Vinegar and Orange peels.

Say WHAT??

Yep, combine distilled white vinegar ($2.00 or less) and Orange peels  (3 oranges works great–$1.00 or less)

For LESS than $3.00 I have an amazing Green, simple cleaner that works great on the table, stove, counters, fridge, floors, sink, bathroom, it’s awesome!!

Plus, if my child wants to drink it (YUCK), it won’t hurt it a bit. He might want some water right after, but it’s simple and I LOVE simple.

1. Pick your oranges, cut and eat them. Or Juice them and enjoy.

2. Get a 32 oz mason jar or a glass container for the size of water bottle you want to use. Fill the bottle up with the orange peels first. Then, add the vinegar. Put the lid on and put it in the pantry or under the sink for 3-4 weeks. (I have 2 jars going at a time. That way I always have it ready). It takes that long to get the citrus out of the orange peel and soak into the vinegar. Don’t forget you have the cleaner soaking (I’ve forgotten a few times)!  Use tongs and remove the orange peels out of the jar, throw the peels away and pour the mixture into your spray bottle.

Viola!!! Homemade, natural, green ,simple cleaner ready to use whenever you need.

TIP: for baked-on food on your stove. dump 1/4 c. baking soda on the stove. Spray the vinegar/orange mixture on to the baking soda and let sit for 15 minutes. Scrub away and watch your paper towel go from white to gross while your stove goes from gross to clean!

Other fun articles: Patriotic Punch — no bake chocolate bites — Homemade Laundry Soap

There are SEVERAL homemade cleaner options to try. Click HERE to check out some more.

May 4th is the 10th Annual Live Green SLC Festival.  The Festival is FREE, downtown at Library Square and runs from 11am-5pm Saturday!  There’s games, workshops, prizes, fashion shows, live music , local food vendors, free face painting, hula hoops, and lots of information on how to live more green!  YAY!  I’ll be there teaching the ABC’s of Yoga for the whole family.  Some come and learn about yoga with your kids, do some crafts, dance to the music and be entertained for FREE!

Go to http://livegreenslc.com/ to learn more about all the awesome vendors that will be there and all the awesome events/workshops you can enjoy!  Make sure to stop by my booth and say ‘Hey Beautiful’!

Love yourself, love the earth,

Jennie Carlson

If you don’t already have a recycling program in your house this is a great week to start.  If you do have a program going on, are there ways to improve?  I know we or should I say I recycle, but I’m not sure if my kids truly understand why we recycle.  You can also talk to them about saving energy, turning off lights, turning down the heat and A/C. This is a great week to have that talk and make them aware.  Awareness really is what it’s all about.

image via Thanksgiving Point

Get outside and enjoy the WORLD we live in!  The Tulip Festival @ Thanksgiving Point

and the Bulbs and Bloom Festival @ Red Butte Garden are both AMAZING.  Talk about the flowers and how they grow, how volunteers plant these each year so we can ENJOY their beauty.

Read or watch The Lorax.

There’s no better place than Red Butte Garden to celebrate Arbor Day! As Utah’s very own Arboretum, they can’t wait to share their knowledge about the wonderful world of trees with you. Join them for a fun day of family activities and interactive Exploration Stations throughout the Garden and take home a small tree to plant in your own yard!

Arbor Day is a Free-Admission Day thanks to Salt Lake County Voters and Zoo, Arts and Parks (ZAP).

So there you have it, a slew of easy, but fun ways to celebrate Earth and Arbor day.

Check out these gardening books for more fun learning: GrowingVegetable Soup, Planting A Rainbow Garden, The Gardening Book, Sunflower Houses, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Vegetables We Eat, and Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots.

I have noticed the more I get my kids  involved (especially the picky ones) the more veggies they eat and the less grief I get.  There is something so rewarding in growing your own food and they feel that!

2013 Great Cloth Diaper Change!

Local cloth diapering enthusiasts sponsor The Third Annual World-Record Setting “Great Cloth Diaper Change” International Event

Salt Lake City, Utah   April 20, 2013 – The Salt Lake City area is an official host of an international cloth diaper changing event taking place on Saturday, April 20, 2013, two days before Earth Day. In its third year with over 256 sites in over 15 countries, The Great Cloth Diaper Change event will attempt to set a new Guinness World Record™ of the Most Cloth Diapers Changed in a 24 hour period and raise awareness to the many benefits of cloth diapering today.  In 2012, cloth diapers were changed at exactly the same time around the world, which meant that in some parts of the globe the events were held in the middle of the night.  In this event, everyone will be changing their cloth diaper at 11 a.m. local time, so it will become a wave heard around the world. Register right HERE!

