Vinegar: The Magical Liquid

I've always known that if you run out of Windex or need to clean calcium deposits out of a sluggish coffee maker, vinegar is the way to go. But why should this only be a secondary solution after all else fails? Do we know about all the poisons lurking under our kitchen sinks and in the cleaning closet? Every cleaner you own can be replaced by one simple purchase; white cider vinegar. Vinegar has been used for a long time before all of those other cleaners came along. It can be used as a window cleaner, floor cleaner, all-purpose bathroom cleaner, in the laundry, in the garden, and so much more. What is best about choosing vinegar is that it is extremely cheaper than buying all of those specialized cleaners and that it is 100% safe around children and pets. No more Mr. Yuck stickers! It is also naturally made from apples so it is completely safe for the environment. This is completely win-win! Here are some sites I've found that list the mixing instructions and the endless uses for vinegar in your home and garden. Join me and clean the natural and safe way!

30+ Ways to Clean with Vinegar: The Thrifty Mommy

One Money Saving Must: Reclaim Simplicity

The Vinegar Institute

DIY: Pillowcase Apron

I've been doing lots of scratch cooking lately, and I love it, but it's a messy business, and I am a notoriously sloppy cook. (It's a good thing my husband is as anal-retentive as I am messy.) Since I recently acquired a great used sewing machine on craigslist, I've been looking for simple projects to hone my skills, and an apron seemed to fit the bill. I've been lusting after this adorable full-size apron I found in a book at Joann's, but I decided to start with something simple and newbie-friendly. Enter the pillowcase apron.

I love this project because it's not only very simple, but it's also free! While you could actually go out and buy some thrift store linens to make this inexpensively, many of us already have some unused sheets and pillowcases in our closet just begging to be repurposed into something useful. Personally, I have a closet full of hand-me-down linens that have definitely seen better days. I was totally psyched to find a use for them, and even more so to find that my apron wouldn't cost a dime. And with free fabric, I don't have to feel bad about my crooked, haphazard seams!

Here is my sweet little apron:

I've already put it to great use in the kitchen, so those pretty blue flowers are now covered in food stains, but I guess that's the whole point really. In the future, I'd like to make one with a contrasting pattern/color for the apron strings and pocket, just for aesthetic purposes. In the meantime, this one suits me just fine.

Happy crafting!

Project Veggie Garden, Day 11

The basil has emerged! Happy little basil seedlings began poking their heads out of the dirt yesterday, and even more came along today. Unfortunately, we've had some lettuce seedling casualties. I think we waited too long to cut back the excess seedlings that sprouted in the same spot and they strangled each other. Others didn't seem to get enough sunlight and wilted away. Still, we have 10 healthy lettuce seedlings still looking green and perky. They're quite tall now, so we transplanted the keepers into some peat pots today. They seem to be enjoying their new digs.

Still no signs of life from the pepper and eggplant seeds, but that seems to be normal at this stage. We decided on a location in our backyard for the garden and everything is falling into place! I just hope this cold weather doesn't set us back too much.

Also, remember to check back soon for some yummy recipes and beginner sewing projects!

Upcycling Plastic Shopping Bags

Hello all! I apologize for not having a 'real' post sooner but I have been running around like a crazy person trying to get everything perfect for my husband's return home from deployment. I hope you all have been enjoying Ashley's great projects; I know I am! I've wanted to share this great idea for a while now and I am not about to take credit for it. I learned about it via YouTube. It is a super project because it is extremely low cost (or free) with high benefits! I know everyone out there has a closet/cupboard/drawer/what-have-you just full of plastic shopping bags. What if I told you that you could turn them in to sturdy reusable shopping bags?! Crazy, I know. All you need to accomplish this is:

-about a million shopping bags (that I know you already have!)

-scissors

-a large crochet hook size M or N (or large knitting needles size 15 or 17)

-and the most basic crochet or knitting skills.

First what you need to do with all those bags is create what is called 'plarn' or plastic yarn. This is the easiest part of it. I attempted to take pictures of the process but it is much easier to understand with a video. Luckily I found this extremely helpful one here.

Here is a pic of my plarn!

Once you have this, you're ready to rock. I am primarily a crocheter, so I am using that method for mine. Here are some helpful tutorials if you are completely new to crochet or knitting.

Single Crochet

Knitting

Once you know the basics of your chosen method, it's simple! You will need 2 large rectangles that are the same size, 2 rectangles that are the same length but a smaller width than the previous, and then a smaller one yet that will fit as the bottom of your new shopping bag. If this is confusing to visualize, take a square reusable shopping bag you already have and get the measurements from that. The rectangles will be easy to attach to each other and there are many methods you can use. Try youtubing some to see which one feels best for you. The handles can be braided using several strands at a time.

By no means do you have to only make shopping bags from your plarn. There are many different things to do with it and feel free to experiment!

