Homemade carpet shampoo

About a month ago, I decided to shampoo the livingroom. It needed it. It's whitish carpet and we have a dog, a cat, and a kitten who runs around here like she's barely tame.

And, let's face it... we aren't total neat freaks. Our house is tidy- for the most part- but it is very lived in. Shoot, I painted and stained the coffee table in here a few days ago :). And, I had some mishaps in a room upstairs this week too. Enough of my faults and on to my disgusting shampoo water....

I shampooed it with some homemade solution that I'll advise you NOT to try. It was mostly water, but had a rather large helping of laundry detergent in it (like maybe a cup?) and a smidge of vinegar. It isn't the ingredients that were bad... but I didn't have the best proportions going.  After a month, this is what we had...

Tracking. And just dirty, dirty carpet. Can you see the lines that run through the middle? This is THE highest traffic area in the room. Those lines are from the carpet cleaner dispersing my solution. And the dark spots of nastiness? Apparently my mixture was too foamy for the carpet cleaner and just right for looking clean temporarily.

So, today, I gave it another attempt. This time, I used MOSTLY all water, about 1 TBS of Gain, 1/3 cup of vinegar and about a TBS of OxyClean. It worked GREAT. It was still a bit foamy, but ended up being ok. Then, I went over the entire carpet with plain water and sucked it all up. I did this twice. Overkill? You tell me...

This sink of nastiness is after one rinse with just plain water in the cleaner. (Please note the lack of the first round with soap photo. Nasty.)

I'm sure that I could have done this ALL day and still would have had dirty water results. It never fails. Every time I clean the carpet, I am bound and determined that we are getting hardwood in this room. We are... it's just a matter of when :).

If you are thinking "oh, our carpets aren't that bad.." I dare you. Clean them. You will want to rip out every square foot of the stuff. 

If you try out your own cleaner like this, let me know. And, if you ever stop by here and I say "oh, I just cleaned the carpets, don't take off your shoes" I mean it. I don't want your crisp white socks wet with this nasty brown/green/gross water from my "clean" living room :).

Does the living room smell like vinegar? YUP. Will it fade? I hope. :)

It doesn't seem to bother the girls. They have congregated to the corner where I didn't go ALL the way to the wall though.

I won't mention that immediately after this picture was taken, a certain cleaner/blogger/photographer let the beagle outside where she immediately started digging. The cleaner/blogger/photographer thought the beag was after a snake so the digging was allowed. Needless to say... no snake... it was an ant hill. And I wonder why the "clean" carpet water is still so nasty :)

I also did the couch, love seat, and rocker. I used a different method on them though. More on that soon.

Dusting/fabric softener/rinse aid solutions

Where have I been, you ask?

Well, I have not been on..oh, shoot... what are they called....

va.....

you know...

when you leave your house/town/state and go lay on a beach for a week and read trashy novels?

Oh, that's right.. vacation. No, I haven't been on vacation (in like 4 years actually).

I have been busy. I've been on the couch most of the time it seems with back aches (yeah, I know... I'm 27 and have pretty intense back pain from time to time--it is a long story.. with a video, actually, of me falling 8 feet or so onto the gym floor with my lower back/left hip catching my fall. I was in high school and a *cough* cheerleader. Then, later that year I had a walking cast on my foot throwing my back/hip even more out of alignment... unrelated injuries and I promise that I'm not accident prone. 15 was a rough year :) ).

When I wasn't on the couch, I was at my desk grading or at my desk doing homework. Today, I had the wonderful pleasure of starting (and completing, thankyouverymuch) a 17 page research paper. Luckily, I L-O-V-E to research. Too bad it wasn't blog research... that is way more fun than the ineffectiveness of administrative observations in the classroom and suggestions for better alternatives. But, I submitted the last assignment in the first course of my doctorate program!! Too bad it isn't the first assignment in my last class... oh well....that post is about 2.5+ years away.

But, I have been collecting a massive amount of homemade cleaner recipes over the past few weeks. I write this guiltily after I just shampooed the bonus room/office/room above the garage (we can't decide what this room is called) with commercial "deep cleaning" shampoo by Hoover. oops. But, hey, it needed to be done and I already owned the bottle of it. My goal is to use up just about all of the cleaners that I have and replace them with homemade ones as I go. I'm a bit impatient though, so some of them may get the boot a little bit sooner.

