sensory play dough recipe

I decided to have a go at making some play dough after using some Cream of Tartar to make Wendyl Nissen's peppermint paste the other week (the recipe is on the Cream of Tartar container). I haven't made playdough before as whenever I've used homemade playdough it seems really dry and crumbly and doesn't seem to last long. This recipe has me converted though- the playdough is so soft and it has lasted ages in an ice cream container...and it smells so good! This was a fun activity to do with my 4 year old as she got to learn about colour mixing to make different colours, and she really enjoyed choosing the essential oils for each colour (ok I may have influenced her choices just a bit!) 

Sensory Play dough recipe

For the playdough you will need...
1 and a half cups of salt
3 cups flour
6 tbsp Cream of Tartar
3 cups boiling water
3 tbsp oil
Mix all ingredients together...

...then divide equally into smaller bowls and add a couple of drops of different food colouring to each bowl to make the colours you want (red/blue=purple, red/yellow=orange, blue/yellow=green)
Then add about 5/10 drops of each of your chosen essential oils to each bowl.  I used lavender, lemon, peppermint, eucalyptus and sweet orange.

Yay for two busy children, well for a little while anyway!

Have a great week,

Megan x

eco-friendly dishwasher powder... and a sherbet recipe

We made some dishwasher powder in the weekend and seeing all the dishes come out sparkling clean from the dishwasher had me and Amelie very excited that it worked! I used this recipe from the Bin Inn website as I already had all the ingredients except for the citric acid which I got from the supermarket. I've used the powder three times now and it has worked really well each time. 

Eco-friendly Dishwasher Powder
1 Cup Washing Soda (from supermarket)
1 Cup Baking Soda
1/4 Cup Salt
1/4 Cup Citric Acid
Mix together (powderise in a food processor). Use 1 tablespoon per load. Way cheaper than the brought stuff, less than 5 cents a load. HINT - use white vinegar in the rinse aid dispenser.

Who would have thought that watching a food processor mix powder could be so riveting...!

I got given some lovely 'Benefit' bath salts years ago and just couldn't get rid of the cute little scoop that came with it....I knew it would come in handy one day!

Using the citric acid reminded me of a fun activity I used to do for science when I was teaching- making fizzy sherbet- so we made some for a treat. Here's the recipe I used..

Sherbet Recipe

4 tablespoons sifted icing sugar (sifted) 

2 teaspoons raro juice mix (powdered cordial) in your chosen flavour
3 teaspoons of citric acid
1 and a half teaspoons baking soda 

Mix ingredients together in a food processor or use a whiz stick. We just used a fork when I was teaching to mix the ingredients but make sure you don't end up with clumps of citric acid or worse still, clumps of baking soda. Obviously not the healthiest treat for children but they do love the fizz!

Next up I'm going to try Wendyl Nissen's laundry detergent but I need to find some borax first. It looks like Trademe is the cheapest place to buy borax but does anyone know of other places to find it?  Would love to hear if you have been making any eco-friendly cleaners lately too or have plans to make some.

Thanks for visiting and have a great day :)

Megan x

Organised Home Project 6: Eco-friendly Cleaning

Hello all, I hope you've had a good week. This week's challenge is more of a cleaning one than an organising one but it's definitely one that makes the house feel really good! After reading 'A Home Companion' by Wendyl Nissen I've been thinking a lot about having a more eco-friendly and healthy home so I got stuck in this week to making some home-made cleaners. I really enjoyed making them - it was like being a kid again mixing up potions and making 'perfume'! - and it's going to save a lot of money by buying less cleaning products.

Because it's an organised home challenge, here are some 'before' and 'after' pics...

Before

and After!

For the recipe's I used this liftout written by Wendyl (it came in an issue from the NZ Women's Weekly last year) as well as Wendyl's 'A Home Companion' book and a few other online recipe's.

To make the cleaners I made this week you'll need a few 'ingredients'.

-baking soda

-vinegar

-lemons

-essential oils- lemon, eucalyptus, lavender, orange and tea tree oils

-eco-friendly baby bath wash (I used Eco Store's)

-eco-friendly dishwashing liquid (I used Eco Store's again here too)

First I made some lemon dusters- I really enjoyed making these and maybe I'll even dust more now that I have a cute jar of them to use!