Happy crafting, and if you enjoy crochet or knitting, stick around for more of that in the future!

Project Veggie Garden, Day 7

It is only day 7 of our garden project, and our little red lettuce seedlings are already popping up to say hello! We're so excited! No signs of life from the basil, eggplant, and pepper seeds yet, but it's still very early.

We're still new to the composting thing, so I've been doing research on that in the small amount of time I have after my little one goes to bed and before I start crashing myself. As I mentioned in my first post, we use cloth diapers on our son, but we also incorporate some hybrid diapers called gDiapers and occasional Seventh Generation disposables. You are probably wondering what diapers have to do with gardening. Well, gDiapers can be used with cloth inserts, which we use 95% of the time, but they also have a biodegradable insert which can be flushed down the toilet or composted (wet ones only!). Until now, we have been flushing our biodegradable inserts and washing everything else as usual. The whole human-waste-as-compost thing is kind of icky at first thought, I admit. But it turns out urine is a great free source of nitrogen, which your plants need to grow, so it's actually economical, green, and completely safe for your garden. Plus the diapers themselves are made of materials that are great for composting. A direct quote from the gDiapers website:

The outer cellulose based cover and inner fluff pulp provide organic matter, while the SAP provides the ‘water storing granules’. You will find SAP in the more expensive potting compost at your local plant nursery, so by adding your baby’s wet only gRefills to your home compost (or worm farm) you are adding your own free supply of ‘water storing granules’. Your baby’s urine is the main source of nitrogen, an essential element for growing plants and is completely safe for garden use.

Now, I still intend to use all cloth for our son's bum the vast majority of the time. But it's nice to know that when we do use the biodegradable inserts, rather than wasting water with the extra flushing, his diapers (and the pee inside) will be helping our garden grow. So in a way, Jackson is helping out with the garden, too. Thanks, kiddo!

Alright, that's enough from me for now. Good luck to all who are beginning to sow seeds and plant their own veggies!

Project Veggie Garden, Day 3

We are taking the plunge! (No, not that one.) This weekend will mark our second springtime in this house (third summer), and we will FINALLY have that backyard vegetable garden we've been talking about since we bought the place. Neither of us have any significant gardening experience, so odds are we'll make all sorts of mistakes along the way and you'll get to chuckle at our mishaps. With some luck, we'll end up with a bounty of organic vegetables for a fraction of the grocery store cost. Working off some serious calories in the garden would be a nice perk, too.

So here's where we are. Last week we purchased USDA certified organic seed packets at $1.50 a piece at Walmart. We chose basil (can't wait for piles and piles of basil pesto!), red leaf lettuce, spinach, eggplant, bell peppers, cucumbers, green beans, zucchini, and carrots. We also want tomatoes, but are likely going to purchase starter plants from a local greenhouse when they open shop. My amazing coauthor, Acacia, pointed me in the direction of gardening blog You Grow Girl, where I found this fantastic seed starting chart. The same post also gave me the idea to use toilet paper rolls and egg cartons as seed starters. Cardboard is free (included with purchases we already made) and breaks down in soil naturally, so you can plant it right into a transplant pot (or right into the garden, depending on the size of the plant) without having to touch the seedling.

The farmer's almanac's Frost Chart lists our frost-free date as April 26th. Based on that, our current planting calendar is as follows:
3/13: We started seeds for eggplant, lettuce, peppers, and basil.
4/5: Plant spinach directly in the ground. Start cucumber seeds indoors.
4/10: Move lettuce to the ground.
4/12: Plant carrot seeds directly in the ground. Start zucchini seeds indoors.
5/1: Move basil to the ground.
5/3: Move cucumbers to the ground.
5/10: Plant beans directly in the ground. Move zucchini to the ground.
5/15: Move eggplant to the ground.
5/22: Move peppers to the ground.
Schedule for tomatoes is TBD.

We're building up compost to treat the garden soil. We have organic soil and organic pest spray. Next up, we need to find some tools (thinking Ollie's Bargain Outlet) and get the backyard prepped for spinach. Hopefully we'll start seeing happy little seedlings poking through the dirt in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed.

Anyone with vegetable garden advice/experience, please comment or email me. We need all the help we can get.

DIY: No-Sew Fleece Blanket

I was brainstorming low-cost, thoughtful Christmas gift ideas this past holiday season when I stumbled upon the perfect DIY cold-weather gift: a no-sew fleece tie blanket. I loved the idea of giving something handmade and personalized, but with no sewing machine and limited crafting experience, making my own blanket never occurred to me. I was at a jewelry party with a friend and the group was discussing homemade items they had made recently -- blankets, baby clothes, doll clothes. What a talented bunch of women they were! My friend told me about a blanket she made her daughter that was "sooo simple" -- no sewing, she said! Anyone could do it! She sent me a how-to link a couple of days later and I was ready to try it. I found suitable prints and complementary backing colors for 3 people on my list -- my sister-in-law, my dad, and my son (okay, so my 1-year-old wasn't really on my shopping list, but if I was already making some cozy blankets, why not make one for my own baby while I'm at it?). Joann Fabrics was having a major fleece sale just before Christmas, so the timing was perfect.