But, in the meantime, here are a few quick and easy solutions that I've recently discovered....

Dusting- use a dryer sheet. That's all... no cleaner.. just a dryer sheet.

Fabric softener- (I guess this is because you're now using your dryer sheets for dusting cloths....harhar) put some vinegar in the fabric softener dispenser.

Rinse aid in the dishwasher-- you guessed, my new BFF vinegar.

I promise to be back with more recipes soon. I need to organize them a bit. And, I have a few projects around here that need to be painted/glazed/glued/finished.

homemade dishwasher detergent

I jinxed myself.. of course. I've been putting off making my own dish detergent because I have this HUGE bottle of Cascade to get through first.

Not anymore. Did I have lots of dishes suddenly and go through an extra large bottle quickly? No...

Do I suddenly have an extra large bottle that sounds like it is filled with gravel and has to be thrown away? Yes...

I think it MIGHT be because there is no insulation in the wall of our kitchen where the cabinets are. Yes, that's the wall where I just painted the ceramic backspash. So, we're in our "thinking of a cheap solution" mode for that chilly problem. We left the detergent on the counter overnight in hopes that it just needed to thaw out. No dice. (Well, actually it sounds like it is filled with dice...)

I hate throwing away things.... especially big bottles that are still 3/4 full!

So, I gathered my ingredients (which are the same as the laundry detergent I made ) and mixed it up. It really isn't hard. It is even easier than the laundry soap. I have two recipes.....

Recipe 1:

1 cup Borax

1 cup washing soda

Recipe 2:

1 cup Borax

1 cup baking soda

Since I have all three ingredients, I made a combo. I only used 1/2 cup Borax, 1/2 cup washing soda, and threw in some baking soda for good measure.

I mixed it up, put the lid on it, and shook it up. My Borax is getting a little clumpy, so I mixed it all up with a fork so I could sift through it and mash the clumps (I'm sure there is a technical term for that, but I don't know it...).

You only need 2 TBS per load. I have the first batch in the dishwasher right now. Yeah, I know, I should probably wait until I see the end results before I post... ah well :)  My mom recently made some with baking soda and Borax and it happy with her results. I'll let you know about mine.

I wasn't sure what to store it in. I remembered that I have these lids for canning jars and happened to recently have emptied this jar.

Dave Ramsey will be proud. (well, minus having to throw away a good deal)

Check out the link parties to the right. I shared this post with We Are That Family. (I still love that name :))

Home made laundry soap Part 2: some clarification

I've had some people email me and send me Facebook messages about this. (you don't have to be shy about commenting on here, folks :)) So I thought I'd clear up some questions. 


The recipe that I made and used was this:

12 cups Borax
8 cups Baking Soda
8 cups Washing Soda
8 cups Fels Naptha soap-- grated

I cut it down and only made 1/4 of this recipe though. I REALLY like it. I researched it some and have found that it is supposed to do fine in both hot and cold water. The only "hard" part was grating the soap. I just used a cheese grater. It took me maybe 10 minutes to get 2 cups. I did read up on it some more and people suggest that you grate it using the smallest grate you have. That makes it dissolve easier and faster.


My disclaimer is this-- it is working great for me. Everything I have read online says that it works great. I have seen nothing that makes me weary. However, that's where my expertise ends. I am no chemist or expert.. I'm just a cheapskate with some dirty laundry :)  I am using this in an HE front loading washing machine. This recipe is naturally low suds, which is one of the big things to look for with an HE machine. (When I used Gain, I noticed that when the load was finished, I'd still have a 1/4 cup of suds in the rim of the door. I don't have that at all with this mixture.)


The next batch I make, I'm thinking about making it with only Ivory, borax, washing soda, and water. (I'm thinking about making the liquid kind next. I might change my mind and just make it powder and without the water) But, so far (4 loads into it) I am REALLY pleased with how this recipe/batch turned out. It is cleaning Dustin's work clothes really well. It basically has three different kinds of stain fighters, so I think it is doing a pretty nice job!


