Laurie's Everyday Notions

Over the past couple of weeks I have been slowly cleaning out the laundry room. The laundry room is the dumping ground for tools, craft supplies, stock pans which don't fit in any of the kitchen cupboards....plus all the stuff that has no other home. Things get dumped, the door gets closed and the room is ignored. So anyway....this is the bag I grabbed out of the laundry room today. I also grabbed the stack of embroidery hoops. I had found the hoops at a garage sale years ago and had intend to make butterfly nets with the daycare kids. The bag of tulle is the leftover material for the tutus that I made at Christmas. I'm done making tutus. Time to find a new project.  Before I even started searching for ideas (I became sidetracked. No surprise there.) I stumbled across a tutorial on making reusable produce bags:  http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-your-own-onestringbag/   I did a simple version. I'm not very skilled with sewing so simple is good. No drawstring. I c...

So  "No Grocery Week" also means no money spent on anything that can be lived without.  As mentioned in my " No Grocery Week ", I did buy apples and bananas. I also bought toilet paper...and milk....and formula. Only the essentials necessary to get me through the week and as a child care provider that list of items are necessities. Although I was out of dishwasher detergent and the ingredients to make more, I figured I'd hand wash dishes for the week........until I started to run low on dish soap. Not to mention I spent some time in the kitchen yesterday and had tons of dishes. Time to alter some recipes to make do. The dish washing detergent recipe that I finally found and like includes citric acid. I'm out of citric acid. Hmm....I do however have a few lemons. I made my recipe without the citric acid, added a tablespoon to the dishwasher, cut a lemon in half and squeezed! One of daycare helpers enjoyed this task. The powder I used was equal p...

http://rochestermagazine.com/laurie/byrne/green/freeze/story-837.html THRIFTY OR GREEN? I don’t know which desire came fi rst, but striving to be a “non-consumer” has led me on a journey. With my small efforts, I know that I am not only saving money but also saving the planet. I’m practical in my dress and keep a simple wardrobe. Most of my clothing comes from consignment stores, Goodwill, or garage sales—but I buy pieces that look brand new. In the last couple of years, I’ve been experimenting with making my own beauty and cleaning products out of simple ingredients, such as baking soda or vinegar. My window cleaner and all-purpose cleaner costs so little and is free of stinky, harmful chemicals. I save over $100 a year by making my own laundry soap. I also make my own shampoo, conditioning rinse, and lotion (which doubles as facial moisturizer, hand cream, and body lotion). Not only do I save money, but I also save many bottles of plastic from ending up in the landfi lls bec...