Easy Homemade Household Spray Cleaner

This all purpose all natural spray cleaner recipe is easy to make & cheap as can be. The vinegar in it is an anti-viral anti-bacteria & anti-fungal so it kills all those little bugs. It is also very safe to use around the kitchen & your children.

Items needed:

-32 oz Spray bottle

-8to 10 drops Dr. Bronner's castile peppermint, lavender or almond liquid soap

-1/2 cup white vinegar

-2 teaspoons Borax

Combine all ingredients in spray bottle then tip bottle back and forth gently until ingredients are mixed. Less that a $1 a bottle to make. You can't beat that!

Did you know that Borax is a natural mineral that is used to kill ants & fleas and is anti-fungal.

Seventh Generation Giveaway * Sweet Life in The Valley

{click on the image to go to the giveaway}

Hi everyone- this week on our Sweet Life in The Valley Fun Free Fridays Giveaway we are giving away a huge tote full of Seventh Generation Cleaning Supplies. I am also giving our Sweet Green Living readers an extra chance to win. You can enter here on Sweet Green Living & on Sweet Life in The Valley. To enter here send me an email with Seventh Generation at the subject to sweetgreenliving@gmail.com & be sure to follow the rest of the directions given on Sweet Life in The Valley.


Have a great weekend!

Sweet Service * Nie Nie Day * Sweet Life in The Valley * April Atwater Photography

In coordination with Design Mom's Nie Nie Day today we are able to use the goodness of blogging to help a fellow blogger & her family in need. The needs of the family are over whelming and are expecting to be into the millions for treatments & recovery. The Auction is taking place on my other blog Sweet Life in The Valley.

Click Here to learn more.

Shopping Tote How to

I love the new trend in grocery stores and even Walmart for reusable grocery bags. I am buying a few at a time so that I will have enough for even my biggest shopping days. Here is a tote we made for Earth Day this year. It is a re-post from Sweetlifeinthevalley.com (my other blog). I am going to be re-posting all the things that are natural green & organic related. Enjoy!

Cut large rectangular piece of fabric to desired size. Fold each end about 1/2 inch iron flat and then again about 2-3 inches iron flat.

Cut 2 strips of material for handles to the desired length. Iron in half. Sew each strip on raw edges then finish with zigzag. Turn inside out. Iron so seam is in middle. Zigzag ends.
Pin inside-out together to form the body of the tote. Sew together then zigzag to prevent fraying. Back stitch on corners to strengthen. Sew on handle straps into the inside along top. Iron seams flat.

This is Sha's finished bag. Didn't she do a great job?!

Made from recycled materials. Look around your home & see if there is something that would make a great grocery tote.

Fun Free Fridays Giveaway * Stuff for Sprouts

Each week on my other blog www.sweetlifeinthevalley.com I have a giveaway. When the giveaways are related to green organic or natural products I will be sharing them with you. Click the picture for all the details to enter to win.

Sweet Tip of the Week

When you put your plastic bottles from your water juice etc. in your recycling bins be sure to take the lid off. The lid and the bottle are two different types of plastic. Often recycling centers will just throw the bottles in the landfill if the caps are on the bottles.

Amaranth a Fascinating Ancient Grain

{image via wikipedia}

Just after our trip to Vermont to visit my sisters my daughter asked me if I could make some of that tiny round ball hot cereal like Aunt Bethany made. She could not remember the name of it but loved it and wanted some here at home. So I called up my sister and she said it's called Amaranth ama what? I said. I had never heard that name before it was completely new to me. It was new to me but not the world. Amaranth is a very old in fact ancient grain that was found in cultivation over 6000 years ago. She said you can find it at most health food store or co-ops. So off went looking. And what do you know it was right there next to the rolled oats I buy all the time. After a little research I found out that Amaranth is also known as Pig Weed. I know Pig Weed it was in the fields behind our house when I was growing up. I remember in the fall pulling the seeds off into my hands. Little did I know that I was holding such a wonderful food with an amazing history. Amaranth was used by the ancient Aztec who called it Huautli and made a mixture of Amaranth and honey. We decided to try this yummy treat. I popped the Amaranth and then pour honey over it. The kids loved it. We were thinking of things you could add to the mix such as dried fruits and nuts or even a little organic cocoa powder. It would be a perfect breakfast with some organic raw whole milk poured over top. Amaranth is full of amino acids magnesium iron and very high in protein. This plant is now on my to grow list. As a bonus the flowers can even be used as a deep red dye. Try it sometime. It may just become a staple in your home as it has become in ours.

To cook Amaranth:

-Pop like popcorn in a heavy bottom pan in oil (be sure to stir so it doesn't burn)

-Like oatmeal add water and cook over heat serve with milk and honey or real maple syrup

-Grind into a flour to add to breads, tortillas etc.

Read more about Amarath on Wikipedia.com click here

An Easy Change Everyone Can Make

Anyone who has a computer can make this very simple very easy change to reduce paper waste. Almost every bank credit card company and utility company offers a paperless option for your statements and bills. If you sign-in your accounts online it is usually under account options or account services. Some of you may be worried about making transactions over the internet but banks credit card companies and utility companies are continually finding ways to make your online visits more and more secure. You may also be thinking what if I like to have a copy of my bank statement? Your bank keeps copies of your statements on their servers so you can print a copy anytime you may need one. Another option I love with my bank is the online bill pay. I sign into my account enter the amounts I want to pay for each company and click a button. It is so simple and requires no checks no stamps and I have a confirmation that my payment was received. Reduce the waste- if you receive an average of 15 pieces of bills/statements mail per month and then you stop paying your 10-15 bills through the mail each month you save 500 un-necessary pieces of mail/papers from being wasted. Now take that number and times it by the number of just your friends and family. That's a ton of un-necessary paper waste. Forest Ethics has an interesting report here on the waste of junk mail and it's impact. Can you think of another simple way to reduce waste?

What does Organic mean anyway?

You hear the term "Organic" you see it in the grocery store and read it on your labels but what does Certified Organic mean? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary the term we are use to from Biology class is "of, relating to, or derived from living organisms." But that is not exactly what one is talking about when it written on your peanut butter jar. Organic in these terms means to grow product or without chemicals or synthetics including pesticides, antibiotics, genetically modified organism or any other thing that may be synthetic or unnatural. You can read more details about Certified Organic guidelines here at Wikipedia.com As we transition into an organic & green life we are leaving behind all those toxic chemicals alterations and things that are just plain bad for you and your surroundings.

What does it mean to me to live Green?

{These berries are from Berry Creek Farm in Westfield Vermont an organic farm~ photos by me}

At first the term being "Green" was associated with the Green Party and Environmentalist. This term has evolved to also mean a life style. I do believe that it is import to be responsible with the way we use our land air water and resources but I also believe in the freedoms we are given as American citizens. I do not belong to any political party. For me being Green means thinking about how I use what is available. How wasteful is it? Can we use something that is already there? Do I need that? Do we need to use toxic chemicals to do the job or is there something natural that will work. This blog is my daily questions thoughts and study to change my life and the life of my family to one that will be clean non-toxic responsible and self-reliant. I believe in balance in all things. I hope you find this helpful to you. I want to live to at least 100 and I want a nice non-toxic place to live through out my life. I also want to leave a beautiful place for my children & grands. This is the beginning.