dont let homemade cleaners and soaps scare you

Green or not ? Making your own laundry soap can save you an average of 12-16 cents per load which might not be much BUT it adds up and the best part is i have a HE washer and dryer and it wont hurt my machine because it doesn't make a lot of suds so works well with less water :) There is so much going on these days and as the boys get older we will have even more commitments. As for now our home is not 100% GREEN but we are taking small steps at a time to get there or at least closer to it.  My laundry soap recipe we use is very simple and i do two batches about every two months if that! t took me 10-15 minutes to make. So it was not a big chunk of time at all which is a BIG deal to me :)  
Laundry soap:

1. 1/2 cup Washing Soda
2. one cup of shredded Ivory soap bar, or a bar of Fels Naptha
3. 1/2 cup of Borax

Mix them together and your done use 1Tablespoon for small loads and 2 Tablespoons for large loads.  A cheaper alternative to fabric softener is to add 1 teaspoon of vinegar.

a couple more tips:

1. Most air fresheners use chemicals to cover oder a easy and cheaper way to get your kitchen to smell better is to grab a cute dish and add some Cinnamon sticks or freshly ground coffee it smells great and NO chemicals.

2.  For cooking oders just grab a pot and simmer 1 Tablespoon of vinegar with 1 cup of water while cooking and you wont have that lingering smell after cooking !

3.  Do you hate those lingering onion , pepper or fish smells on your utensils or pot and cutting boards easy fix wipe them with vinegar and than wash them with soap and water ta DA !!! icky smell gone.

4. Although i love when my kids draw me pictures i DO NOT like those pretty pictures on my wall, but i love how easy they come off if its pen, pencil, markers or crayons just add a little bit of baking soda to a damp sponge and gently wipe off wall.  Please give them a try and let me know how they work for you ...

Getting Organized

A few months ago we did a pretty big move I mean driving 13 hours with two toddlers and my dear husband following in a moving truck ahh stressful. But we are so happy to be together and to start a new chapter with our little family. Since we have moved in October i have been going room by room and tried to organize from top to bottom. Usually in the past I have always left the master room for last, but i have learned that it makes me feel better to put the master room somewhere at the top of the to do list. It use to drive me crazy that i would run around getting things done all day around the house in my spare time but yet i would into what was supposed to be "mommy and daddy’s" relaxing area and it was UNORGANIZED... So i decided to look over all the rooms and see what was needed to organize and what we already had to help organize, to avoid over spending and buying unneeded items. Also it would give me a chance to price different items and shop around. Before I have made the mistake of just buying things instead of shopping around and I save a lot more and make sure that we are getting a better product as well! I started with a paper and pencil and measuring tape… and have gone from room to room in search of how to best organize everything and the items and correct size that I need as well. We have a budget for everything in our house so I am getting items as I go J . In the area where we live the local Target seems to have the biggest / stylish collection of organizational things. They have tons of different sizes and colors. The boys chose to share a room there for I found it necessary to color code so we don’t have issues of who’s clothes / hats/ socks are who’s J .
　

　
　
　Conner LOVES everything blue and Hunter is ALL about green .. So they were happy with our choices lol. Next I did under our bathroom sink because we already had the items to organize it. I put everything n categories and then got rid of old of unused items and distributed them into individual containers. This of course was done during nap it literally only took 20 minutes I was so excited that everything finally had a place under our sink!!

　
　
The pantry is also on the completed list labeled containers are my favorite. An old friend got me into labels , to me it looks so nice and tidy (plus no one has to ask me what is what J ). Don’t get me wrong my pantry is not flawless at all times but I do try to make sure its organized every time we go grocery shopping so that I can pay attention to what we need to buy and what we don’t.
　

　
Check back to see how my organization is going!! I try to organize a little every day there is always something in my planner on a chore to organize and clean at least one thing. Some projects take a couple days because well I am a wife and mommy and those things come first J . Take it one room at a time and go to town with your pencil , paper, and measuring tape. Also it helps to draw up a rough draft of some projects J READY SET ORGANIZE.

easy quick toddler activity

I am always looking for fun learning ideas for my boys and today i decided to make my own matching game but with shapes. Yes it would have been easier to just to print shapes off line but i try to be as frugal as possible and lets be honest ink isnt cheap and we use a lot of it as is. Either way i decided to draw some shapes on construction paper that we already had (so that item was of no cost) and then cut them out and taped to another piece of construction paper that we also already had ( so it too was of no extra cost ). then cut the shapes right down the middle.

Then i laminated them with some easy to use laminate that we already had from walmart

it actaully comes in all different sizes LOVE IT!! this project only took about 5 minutes, did it during nap time today YAY another school activity.

A few quick ideas for you and your toddlers:

we go over the month / date/ year/ weather i also have made flash cards for shapes and numbers feel free to visit my Instagram account  (amber02) to see them :)

Organize Your Grocery Shopping & Save $$ too

On Mondays its coupon clipping day then we sort according to group and expiration date.  To file them we just got some inexpensive baseball card holders, the are great size for the coupons so you dont have to pull them out everytime you need to look at them (we got ours at walmart). 

we always keep coupon supplies in the binder as well to save time :)


  We make a list of every single item that needs to be purchased (part of how we save is by sticking to the list ONLY) we dont buy anything extra. We then matchup coupons with sale adds, to make sure we are getting the best deal possible i do my best to keep a master price list for the stores we shop at because some sale prices arent really a sale at all. And most of our coupons arent used because i dont buy a product just because i have a coupon. Another way to save on your grocery bill is to get generic products even on simple things like trash bags adds up on savings !

clean freak

  I constantly find myself cleaning, although I have a cleaning schedule I try my best to stick to one major chore a day. Doing one big cleaning chore a day helps me to be able to complete the rest of my to do list on time. For example on Mondays I clean the bathrooms, Tuesday Dust/ Sweep/ Mop, Wednesday i vacuum ect. My favorite is friday because that means laundry day which means all the laundry is done and put away before dinner with the exception of my husands uniforms.  I have recently started switching out our cleaning products to homemade non toxic cleaners. It sounded time consuming but its actually not at all and is saving us some money as well but the best part is it is safe for my family! Keep an eye out for some of my recipes for these homemade products. and remember make every day a success !!

 

Love cooking for a few reasons

A few weeks ago one of my IG mamas sent me an awesome recipe for bread and i was super excited. i knew that i wanted to make my own bread amongst other things. so i was happy to have a recipe that didnt require a mixer or bread maker. Long story short i fell in love with making things from scratch and intend to make 98% of our meals from scratch.  i truly enjoy cooking and especially baking. plus the fact that i know how all the food was made s a big deal to me. and i know whats in the meals which means i have a better control of the food my family is eating. plus we save a lot of money $