Ok, as promised, here’s a little post about the Green Christmas Gifts that I gave to friends and family last year.

It gets harder and harder each year to think of something original to give to family and friends, and I have to admit, the commercialism of Christmas, and the unnecessary buying, and the waste that goes along with the holidays can kind of put a damper on what it’s all about for me. Last year, I decided to “go green” with my gifts, and give things that I knew people would use and appreciate, things that were easy on the environment, and that would save my loved ones a little bit of cash-o-la in the months that follow.

I started by making a 5 gallon batch of my homemade laundry detergent, and everyone got a nice big jug or two of this awesome, natural, low-sudsing stuff. Save your juice/milk and laundry detergent jugs now, if you’re planning to give this away. (A SUPER easy way to remove the labels from your jugs is to blast them with the heat from your blow-dryer, while slowly peeling them off).

The recipe for my laundry soap is super-simple, and can be found here. You can whip up a batch his in less time than it takes to run out and buy some, and a 5 gallon batch can be made for pennies. Think of how long 5 gallons of laundry soap will last for! I love this detergent for so many reasons. A: it’s easy on the environment, B: it’s excellent for people with allergies and skin sensitivities, C: you’ll never run out of laundry detergent again, and D: you’ll be saving a TON of money.

I’m a huge fan of cleaning my home with environmentally friendly and natural products. They not only are they easy on the earth, eliminating chemicals in the home means better air quality, and over-all better safety and health for humans and pets. The cost-savings is a huge bonus as well. So along with the laundry detergent, I gave a shaker filled with Baking Soda (for scrubbing sinks, tubs, toilets and even grass/laundry stains when spritzed with a bit of vinegar).

A spray bottle filled with vinegar and water is excellent for cleaning kitchen surfaces, windows and glass. I’m sure you’ve heard about the many uses of vinegar. If not, this is a great article to start with. Vinegar is my go to cleaning product for everything: windows, glass, sinks, counters, floors etc. I even use it as a rinse agent in my dishwasher and as fabric softener in my washing machine. It. is. magic.

I LOVE my swiffer, but I didn’t love the expense and waste associated with commercial swiffer cloths, so I found an easy to knit pattern and made a bunch knitted swiffer cloths, and tucked one or two in with each “green gift”. You can just give them a shake outside, when they get dusty, or when necessary, toss them into the laundry to give them a good cleaning.

A few homemade Christmas ornaments are a nice touch. I made these by cutting stars out of corrugated cardboard, and wrapping them with wool.

Each green gift also included a package of CFL bulbs and a power-bar. Power bars are great for plugging the t.v. and its components into, or the computer and its components, but if you make it a power-bar with a timer, and your recipient won’t even have to worry about turning the bar off at night. It will take care of itself.

Lastly, I tucked in a couple of bars of natural soaps from a health food shop, and a bottle of Martha Stewart’s eco-friendly Dish and Hand soap, which I picked up when it was on sale.

Package these items all together in a pretty basket or a cloth bag, and you have a really thoughtful, earth-friendly Christmas gift, that doesn’t break the bank. I had a ton of fun putting these together last year, and felt a real sense of satisfaction knowing that I was giving something that would be appreciated and put to good use.

I hope this inspires you to give a little “green” this Christmas! I’d love to hear about it, if it has. Get creative! And free to share your ideas and pictures on my facebook page anytime! Or to include your links in a comment here on my blog.

Merry Christmas!! :)

Make this simple homemade detergent, and reduce your laundry costs to a few dollars per year:

I’m a huge fan of anything that will save me a buck, save a trip to the grocery store, and help the planet in some small way, so when I learned that I could make my own homemade laundry detergent in less time than it takes to go out and buy a jug of it, I was definitely up for giving it a try.

First things first, you’ll need a 5 gallon bucket with a lid. My hubby brought mine home from work, but you can find them at bulk stores, paint and hardware stores and wine-making places . I’ve also included an Amazon link further down in the post. You can order them straight from my page if that’s more convenient.

Make a line, with a permanent marker, on the outside of the bucket, at the 2.5 and 5 gallon marks. This will eliminate the need for measuring when filling the bucket.

The following recipe makes a full batch, although I usually make a half batch at a time.

I went out and bought this stuff and the grand total here in Canada came to about 15.00, but remember: you’re only use a bit of each ingredient to make one batch of detergent, so after 10 months of making/using my detergent, I’ve hardly put a dent in my ingredients. I figure I have enough Borax and Washing Soda to see make detergent for another couple of years. FOR FIFTEEN BUCKS!

How to make your laundry detergent:

1 bar Ivory Soap (original) (in the U.S., Fels Naptha is often substituted)
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (found in your grocer’s LAUNDRY aisle)
1 cup Borax (also found in laundry aisle)

For your convenience, I’ve included Amazon Affiliate links for the products in this post:

Grate the Ivory soap with a cheese grater. Add it to a pot with about 4 cups of water. No need to be exact with the water, you’ll be adding lots more in a few minutes.
Heat over medium-high, stirring until soap has melted. (I wouldn’t recommend bringing it to a boil – soapy boil-overs are slick and messy to clean up – ahem, not that I’m speaking from experience or anything).
Pour melted this melted mixture into your bucket and add Washing Soda and Borax. Give it a really good stir to dissolve those powders. I stir for a couple of minutes.
Fill to 5 gallon mark with hot water. Give another good stir, and let it sit, uncovered, for a min of 12 hours.

Your detergent could take up to 24 hours to “set”. Sometimes I put the lid on while it sits, sometimes I don’t. No matter what I do, results are different every single time. Sometimes it gels up and gets really super-thick. Sometimes it’s thinner with blobs of gel in it, other times it’s very watery with a curdled look to it. Don’t worry about how it looks! All the essential ingredients are in there so it’s going to do the job.

Using your homemade laundry detergent:

before using your detergent, YOU NEED TO DILUTE IT, so find yourself an old laundry jug or juice jug, and HALF FILL it with your detergent. Fill the rest of the way with water, and shake well.
Shake well before each use, as it tends to gel and separate in between uses.
Use 1/4 cup for front loader & 1/2 cup for top loader

This soap is very LOW SUDSING; so don’t expect to see a lot of bubbling action. Not to worry: sudsing agents are apparently only added to commercial detergents so they look all soapy-sudsy-fantastic, when in truth, they’re not necessary for getting clothes clean.

And there you go….you’re now doing your laundry for pennies a load. You’ll spend less in a year than you used to spend in a month when it comes to your laundry. Who doesn’t love that?

Another awesome way to save is to switch to vinegar instead of commercial fabric softener. Commercial softeners contain many hazardous chemicals that coat the fibres in your clothing. There is a real health risk as we constantly breathe in these chemicals.

Do some googling about the toxic risk of fabric softeners, and that alone may be enough to make you want to switch to vinegar. It is a natural fabric softener, is safe for your family, and costs significantly less than commercial softeners. And no, your clothes will not smell like vinegar! They won’t smell like anything, and THAT’S what “clean” smells like!

I’ve heard that for some of you, Washing Soda can be hard to find. One of my readers has informed me that you can make your own by baking BAKING SODA. Nature’s Nurture has a simple tutorial and explains the scientific aspect of the process.

If you liked this thrifty post, you’ll probably like this one too!

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