“Each year billions of disposable diapers enter landfills where it takes hundreds of years for them to decompose, if ever,” says Heather McNamara, Executive Director of the Real Diaper Association. “Building off the success of last year’s event, we hope to show the entire world that cloth diapers are a real option for today’s modern families, particularly catching the eye of expecting and new parents who may be seeking more planet-friendly and affordable alternatives to disposable diapers.”

The event will take place at the Salt Lake Community College – Miller Campus beginning at 10:30 a.m.  In addition to the Great Cloth Diaper Change world-recording setting activity, there will also fun family-friendly activities, vendor booths, sponsor tables, etc., beginning at 9 a.m. and lasting until 1 p.m.

Interesting facts about cloth diapers (see www.realdiaperassociation.org):

• Families can save approximately $2500 over the time it takes to transition a child from diapers to being “potty trained”.
• Instructions on most disposable diaper packages advise that all fecal matter should be deposited in the toilet before discarding, yet how often is a disposable diaper changed and the human waste is sent out to the landfill in the diaper?
  • Reusable cloth diapers are reused approximately 200 times before being turned into rags.
  • It is estimated to take about 250 – 500 years for a disposable diaper to decompose.
  • Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste.  In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up 50% of household waste.

The Great Cloth Diaper Change: In its third year, The Great Cloth Diaper Change is an international initiative organized with the help of the nonprofit Real Diaper Association designed to show the world that cloth diapers are a real option for today’s families. The brainchild of Judy Aagard of Tiny Tots in California, Aagard says she came up with the idea in an effort to host a family event celebrating Earth Day. The Great Cloth Diaper Change has morphed into an exciting Guinness World Record™ event. Register HERE!

I do have two children who could care less about gardening. I still make them weed and water and clean up the yard. It makes for good work habits I say.

But because I know that growing and gardening has such lifelong benefits I encourage my littlest gardener. I am growing something other than plants when she joins me in my little greenhouse or flowerbeds. Here are a few tips and fun ideas for growing your little gardeners.

1. Make it a date: Invite your child to join you and talk to you and share their day. Give your undivided listening ear to your child.

2. Give them a gardening space: My daughters have their own flower patch and every year my daughters get to pick out a flower they want to plant in their space. It is exciting for that child to watch and design their own space.

3. Don’t be afraid of getting dirty: My daughter’s comment to me when I asked if she wanted gloves as she planted pansies. “This is my favorite part, getting my hands dirty.” Of course it is.

Here are a few fun ideas to make gardening an adventure for your child.

Create A Fairy Garden

photo by Karynn Jorgensen for aliveutah.com

Get some fun fairy ideas here.

Best kid veggie garden idea via notjustahousewife.net

Awesome Treasure Hunt Idea

via Nurture Store Gardening Activities

 Washing clothes with no detergent? It sounds absurd! That’s exactly what the Smart Klean Laundry Ball claims to do….for A WHOLE YEAR! I stumbled on this product a couple months ago through another awesome blog http://theadventuresoflactatinggirl.com and I HAD to get my hands on one.

Well, I did get my hands on a Smart Klean laundry ball  as well as one of their cool stain sticks made of 100% natural ingredients and it lasts foooorever. I have to tell you that I absolutely LOVE both products! I’ve been working on simplifying my life, spending less money and getting rid of unhealthy things in my life and my family’s. Because I was cloth diapering, I was always on the lookout for detergents that were safe for my diapers and for my family. This is exactly what I needed…

What is the Smart Klean Laundry Ball and how does it work?

The smart klean ball is made of thermoplastic elastomer. Inside the ball are four types of mineral-derived ceramic beads and two magnets. When these components come in contact with water, they make ‘oxygenated’ water and increase the pH level which helps to clean and discinfect your clothes. You can click HERE to learn about each of the components.

The money you save isn’t only from eliminating laundry soap from your grocery list. The Smart Klean Laundry Ball cleans in cold water (washing in hot water is not recommended), because there are no suds there is no need for a rinse cycle which saves about 2000-8000 gallons of water, the ball eliminates chlorine and is gentle on your clothes which makes them last longer (although I LOVE shopping). I have to a say that I broke the first one somehow. I think the hubby washed it in hot water and it just ended up looking lopsided but the company sent me a replacement in a couple days. It’s been about a month now and it’s working great.

I was so excited to use the ball, I washed everything! Towels, kids clothes, husbands work clothes, the doggie bed (ok, so that didn’t fit so well in my machine) Everything was clean and smelled fresh. Not perfume clean, I mean for real clean…and soft.

My little guy potty trained a couple months ago so I missed the chance to try it on his cloth diapers. So, I went over to a friends house to do a couple loads of  diaper laundry and to put the stain stick through the ultimate test….newborn poop! You know, the yellow stuff that stains EVERYTHING!!!

