Homemade Febreeze

I keep seeing recipes for homemade Febreeze on Pinterest and I thought I'd give it a try. Of course the two cats, one dog and a boy who stinks stuff up around the house are also partly why I need Febreeze.

What you need:

• 1/8 cup of your favorite fabric softener
• 2 Tbsp baking soda
• hot water
• spray bottle (32 oz)

What you do:
Add fabric softener and baking soda to spray bottle. Fill the rest of the bottle with hot water. Shake it all up. Use as you would Febreeze.

Cranberry Squares

I found a bag of two week old cranberries at the back of my refrigerator. They just screamed bake me in something. So I totally listened to those little red guys and made these easy and delicious cranberry squares.

What you need:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups cranberries
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Crumb Topping

• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour

What you do:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, sugar and salt.

Stir the cranberries into the flour mixture, toss to coat.

Add the butter, eggs, almond and vanilla extract to the cranberries and mix until combined.

Spread the batter into a greased 8 inch square pan (a pie plate also works great).

Combine all crumb topping ingredients, cutting together with a fork until well combined. Sprinkle over the cranberry batter.

Bake for about 45- 50 minutes.

I'm in love with the almond and cranberry combo!

Homemade Microwave Popcorn

I was chatting with a friend the other day and she mentioned that she needed brown lunch sacks for homemade microwave popcorn. My ears perked up instantly because I'm all about anything homemade. Turns out you can make your own microwave popcorn with a paper lunch sack and popcorn kernels. Awesome right?!

What you need:

• 1/3 cup pop corn kernels
• paper lunch sack

 What you do:
Toss the kernels in the sack.

Fold the top of the bag down like so. Place the bag in your microwave and hit the popcorn setting. If you don't have a popcorn setting on your microwave then 2 1/2 to 3 minutes should work. (or until you hear pauses of about 2 seconds between pops)

un-popped

popped

Top with your favorite popcorn toppings or just eat it plain. There's only 20 calories in a cup of plain popcorn.

The perfect guilt free easy organic snack.

Here's a little tip: Un-popped kernels can go back in the bag and popped in the microwave next time.

Homemade Air Purifier

Here in Central Texas we're up to our little red eyeballs in cedar. If you live anywhere from Waco to San Antonio you have felt the effects of cedar trees or have friends & family who suffer its wrath. To me cedar pollen means headaches, congestion, sneezing, and red itchy scratchy eyes...ah...ah...choo! I take all kinds of pills, nose sprays, and eye drops to combat the cedar but it's never enough.

Mountain Cedar

Last year Mr. Perfect did a little research on reducing pollen in our home with an air purifier. Along the way he found that making an air purifier was extremely easy, so we gave it a try.

What you need:

• Box Fan (20 inch blade)
• 20x20 high performance air filter
• 1 big rubber-band

We made a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up the box fan and air filter.

The air filter has a 1500 microparticle performance rating and is an advanced allergen reduction filter... whatever that means. I was excited about the $3 off coupon I found on the package.

What you do:
Put the filter behind the fan and rubber band together.

Be sure the arrow on the filter points to the air flow.

Plug it in and breath a little easier.

It's not beautiful by any means but desperate times call for desperate measures!

Sandwich Baggie Bang

In an effort to entertain Trouble, who is out of school for Winter vacation, I decided to do a little science experiment with him. Trouble, like most 8 year old boys, loves it when things explode. So we decided to experiment with a little variation of the volcano we made last spring.

What you need:

• ziplock sandwich baggie (with no holes)
• paper towel
• 2 tablespoons baking soda
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1/4 cup warm water

What you do:
WARNING This should be done outside. (unless you want a baggie full of vinegar and baking soda to explode in the house)

Place baking soda in the middle of the paper towel and fold it up.

Pour the vinegar and water into the sandwich baggie.

Quickly place the paper towel in the baggie and zip that baby up. Give the baggie a little shake.

Put the baggie on the ground and stand back.

before bang

after bang

The baking soda & vinegar reaction produces carbon dioxide which fills and pops the baggie. Most importantly... it makes your kid happy!