kefir Grains…. Enter My Give-A-Way!!

OK–this is the third time I have tried to write this post. I am out of time and patience so it’s not going to be all that I wanted it to be–which is so hard for the perfectionist Virgo side of me! But here it is………..In a nutshell

I went to a kefir and yogurt making workshop a few weeks ago hosted by Warren Taylor of Snowville Creamery. (I LOVE Snowville…their products as well as all they stand for!!! And after the demo I have a huge crush on Warren too!)

He is a wealth of information and a great speaker. He is a self proclaimed dairy evangelist. Most of the photos I took of him look like this

He never stops moving or talking! His love for yogurt and kefir and all things dairy is infectious! The most exciting part of the demo was all we learned about kifer and kefir grains. (yes I know I spelled them differently)

The grains look like small pieces of cauliflower. He showed us a large  container of fermented milk with the living kefir grains in it. Next he strained out the grains.

The colander held the living grains

And the kefir that was ready to drink was strained out into the bowl (and then into a pitcher)

A small taste of the keifr was passed around for all to try

It was delicious!! I loved it!! all sour, fizzy and unsweetened. From the first taste I was hooked! My friends prefer their kefir made into a smoothie-I like mine straight up! And first thing in the morning, to coat my belly and intestines with all those good bacteria. Mmmmm   Even those that are lactose intolerant find they can tolerate fermented dairy products.

We were each sent home with a small amount of kefir grains to make our own kefir.

About 2 Tablespoons worth. I brought them home and put them in a small amount of Snowville milk and let them sit for a day and then strained and drank the kefir and added more milk to the grains etc.. etc.. over the past few weeks.

Here is a photo of my kefir. The grains are on the top and the whey has settled to the bottom. A good shake after straining mixes it all up .This photo was taken about over a week ago and I have almost double the amount. My kefir grains are healthy and multiplying like crazy!!

Now I have so many grains I can share them with one lucky reader!! Aren’t you so excited!

I will send the winner approximately 2 Tablespoons of my kefir grains and directions for how to take care of them.

If you want to be entered in the Keifr Grain Give-A-Way leave a comment below. If you tweet about this give-a-way leave another comment telling me.The same goes if  you link back to this give-a-way or if you share it on facebook. So you really have four different ways to enter.

I will close comments and announce the winner Tuesday mid-morning.  (2/15/2011)

Good Luck!!!!!

Salad Spinner Art

A few weeks ago when visiting my in-laws, we practiced our customary scavenging of their “to-go” pile. Among the great old wooden crates and mason jars we took, there was a salad spinner. I snatched it up telling my mother and father in law my plans to squirt paint inside for some home made spin art–they were tickled!

I watered down some tempra paint and cut some paper circles to fit the bottom of the spinner.

Oooh Ahhhhh! I bet if you didn’t have a second salad spinner the paint would probably wash out…but please don’t blame me if you try it and it ruins your salad spinner!!  Maybe look for one second hand for spin art purposes only!

Colorful Ice Blocks To Play With Outside

When we finally had enough empty milk and juice cartons to make blocks I cut the tops off the cartons, the kids dripped various combinations of food coloring into the cartons and we filled them with water and put them outside to freeze.

A couple of days later we peeled the cartons away from the ice blocks…some were frozen a little more solid than others.

The colored water that dripped out made for pretty snow to play in

Colorful snow balls!

Now I am back to hording the empty cartons and yogurt containers to make more colorful ice blocks!

Thursday’s Recipe – Holy $hit, That’s Hotter Than Hell, Hot Sauce!(aka fermented hot peppers)

I LOVE hot and spicy food.  I saw a recipe for Fermented Hot Chili Sauce at Nourished Kitchen and thought it would make tasty gifts to share.

Holy crap–this is some hot, hot sauce!

I bought just about all the habanaro peppers at our grocery along with a few jalapenos and a couple of pablanos for flavor. I cut the stems off and threw them into the food processor with a few sweet onions, several cloves of garlic and a few handfuls of basil and salt and a little sugar. I mixed up the only living cultures I had-keifer starter-with a little water and threw that in too. I put everything into a mason jar–it took several tries as just inhaling the fumes were tough! I let it sit on my counter for about 12 days. There wasn’t much bubbling and not much liquid so I ended up just bottling it up seeds and all.

The brave decided to try it yesterday………….

I ate some on tortilla chips and yes it was hot but super tasty. I love the taste of habaneros!  I think it will be really good in a bowl of beans and rice topped with some yogurt! Mmmmm

The Nourished Kitchen blog is loaded with really delicious recipes!! Be sure to check them out.

Living Ornaments

Now that the gifts have been given I don’t have to keep secrets any more and can share the living ornaments we made.

We took the tops off of clear glass balls and pushed a pinch of Spanish Moss and a few small tillandsia (aka air plants) in the hole.

We used a skewer to position everything inside our ornament and to help push the stuff in. Be careful of sharp edges around the opening of the glass ball.

Tillandsia don’t need any dirt and very little water to survive. Before putting them into the ball we did give them a good rinse and shake. These can be hung in a humid place…above the sink or in the bathroom in filtered light.

Look for “bulk” tillandsia because they are cheaper and can be broken off into smaller plants.

We have a few in tiny pots but those are too big to fit inside the ball.

A great gift for any time of the year!

Salt And Watercolors

I first saw this idea at Irresistible Ideas For Play Based Learning.  I LOVE this blog and get so many great ideas from them!!

First we drew a picture or design with a glue stick on some paper. Then we covered it with salt and shook off any excess.

Next we used eye droppers or pipettes to drip some color over the salt. We used liquid watercolors but I am sure food coloring would work too.

It was so exciting to see the salt absorb the colors.

We loved making these. A project I am sure we will be doing again really soon.