So it seems that they washed best with a pre-rinse first and then a full wash. Cold water worked just fine and the diapers came out clean! Check out what the Stain Stick removed!

BEFORE THE LAUNDRY STICK TREATMENT

AFTER STAIN STICK TREATMENT

Then I figured the review wouldn’t be complete without trying the laundry ball in a high efficiency front loader so I found another friend with a HE washing machine and she loved it too! Cloth diapers and all Here are some pictures of her laundry (her baby is in the spaghetti stained t-shirt phase)

Some food and funky purple stuff

I think that’s pretty awesome

In conclusion, I think this little ball is full of awesomeness and I highly recommend everyone give it a try. I’m hoping it really does all my laundry until March 2014! Wanna give it a try? Here’s your chance to win a Smart Klean Ball and Stain Stick.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER OUR RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY!  Ends April 19.

Disclosure: I received a laundry ball and stain stick to sample in exchange for this review.  The winner will receive their prizes directly from Smart Klean. All of these statements are true and are my own.

No Poo Hair Doo

I haven’t shampooed my hair for 2 weeks now. Before you say something like “ewww her hair must be really gross, dirty and smelly”, read the whole post please.  My hair has never been cleaner and healthier and I want to share how great I think it is. You too can “no poo” with just a few common houshold ingredients= baking soda, water, and apple cider vinegar. I also add some tea tree oil to my wash because I love the smell.

I don’t consider myself to be a really “crunchy mom” but I have been dabbling in the granola a lot lately. I think it started with cloth diapering then I began using a Lunette menstrual cup and now I’m not shampooing my hair. Now what in the world could these things have in common? Well, the hygiene routine in all the above cases can lead to a lot of waste and unecessary chemical exposure, not to mention hundreds of dollars thrown away and flushed down the drain.

So why should you try it?

1) The most obvious reason is the cost. If I can keep from making numerous trips to the store for diapers, pads, tampons, shampoo, and conditioner then I say hooray! I’d rather buy shoes.

2) Shampoo can irritate/dry out your scalp and exposure to these chemicals is unecessary.

3) Shampoo strips our hair of its natural oils which we then combat by using more products like conditioner. When our hair is stripped of all its oils, it over produces these oils to make up for it. Then our hair feels dirty so we wash it again thus repeating the vicious cycle.

If you do decide to no-poo there is a transition period that can last a couple of weeks where your hair does seem more oily and you still need to no-poo it frequently. Because your hair is used to being stripped of its natural oils, it may continue to over produce until it realizes it no longer needs to do this. Once your hair regulates its oil production, you can go quite some time without having to wash it again.

So let’s get down to  the fun part.

WASH: My solution is a mixture of 1 cup of water and 1-2 tbs baking soda. You may have to try it a couple times to find the right mixture for you. I pour it in a bottle and this makes me enough to last maybe a week or more and I make sure to shake well each time I use it again. I also like to add about 3-4 drops of tea tree oil. Tea tree oil is something that you should be careful with because it’s very potent and it is recommended that you use it with a carrier oil. It is not necessary but I love the smell and of course, have an abundance of it because I use it to make baby Jax’s cloth wipe solution. We’ll talk about that later…

First, wet your hair and then pour your solution on your scalp and gently massage it in. Too much baking soda can make your hair feel dry at the ends so if this happens then try less baking soda in your mixture. To prevent this I only pour the wash on my scalp. I massage it in for about one minute and then rinse well.

CONDITION: Apple cider vinegar works best but you can also use white vinegar. I mix about a table spoon of apple cider vinegar with a cup of water and I pour it on the ends of my hair.

I know the thought of using vinegar in your hair might make you cringe but I’m telling you your hair will be sooooo happy and so will your scalp! It’s great for dandruff and itchy scalp. It creates a beautiful shine, smooths the hair cuticles down, and restores the natural Ph balance to your hair. The acidity of vinegar is actually pretty close to hair, not to mention it kicks build-up butt which is great news for us Utah mommies who have to live with very hard water.  Be sure to rinse out thoroughly and once your hair is dry, there won’t be any lingering smell of vinegar.

I blow dry my hair or straighten it if I have to and DONE! I’ve noticed that my hair seems so much thicker lately. I love it and I hope that some of you give it a try…

I stopped using tampons some time ago and was using pads for a while because of very irregular menstrual cycles. After having two children, my periods have become more consistent and heavier and my PMS symptoms have turned me into this monster that my husband hides from. This little cup has made my life so much easier and here’s where you can WIN one :  www.honeybumpmaternity.blogspot.com

Here’s a little rundown of what the Lunette Cup is exactly: The Lunette menstrual cup is made in Finland and is a clean alternative to pads and tampons. If you’re wondering what type of safety standards are being followed, check it out here. Using a Lunette is similar to using a tampon but with less changing. They come in two sizes and I’ve been told that you can use either one. Apparently size one is softer than size two and would work good for light days or those with a low cervix or sensitive bladder.  It is made of  medical-grade silicone, not rubber or latex, and you can just wash it and reuse. You fold it up and insert it like you would a tampon and it opens up once inside. I used a C fold but there are many others and you can view them here.