After reviewing the directions, I was pretty clear on everything but knotting the fringe. I scoured google and youtube for some examples of how others had tied their knots. I found that it's really a matter of personal preference, and there is no one right way to do it. I decided on a simple double-knot with the solid color fringe showing on the front of the blanket and the printed fringe showing on the back. I really like the effect of the solid color fringe framing the printed side and the printed fringe framing the solid backing.

For you visual learners, this lady (below) does a pretty good job of explaining the knots (about 4 minutes in).



I want to note here that while this project is supposed to be relatively quick (5-30 minutes), I spent 3+ hours per blanket due to my obsessing over lining everything up just right. I didn't mind taking my time on it, but if you're looking for a 5-minute project, you might want to keep looking.

Since making those first three blankets, I have since made one for my sister's birthday and another for a friend's baby shower. I've had a lot of fun picking just the right prints for each individual. In the course of my no-sew blanket research, I found quite a few other no-sew fleece projects that I'm excited to try out, like this pillow for my son's jungle-themed nursery:

Happy crafting!

Welcome, readers! My Story:

Hi there! My name is Ashley and I am your other coauthor here on Adventures in Radical Homemaking. I am 27 years old and live in central PA with my husband, Brian, and 21-month-old son, Jackson. In case you're wondering, I never thought I'd be a stay-at-home mom. I studied sociology and women's studies in college. I had a promising career in health policy research in Washington, DC. I loved rock shows and ethnic food and sleeping late on the weekends. I was never going to live in farm country again. Still, more than anything, what I really wanted was a family - our own kids. All the mango lassi and Thai iced tea and Ethiopian honey wine in the world couldn't change what was in my heart. Jackson was conceived shortly after our first wedding anniversary, and we were thrilled. I was disappointed to find my colleagues were not so impressed. It turns out having a baby in your 20's in DC is like having a baby in your teens in the rest of the universe. I was disappointed that my supposedly liberal coworkers and peers did not respect my choices just because they were different from their own. As my due date grew near, Brian and I knew we had to make some major changes in our lives. We discussed what we wanted for our child and how we could best make those things happen. Long story short, we bought a house back home and moved shortly after our son's birth. I wanted to stay home with Jackson for at least the first year of his life. Brian was able to keep his job and telecommute from our home office.

Being a parent really does change how you look at everything. I realized I would never feel right putting my son in someone else's care all day. I fully support parents who utilize daycare; I simply found that it wasn't for me. We found that not only did attachment-style parenting make sense to us in theory, but our high need son really needed and thrived in an AP environment. Not surprisingly, attachment parenting has made me quite attached to my son and we share a great bond. I love being a mommy and having the freedom to focus on my son and play with him and read to him for hours. Still, I sometimes find myself hesitating to tell people I'm a stay-at-home mom. With certain people, I get that look -- that "oh, you're one of those moms" look. (Since I started cloth diapering around 14 months, I get this look more and more.) I've found when Brian and I reveal what we "do" to people we're meeting for the first time, somehow I tend to be cast out of the conversation, as though I must not have interesting thoughts since I spend all my time with a baby. I have a sneaking suspicion these introductions would go quite differently if I said I was a sociological researcher, but I'm not ashamed of what I "do." It's interesting and gratifying work, and the word "work" should not be taken lightly here. But I digress.

We've had to get pretty creative to make ends meet living largely off of one modest income. I started a small business to contribute to some degree financially (more on that later), though in all honesty my contribution lies more in the savings I create than the cash I earn. But what we have found is that the challenge of doing more with less has actually motivated us to gain new skills (like learning to sew); try new things we otherwise wouldn't have bothered with (stay tuned for our adventures in organic home gardening); and generally just learn and grow as individuals as well as in our relationship. It's been quite an adventure, and it's only getting better. I hope you'll stick around and enjoy the ride.

Welcome!

Hello all! My name is Acacia and I am a coauthor of the blog you are currently reading. I am 28 years old and my husband, Steve, and I live in a suburb of Syracuse, NY. To give you a little history, I have been residing in central PA for the past 9 months during my husband's deployment to Afghanistan. This is where Ashley and I reconnected and gave birth to the idea for this blog over a kitchen sink full of wool; we were making homemade dryer balls. Over many conversations, we realized we both had a passion for environmental issues, family health, diy homemaking, and a strong desire to show others that being a positive presence in the home was not our place or duty, but rather, our choice. We each have our own strengths and experiences and we are excited to share our interests, findings, projects, ideas, and results with the world. If any of these topics appeal to you, stay tuned for some radical homemaking!

Health and Happiness,

Acacia