The first picture is one I will most definitely have to scrapbook... but what should the title of this page be? I can't come up with something cute and clever and... umbrella-ish.
On another note, one of my newest passions is making natural, homemade cleaners. I have made a heavenly lavender all-purpose spray that I use for anything and everything, and an orange-scented disinfectant spray that would be lovely... if only I could find a spray bottle that wasn't broken. Apparently the $1 bottles at Wal-Mart only have a life expectancy of... well, actually, it never worked. And my lavender bottle only works if you spray it upside down a few times before you spray it right-side-up. One day I will find the perfect spray bottle!
Last night I cooked up a new creation. It is homemade laundry detergent, and it smells so fresh and clean, I could hardly pull Mike away from it! Here is my recipe (adapted from several others):
1 bar of Fels-Naptha (to clean)
2 cups Washing Soda (to remove stains)
2 cups Baking Soda (to deodorize)
3 cups Borax (I use more borax than some other recipes do because we have hard water, and borax acts as a water conditioner as well as a cleaner.)
1. Grate the Fels-Naptha. I chopped my Fels-Naptha into 1-inch cubes and stuck it in my Vita-Mix for a minute.
2. Stir all of the ingredients together.
3. Into another bowl, run all of the ingredients (a cup at a time) through a sifter. Anything that doesn't fit through the sifter, put back into the Vita-Mix (or a food processor or blender) and blend until powdery. This includes any chunks of white powder plus any of the Fels-Naptha that didn't get chopped small enough.
4. Stir everything together and store in a container like this (or a big plastic tub would work too if you have one to recycle):