If you decide to try it, tweak it, or find something better, let me know! I'm always on the hunt for a better product/better deal! :)


**Check out the links to the right of parties I love to visit. I shared this post with We Are That Family. 

Homemade laundry soap

I have never been so excited to run out of laundry detergent OR to do laundry before in my life! :)

Cross your fingers... I'm using my first batch of homemade laundry detergent as I type. In my quest of being an even bigger cheapskate and wanting to try to go a bit "greener" I decided to make my own. Although I am in love with Gain and obsessed with OxyClean, I have high hopes for my detergent. It really wasn't difficult to find the ingredients and the hardest part was not tripping over Ellie who seemed to be greatly worried at my stint of being homemaker-ish!

The ingredients (minus the baking soda because I forgot about it until I was mixing it up)

And, because I went to the store without my list, I bought the wrong kind of castille soap. That will be going back. I only needed the Fels-Naptha OR the Ivory, but I already had the Ivory and was surprised I found Fels-Naptha in town so I bought it too... we can always use the ivory in the shower.  

The recipe I used:
3 cups Borax
2 cups baking soda
2 cups washing soda
2 cups grated bar soap
Mix it all together and store in a sealed tub. I used the Gain box I just emptied. Not exactly "sealed" but it will get the job done.
You only use 1/8 cup per load. I looked it up online and it is only 4 tablespoons per full load. I actually cut the recipe I was following into fourths. I didn't want to make such a huge batch on my first go 'round.

Doesn't it look like food with cheese on top?

This was before I poured it into the Gain box and mixed it up.

Grating the soap wasn't exactly fun, but it wasn't difficult. I could probably have cut it into chunks and put it into my food processor, but Mom didn't answer her phone and I didn't want to do it without asking her first. (She's used to answering the phone to a "Mom, can I..." or "Mom, how do I...." or something similar.... a lot of times I think it is more like "Mom, will you....." :))

We have a front load HE washing machine that we bought in April, so I was a little weary. However, all my research says that the most important thing for HE machines is low sud and that's what this is supposed to be.

I was also afraid that it wouldn't have a "clean" smell. (see above mention of  my love for Gain) Fear not-- my entire house smells like the detergent I just made. It just smells clean. It is overpowering in the kitchen, but it starting to fade as the dust settles. --it was a bit of a dusty experience.

And, although this isn't the exact recipe I followed (mine had a bit more in it) I just discovered this cost saving breakdown...

I copied and pasted this from another site (http://www.tidbitsandstuff.com/household-tips/laundry/142-homemade-laundry-detergent) I'm going to try the recipe on their site next.

In May of 2007, in the Northeastern region of the United States, the recipe cost as follows:

• 20 Mule Team Borax: $2.50 for 70 oz.
  Cost per batch: .28 (8 oz needed for recipe)
• Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda: $2.50 for 55 oz.
  Cost per batch .18.(4 oz needed for recipe)
• Ivory Soap: $.99 for 3 3.1 oz. Bars.
  Cost per batch: .33 (1 bar of soap needed for recipe)

Cost to make: .79
Yield: 442 oz.
Cost per oz. = .00178
Cost per ½ cup = .007 or rounded to .01 cent per load
The cost to wash 110.5 loads is $1.11. How does that compare to your store-bought detergent?


I feel like I have a whole lot more than $1.11 invested in my first batch/110.5 loads, but this is the trial run! Laundry detergent is SO expensive. I'm happy that I'm finally out of Gain and can start experimenting! I might save the type with the Fels-Naptha for Dustin's work clothes, which tend to be a bit dirtier, and try out the other site's recipe for our everyday type of laundry.

I'll let you know how the sheets in the washer turn out.....

Homemade animal repellent

We are in a neighborhood of animal lovers. I'm glad because we have a pretty big soft spot for animals as well. (if you hadn't noticed by our two recent adoptions and one eyed grouchy cat =))

However, although we love animals, we do not love that our neighbor's cat(s) like to come and use the side of our house for a urinal. If you have been around male cats, you know that is an awful smell that just doesn't go away.

We don't want to be mean to animals, especially when we know our own aren't angels and probably irritate the neighbors themselves. So, my mom just sent me these two ideas.

Citrus spray
Start saving lemon, orange, lime peels. Soak them in water then pour into a spray bottle. Spray this around where the animal is spraying. Beat him to the punch and this will help to repel him. And, it is natural and is better than throwing landscaping pebbles at him to run him off.  =) I have used something similar to this spray before... be ready for the kitty to move his bathroom. I had to spray a lot of places a lot of times. Eventually, our visitor got tired of looking for a new place on the porch and headed for the yard. That, I can handle... my porch and front door, not so much!