Then I made some spray cleaner- so far I've used it for the bench and the high chair, as well as cleaning the oven top (which it worked a treat on) and also my craft desk which had glue stick bits and other grubbiness on it and it looked good as new after using the spray.

Next I made some anti-bacterial spray which smells divine (my hubby used to complain about the smell of the Dettol germ spray as it is pretty strong!)

Then I made up some more baby wipes spray. I use this with flannels by just spraying the flannels with the spray.  I still use baby wipes as well but I'm going to try to use the flannels and spray a lot more. 

I also use Honeychild cloth nappies (which I mix with using disposables) so for when they get a bit stinky I made up a spray of just a cup of water and 10 drops each of tea tree and eucalyptus oils  It's a good spray for cleaning the toilet too. 

Next up I'd like to make some dishwasher powder and some laundry detergent but I'm going to need a few more ingredients for those ones.

Because I love having a crafty project for each of these 'challenges' I thought I would have a go at making some crochet dishcloths. I have seen them on heaps of blogs but have never used them, in fact I'd never heard of them until I started reading blogs! My sister was even asking me if I was going to crochet around a sponge as she had obviously never heard of them either!! Thanks for the ideas and comments on my blog post yesterday about them - I went to the knitting shop and bought some cotton yarn and made a cloth using single crochet stitches last night. If you want to have a go there are heaps of patterns and ideas here and also here.

After reading Angela's 'Eight household habits' I put up a hook in our kitchen for the cloth- much nicer than draped all over the tap getting smelly- thanks for the tip Angela :)

So if you're inspired to make some of your own cleaners now I've made up a little giveaway prize to help you get started...

...a ball of cotton yarn to make your own dishcloths, a tea tree oil soap,  tea towel, spray bottle and some cute sticker labels.

To be in to win...

 * leave a comment telling us about some organising you have been up to lately (leave your URL if you've posted about it) 

or *leave a comment telling us some thing(s) you'd like to do this year to make your home a bit 'greener" 

 or * tell us some of your eco-friendly cleaning tips

You can leave a comment on my mousehouse facebook page under the link to this post if you're a non blogger :)

I'll draw the winner next Friday the 25th March. I still have heaps of ideas and projects for my 'Organised Home' challenge but as I am nearing my due date I'm just going to start posting them whenever I can rather then every Friday as I think some weeks I'm going to be a little bit busy soon!

Thanks for reading along and joining in the challenge so far, have a great weekend :)

To see more of my 'organised home' projects, click here

Megan x

Edit: have just come across Sarah and Cat's "Gift of Love" appeal for mums and children in Christchurch- they are asking for knitted/crochet dishcloths among other things- check out their appeal here http://sarah-redgingham.blogspot.com/2011/03/gift-of-love-appeal-update.html

Organised Home Project 1: The Linen Cupboard

Hello all, I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments about joining in on my 'Organised Home' challenge.  There's obviously quite a few of you out there like me that are ready for a more organised home for 2011! So every week (hopefully!) I'm going to post a project plus a few crafty and eco ideas to go with each project.
To join in all you have to do is

• leave a comment on any of my challenge posts with a link to the project on your blog- so if you want to get started on your linen cupboard too you could link up showing us your pics. I might start a Linky thingee depending on how many people join in but for now you'll just have to copy and past your URL in your comment.
• OR you could just leave a comment telling us about another organising project you've done this week if you don't feel like tackling your linen cupboard just yet or yours is already organised! (you could link to your blog if you've posted about it or just tell us about it if you don't have a blog) 

Of course you can just join in by reading along too and be with us in spirit!

You can link up to any project at any time but just for fun I'm going to have a little giveaway to go with some projects and I'll randomly draw a winner about a week or two after I post a project from someone who comments. 

So, this week's challenge - the linen cupboard...a place where random sheets, far too many pillowcases, old towels and cushion inners have been crammed for too long!
Time taken: about 2 hours
Here's my 'before' pic...

And now for the 'after' pic...

Ah, much better! 

