Radiantly You - My new Adventure

So as most of you already know I try to use as much organic and natural things in our home, what we put on our bodies and what we put in them.

I have done many of experiments at making my own homemade items. Most work out which I usually share those with you.... bless my hubbys heart he has put up with a lot of these.

I do fairly well with a few things I make, but there are things I cant or just flat out don't want to make them.

Soooooo.......

I heard about this awesome set of products that go from laundry soap to babies butt cream and guess what they have in them???

Well let me tell you what they don't have in them. Nothing bad for you!! And a plus is that you can actually read and understand the ingredients labels!

To me that is a huge thing!!

I wanted to share with you this company it is called Radiantly You. I just became a distributor. I wanted to share these products with you.

I will be giving honest reviews about each product as I use them. (as I buy them one thing at a time I live on a budget) I have been using some of the products already and cant wait to get my hands on the rest.

So if you would like to come take a look see before I post about each product come on over I promise you wont regret it :)

 

 

God Bless,

Jen



Natural Dishwashing detergent

I don't know about you all but trying to find a natural dishwashing detergent that actually works for the dishwasher that is not really expensive is hard to find.

Well even some of the expensive ones don't work. *sigh*

I hate the way that sometimes the dishes still have the smell of the soap still on them. I  pretty sure that can not be healthy.

I have looked up many recipes to find one. But most have ingredients that to buy it is expensive and it may not work so I just have not been able to bite the bullet and fork over the money. 

Well I found something that works great!

And only has.... Wait for it........ 2 ingredients!!! ( you read that right)

I bet you have them in your house right now.

I'm not kidding.

So here they are

Dish soap

Baking soda

That's it. 

Now before you go off and try this read carefully or you will have soap suds all over you kitchen floor. (Not fun)

Step 1: load your icky stinky dishes

Step 2: now read carefully add 2-3 drops of natural dish soap. I used seventh generation. If you do more it will not be pretty. 

Step 3: put baking soda in. I do it right with the dish soap and put some extra in the bottom of the dishwasher. 

Step 4: turn it on. 

That's it! I promise!! 

One thing that I noticed is, you know that stinky weird smell in the dishwasher, it is gone! Whooooohooooo!! 

Well that's my tip for the day. I hope this helps you all become a little more "crunchy" and frugal. 

God Bless,

Jen

Home made Yogurt

So here is another one of those easy things to make at home and it cost way less and you know what is in it because you put it in there *smile* You can flavor it however you want I use it a lot in cooking. It makes wonderful pancakes!

So you are going to need 2 ingredients!!

Whole milk and yogurt starter.

Don’t forget to read you label on the back to make sure it has active cultures.

Yogurt starter is simply plain yogurt with live cultures in it. You can buy it at the store or you can use some from a batch you or a friend made. So if you keep a couple of cups off each batch you will never have to buy yogurt again!! This is good for us because we go through a lot of yogurt. You also will need to use whole milk also it just wont work with others. Trust me I tried.

First off you will add milk to a pan. I do a whole gallon at a time so my batch is always pretty big. You first bring the milk to a boil stir often so it does not burn. then remove from heat.

Now you let it cool. This may take awhile. Mine took a couple of hours too cool to room temp. You don’t want to kill the good cultures in your starter by putting them in while it is too hot. Just test with your finger.

Once it is cooled add your yogurt starter. I added about a 2 cups to my 1 gallon. Now you are going to place a towel over it and set it out over night about 12 hours.

Next you will place it into your containers you will be using and let it sit in the frig for at least a few hours. Now you have yogurt! you can flavor it however you want.

You may notice it is not as think your first time making it. But as you make it and use the starter from each batch it becomes even better.

Some things I do with my plain yogurt.

• add some to a pancake recipe
• flavor with honey, vanilla, any fruit (love blue berries)
• Add to my oatmeal in the morning with a bit of honey and some blueberries
• I have used it in place of sour cream in a pinch

There is so much you can do with it. I hope you enjoy your yogurt!

   God Bless,

    Jen.

Home made sour cream

There are so many things you can make at home not just to save money but also to know what is in it. Sour cream is one of those things and it is so easy to do. You only need 2 ingredients!

Cultured Buttermilk and heaving cream

You can buy them both from any supermarket. You can also make buttermilk too. Which you can look in recipes for that. It has to be cultured buttermilk.

So you ready for this super easy recipe?!

First you find a glass jar. I used one of those salsa jars with the wide mouth. You fill the jar about 3/4 full (or however much you want to make) with heavy cream then you add some buttermilk. my Jar was pretty short so I put about 2 – 3 T in it. If your jar is bigger add more.

Now here comes the tricky part *smile* take a paper towel or some other cover that can breath and set it on top of the jar and place a rubber band to hold it on. Phew……. Okay now that hard part is over place it on you counter and let it sit for 12-24 hours. This just depends on how warm your kitchen is. I did mine at about 4pm last time and when I got up in the morning it was done!

Look at that!!! SOUR CREAM!!

P.S. It is super yummy!!!

   God Bless,

     Jen

Home made syrup

So this is something that we go thru a lot of. Syrup can be very expensive when you buy the stuff with out high fructose corn syrup. I try not to let our family eat that stuff! Well and my kids will not eat real maple syrup so I make it. The brand I normally buy that doesn’t have the yucky stuff in it is over $4 per jug. so this is a money saver for me! I just buy a new jug every once in a while.