Coffee grinds
Another tip she found was to sprinkle coffee grounds in the area where the cat is pottying. Her email didn't mention this, but be careful with this solution. Some plants can't handle the coffee grounds. (I can't remember off the top of my head if they make the soil more acidic or more basic.....) But, my mom (who laughs about it now) told us incorrectly and we burnt up a blueberry bush because she said that coffee grounds were the key... that was the exact OPPOSITE of what the "key" really was though! So, just watch if you use coffee grounds. They can be used for fertilizers and compost additions. We just had a bad experience that resulted in a blueberry bush turning into a dried up stick! Perhaps we went overboard... us? go overboard? never...

So, good luck keeping those kitties away. We don't mind visits, but I really don't want to smell them after they're gone! I look forward to smelling citrus!

Green Clean- Vinegar and Dawn

I'm trying to make the move to using only natural cleaners. This decision has a few factors behind it.

1. I'm cheap. I love to save money and hate spending it... or at least on things like cleaners....
2. We try to be environmentally friendly around here when we can.
3. I read bizarre things like dishwasher detergent releases formaldehyde into the air every time the dishwasher runs. I don't know the truth to these things, but I think about this EVERY single time I start the dishwasher. -unfortunately I'm too good of a bargain shopper at times so I currently am trying to get through 2 bottles of formaldehyde-releasing detergent so I can try out some homemade stuff! I already bought them... I have to use them...:)

So far, I haven't done all that much "green cleaning". I'm trying to get through all the cleaners I have now before I really start to hit it hard. So, this is my warm-up.

Things you need:
a spray bottle
vinegar
Dawn
water
rag

I filled the spray bottle 1/4 of the way up with vinegar, added a few "squirts" of Dawn, and filled up the rest with water.
My mom uses this on her glass shower door and shower stall. It is always sparkly clean. Our tub wasn't so "sparkly" and was actually just embarassing. Note the lack of before photos.... I sprayed down our tub, the tile surround, and the faucet and let it set for about 10 minutes. Yes, it stunk like vinegar, but that only lasted until I was done. When it dried the smell was gone. Then, I went in with the rag and just wiped the tub and surround down. Soap scum, dirt from work, grease, general nastiness all wiped off with one swipe. And I didn't have to scrub- I really just wiped it. Then, I turned on the shower for a rinse and voila! I had a spotless tub. I hadn't used bleach cleaners, so I wasn't nervous about chemicals mixing and producing a poisonous gas. (I have an unnatural fear of this in reality! I think Mom must have scared me about this as a child or something.....)

I had about half the bottle left. Later that day we went on a kitchen cleaning spree. Dustin is a pro at kitchen cleaning. I convinced him to try out my cleaner in the oven. (by the way... Thanksgiving was here last year and we hadn't cleaned the oven since--- well, since we moved in three years ago, I don't think.. (yikes! maybe I should keep a few things to myself!ha!) He sprayed away and let it set. Then he ran the "clean cycle" On the oven and a few hours later, it was spotless. (I'm not sure how much the cleaner helped... but I like to think it did......)

I make no promises. But, I in my brief green cleaning spree, I have found luck with vinegar! I also haven't done much research on it, but I wouldn't use it on things like wood and other finished. I've only used it on things like ceramic tile, whatever my tub is made of--fiberglass, maybe??, and the metal faucets. I'd test it on a spot if you are nervous.

Another vinegar use..... about once a week or so we just have a load of glasses fresh from the dishwasher with gunk in them. This REALLY grosses me out (gagging, Dustin has to talk me down from the ledge kind of gross me out.. what if I drank from it without noticing until I was done! UGH...been there, done that..). No matter how much we handwash and rerun them through the dishwasher, the gunk is set. This past time, I put a splash of vinegar in each glass and filled them up with water. I let them set for the afternoon and stuck them in the DW that night. You guessed it... gunk be gone when they were done!

Coming soon-- home made toilet bowl cleaner, home made laundry detergent, and the third annual Spa Day that all the girls in my mom's family get together for. All homemade spa treatments. This year it is here and on Halloween so we have a spooky theme. I'll post those recipes once I know what they are.

PS- The kitchen back splash got a coat of primer this morning!