This was a great project to start with as it was something that's been bugging me for ages. Here's what I did...

1. Took everything out of the cupboard and sorted it into 'keep', 'move' and 'giveaway' piles. Soaked any towels looking a bit grey and washed all the sheets and towels.

Some of the the sleeping bags, backpacks and the portacot found new homes in other cupboards. Into the charity shop bag went some pillowcases, a couple of old cushion inners, a set of queen sheets and an old valance for a bed size we don't even have anymore.

(and I actually took this bag to the charity shop rather than my usual habit of cramming it in another cupboard waiting to be taken!)

2. Did the rather painful task with the sheets of figuring out what size they were, writing it on the label of each sheet and bundling them together in fitted/flat sets.

Tip: For my three year old's sheets I bought them in a different colour so it would be easy to identify them, and I keep them in her wardrobe.

3. I put everything back and labelled it all- I've got to admit when we moved in I did this too but as life got busier and busier I started ignoring the labels and just shoved things anywhere so I'm going to try harder to keep to the labels!

I've moved the linen spray up higher now as it contains alcohol - don't want the kids getting drunk on lavender water!!

Now I think it's really important to have a little treat to look forward to when you are doing some organising don't you? So for this project I thought of a few crafty and eco things to make with a 'linen cupboard' theme. I really enjoyed going to the health store and buying some essential oils and other 'ingredients' and had a fun morning making up some sprays and sachets.  And now the cupboard smells divine when I open it up!

Here's some ideas for 'Linen Cupboard' Crafty/ Eco things to make

* I made some lavender linen water using this recipe from Apartment Therapy. 

* I used a couple of recipes from my  'Home Companion' book by Wendyl Nissen to make some natural moth repellent sachets for my blankets and also to make some 'romance' pillow spray as Wendyl calls it.

The recipe for the moth repellant sachets is on this page (just scroll down). I halved her recipe amounts and just made smaller sachets for mine.

The recipe for the romance pillow spray is on this page. It's pretty expensive buying each of the oils though so I bought an essential oils blend called "Sheer Bliss' that I just mixed with the rose water, vodka and water.

* I made some lavender bag sachets to put on my sheets and pillowcase piles.

Wouldn't this make a great gift for someone for a housewarming or birthday? This would also be really fun to do with a group of friends as you could all bring one ingredient each.

Note:  I know there are warnings about the use of essential oils in pregnancy especially in the first trimester but I'm not too clued up on them so you might want to do a bit of research before making these if you have any concerns.

So this week being 'the linen cupboard challenge' the giveaway is a 200 ml size spray bottle to make your own linen spray, a moth repellant sachet for your winter blankets and a handmade Cath Kidston fabric lavender sachet to make your sheets smell lovely. And all organised in a little plastic tray for you. Just link up or comment to be in to win.

So there you go, project number 1 done and I am feeling good! Looking forward to reading about your projects, sorry this is the longest post ever! and sorry for the overuse use of exclamation marks in this post too....

Next week's project...'My Craft Space'. If you're keen to get crafty this year this could be a good time to think about a space you could possibly make or make a start gathering some supplies to get crafty for 2011.

Happy organising!

From Megan

PS: I tried to reply to everyone that said they're keen to join in but if you didn't get a reply from me it's because when I clicked reply it just came up with the email address noreplycomment@blogger.com.

To enable your email so you can get replies to comments I think you need to go to your blogger profile page and do something there...if you want to of course!

PPS: There's a little button on my blog for the challenge if you want to add it to your blog :)

my creative space: a baby snuggle rug

Today I'm making a start on a snuggly baby blanket/floor rug using this cute pink and red spotty fabric on the front and fur on the back.  I made one a few weeks ago for my cousin Vicki's baby shower and I really loved the result so I am going to make a few more.

Here's some pics of the snuggle rug I made for Vicki. 

I took the fabric up to show my crafty friend Anna before I started and she gave me the idea of putting some ribbon trim detail on the cotton side. She also found the beige colour ribbon in her stash- wasn't it the perfect match thanks Anna!  I used cotton batting between the two layers to make it nice and comfy. You would think it would be quite easy to sew three layers together but it ended up being a bit harder than I thought it would be- I think because the fur had a bit of stretch to it it was a little tricky to keep the layers together evenly when sewing. 