So first of all you need to get some Mapleine flavor I think it is around $4 per bottle and I buy maybe 2-3 a year. So that’s a HUGE savings for our family!It is over by the extracts in the grocery store.

Here's what I do when I make my syrup. There are instructions on the box but I don’t do the same. Okay I don’t think I do I just do it by eye. So today when I made it I made sure to count and measure what I put into it.

• In a sauce pan boil 1 cup of water
• turn to low after boil
• add sugar in 2/3 cup increments  to a total of about 2 cups ( I use Raw sugar). Between each 2/3 cup of sugar stir until sugar is completely dissolved. This is key other wise you will have a lot of crystalized sugar in the bottom of your jug.
• stir in 1 tsp. of flavoring (you can add more if you want more of the maple flavor)
• Let cool for about 20 minutes
• then add to jug you want to use. Mine is 22 oz and it was filled up to the top. It will look very liquidy.
• let cool completely with lid open then store in the refrigerator

 

Now you just use it like normal syrup. You can heat it up if you desire just make sure you use a jug you can do that with. I had this really awesome syrup jar that I could place in a pan of water on the stove to warm it up. I wouldn’t recommend placing in the microwave in less you put the syrup in a different container with the amount you want to warm.

I hope you find this useful to use in your home to save a few pennies.

    God Bless,

    Jen

Money saving & cleaning tips

We have been living on one income since the end of 2005 except for 3 months this last summer after we closed our shop while Vince was looking for a new job. So I have become creative to keep our living expenses down. Here are some things we do.

Cleaning supplies - If you ever look in my cleaning cupboard you find only a few things in there. Ammonia, White Vinegar, baking soda, and dish soap. Here is what I use and make for cleaners

• Bath room for the sink, mirror and tub I use an all purpose cleaner I make using Ammonia and water 1 part ammonia 8 parts water. This is a great bacteria killer and awesome on mirrors no streaks. (DO NOT MIX WITH BLEACH!) If I have stubborn stuck on the sink or tub I sprinkle baking soda on it and scrub. I also sometimes sprinkle the baking soda all over the sink and tub and spray vinegar on it. It give you that "scrubbing bubbles" feeling. For the toilet I use a mixture my best friend showed me. All you do is just put in a bowl some baking soda and dish soap and make a paste and spread it on your toilet then I spray vinegar on it and dump some in the toilet, and let it sit for a little bit while I clean the sink and tub then I just scrub easy as pie and supper cheap!!

• Kitchen for all surfaces I either use the ammonia water mixture or I use a vinegar water mixture. They both work great. For the sink if I just need to wipe it our I just spray it with either one of those mixtures. For stubborn stuck on stuff I sprinkle baking soda with a little of salt and sray with vinegar water and scrub. As for my floors I use super hot water with vinegar it is amazing on all floors and it will not damage them! Streak free too :)

• Dusting I usually just dry dust with a micro fiber towel and it I need a little help I mist a little vinegar water on the towel. Works like a charm.

I also make my own laundry soap and fabric softener. This is a great money saver. For a family of 6 we was clothes a lot around here. These are pretty easy to make you just need about 45 min to make them. Okay the fabric softener takes about 30 sec and the soap may take you 45 min the first time because you will be nervous you are not doing it right but it will be okay. The first time I make it I was like this is never going to work but guess what it did!! So here we go.

• Fabric softener

1 container of any liquid fabric softener you like.
4 Inexpensive sponges
1 5 gallon bucket

Pour entire container of fabric softener in bucket. Fill empty fabric softener container with tap water twice (1 part softener to 2 parts water). Add sponges to the mixture. When ready to use wring out extra moisture in sponge (just don't let it be dripping) and just put it into your dryer while drying your clothes. Easy peazy!!

For me what I do is I have an small plastic container on my dryer I fill half with the mixture and put a few sponges in it so it is easier for me to get to. then I just refill that container when it empties.

• Laundry soap
  

4-5 cups- hot tap water
1 bar of Zote (or any other laundry bar)
1 cup of Arm & Hammer washing soda (this is different then baking soda)
1 cup of Borax
1- 5 gallon bucket

- grate the bar of soap
- fill 5 gallon bucket 1/2 full with hot tap water
- In a sauce pan add water and grated soap and heat over med high heat till soap is dissolved. Stir constantly.
- pour dissolved soap mixture into bucket
-at the borax and Arm & Hammer washing soda and stir till all dissolved
- fill the bucket the rest of the way with hot tap water and stir again.
-optional you can add about 25-30 drops of essential oils after it cools
- let sit for 24 hours before using it. It will gel.
- Stir and then fill a used clean laundry soap dispenser half full with the mixture then add tap water to fill it up. So this really means you get 10 gallons of soap!!!
- Yeilds 10 gallons
- for top load washers use 1 cup
- for front load washers use 1/4 of cup

Tips- for the bar soap you can use - Zote, Fels-Naptha, Sunlight, Kirks Hardwater Castile and Ivory bars. (If you use ivory use 2 bars)

When I make my next batch I will take pictures so you can see what it looks like :)