Folding methods

It has a flat tab at the bottom that you can use to grasp when removing or you can cut and remove the tab completely if too long or not needed. Unlike tampons and pads, it does not absorb moisture or make you sweat…wonderful! Cleaning it is a breeze because is doesn’t absorb moisture and there are no crevices where anything can get caught, it rinses off so easily.

Why use a menstrual cup?

For starters, I cloth diaper my baby and am familiar with the love of never going to the store to purchase disposables again. The benefits greatly outweigh the extra 2 or 3 loads of laundry that I do a week. I have heard comments from others that cloth diapering is more work or that it’s gross. I have to disagree! It’s different than what we’re used to (which is rolling up our waste and throwing it in the garbage, which is where it shouldn’t go). As I found with cloth diapering, a menstrual cup is something wonderful but it takes getting used to. After one day of using it, I totally got used to it. It may take others longer, but it is very worth it. The insertion is probably what I was most afraid of. It took a little practice and so did the removal but once I got it down, I went out for a jog and also a bike ride and it was like I didn’t have a period at all!  My period also seemed shorter and I felt cleaner. TRUE!!!

Safer and Healthier-  Tampons can leave fibers in your body and dry out your membranes and pads absorb moisture and is a wonderful breeding ground for bacteria which can create all sorts of icky things like yeast infections and odors. There also have been no reported cases of TSS (toxic shock syndrome) in connection with the use of menstrual cups. Something my mom totally scared me with when I was in my teens.

Economical- We spend about $48 – 84 per year on disposable tampons and pads. The Lunette is a one-time cost that will last for years and you can find one from this local mommy at Happy Cotton Tails. They sell my favorite natural living products and cloth diapers

Environmental- Yes, it’s a green thing. Like disposable diapers; all of our pads, tampons, wrappers, and plastic applicators are accumulating somewhere in our landfills. They don’t disappear when we throw them in the trash.

I was very excited on my first day trying the Lunette cup, but I was nervous too. I had to remove it the first time and try again because I could feel that it was positioned incorrectly. After my first time emptying it, I found it much easier to insert each time. I have a size two cup and it is pretty firm so that made me a little nervous but once I got it in, I couldn’t feel a thing! I will be reviewing a size one in a couple weeks and I’m curious to see how that works out but I figured since I’ve had two vaginal deliveries, the size two would be a better fit. My periods are very heavy the first three days and I found that I needed to empty it about every 4 – 5 hours or I would start spotting a little. I was told that the spotting could be from placing it too high so the lip of the cup may not so maybe I need position it lower and cut the tab shorter. Emptying it every 4 hours during my heavy days eliminated this problem. After the first couple days, I was going hours forgetting that I even had a period. Imagine that.When you’re ready to empty the cup, it helps to relax your vaginal muscles and you remove similar to a tampon. Pinching the bottom of the cup helps to break the seal of the lip, which is a little like suction and I found that removing at an angle worked best for me. Then just empty cup into the toilet, rinse the cup and replace. There is no mess, no odor, no worries.

In conclusion, I give this cup two thumbs up! I absolutely loved it and I hope every woman gives it a try. Well, what better way to try it out than to win one for free! Click here and enter to WIN: Honey Bump Maternity . I’m using www.rafflecopter for this drawing and cannot embed it in this post so please head over to the Honey Bump Blog and enter

Contest ends June 3rd, 2012. Good luck everyone!
7 Key Features That Make Lunette Unique

Top 12 Reasons to Use a Lunette Menstrual Cup

Disclosure: I received a Lunette Cup in exchange for writing this review. No other form of compensation was received, and all opinions are 100% honest.

All you need to do is figure out the length of the sleeves that you want by holding them up to another short sleeve shirt and leave about an inch to sew up and cut off the excess. As for the pants, you pretty much have no choice but to cut at the knee if there are holes already. Keep in mind that if you are doing it to jeans, you may want to get a sewing needle that is specifically for denim since it’s so thick it could break your other needles (yes this happened to me many times) Take a look at this new-to-him outfit

You can’t really see the bottom of the pants but I cut them right where the holes in the knees were and they are perfect! I’m so proud of myself, I’m afraid I might go cut up the whole family’s winter gear.

Think of what you can make new again in your home! Recycle it, Reuse it, Up-cycle it…whatever! Stretch your dollar further and have some fun.