To go with the blanket I made one of my nappy wallets and put some wipes and flannels in and also a recipe for homemade baby wipes.

I've made up a few of these baby shower CD's in the past so I made one for Vicki as well with songs like "Waiting for that day", "Somebody to Love" "Good Morning Baby", "Never the Same" and "Welcome Home".

Right, time for some sewing now!
To see what's going on in other creative spaces today head over to Kirsty's here☞
Megan x

PS: there's a cute fabric giveaway over here...
http://everyspareminute.blogspot.com/2010/05/its-giveaway-time.html

shoe frou's

I saw these on one of my favourite TV programmes last year-' Lush House' with Shannon Lush on the Living Channel. She made these cute eco-friendly and cheap shoe frou's as an alternative to store bought shoe deoderisers so I made some up last night for each shoe wearing member of my family!

SHANNON LUSH'S SHOE FROU RECIPE
2 tablespoons talcum powder (keeps shoes dry by absorbing sweat and moisture)

2 tablespoons bicarb soda (general cleaner)
2 drops oil of cloves (kills mould, stops shoes smelly musty)
2 drops tea tree oil (kills tinea)
2 drops lavender oil (adds a nice fragrance but also a muscle relaxant)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and then spoon them into the foot of pantyhose – tie off and dab in your shoes as often as you like to clean and deoderise.

Lo♥e my cloth nappies!

A friend of mine put me onto Honeychild nappies a while ago and I just love them- wish I had used them with my first baby but didn't really think about it then to be honest.  I have got 6 so I use one at night for my toddler and the others in the day for my baby. I still use disposables for her afternoon sleep and night sleep.  I've also started using little baby flannels and a homemade baby wipes recipe - even though my hubbie still prefers the disposable wipes we buy them rarely now as opposed to buying them weekly!
Here is my baby wipes recipe- I just put it straight into a spray bottle which I then spray onto a flannel when I am changing her.

Megan's Baby Wipes recipe 
(for small sprayer bottle)

2 squirts baby bathwash

2 squirts baby oil

1 or 2 drops of essential oil- I use lavender and tea tree oil
Fill up rest of bottle with water and shake to combine 

the worms are happy

I have had a worm bin (a Worm-a-Round) for about 5 years now- I got it when I was teaching and it sat at the back of my classroom - the kids loved putting their lunch scraps in it.

The worms I started with have fed and bred quite happily in there for all these years until this summer- we moved the bin to a warmer spot around the house and to my dismay the worm population has diminished hugely! The only thing I can think is that it was too hot for them there... so with my small amount left I am going to start again and try to build up my population before transferring them back to the big worm bin. I used the instructions from World Sweet World mag autumn 09 issue and made a little one out of icecream containers- hopefully they will breed like crazy in there! My toddler put some banana skin in there today and said the worms are happy, so hopefully she's right!

Domestic Bliss

My crafty obsession actually started by watching Shannon Lush's TV programme "Lush House" on the Living Channel- eco friendly cleaning tips, organising tips and thrifty finds to enhance your home.  It got me thinking about the money I was spending on unnecessary cleaning products and the fact that in our nana's day they didn't have any of the products we use today and their houses were spotless! From there I got out Wendyl Nissen's "Domestic Goddess on a Budget", a brilliant little read, and then Sophie Grey's Live Well Spend Less. These books really made me think about the money I spend on stuff and the way our Nana's lived compared to us mums today. Then one friend mentioned she wanted to learn to crochet and another friend wanted to sew some christmas stockings and my crafting obsession just snowballed from there!  I started reading blogs, dragging my baby and toddler into sewing and craft shops, booking a couple of beginner sewing and knitting classes and dusted off the old sewing machine and sewed some (very basic!) bunting for my girls' playhouse. I guess the recession and subsequent "Make do and Mend', Grow your own Vege's,  Save Money mantra's has really got me wishing I could make for my children and friends what our nana's did. The satisfaction of making my own things, using the creative side of my brain and sharing my newly found skills with others are great motivation!

Megan :)