Quick Appliqued Shamrock Shirt Tutorial

iCandy Handmade has an awesome tutorial on how to make this super cute St. Patrick's Day shirt for your little one (or maybe even one for your self).

It is simple and easy to follow! I'm hoping to fit this project in before sending the little one's off to school on Thursday. Wish me luck!

Green Cleaning: Tips, Tricks, Products and Recipes

I'm not sure if it was the 5 hours I spent cleaning and reorganizing my daughter's room this morning or the day I spent working at the preschool cleaning everything with harsh chemicals, but I was inspired to do a post with some of my favorite green cleaning recipes and some great green cleaning products. 

5 Green Cleaning Basics

The basic ingredients in green cleaning are:

1. Baking Soda
2. Borax
3. Soap
4. Washing Soda
5. White Vinegar or Lemon Juice

Ecocycle has many great basic recipes for green cleaning products made from the above ingredients.  Click here for their free green cleaning recipes.

Green Laundry

Vinegar is great for almost any laundry stain.  If I have a tough stain, I put on vinegar and let it soak.  Sometimes a combination of vinegar and baking soda is what it takes. 

Another crazy laundry stain idea to get out tar is to rub butter on it.  This actually works by the way because my daughter sat in tar in a brand new outfit at the park.  Butter and soap took all of the tar out.

A great basic green laundry detergent recipe is:

1 gallon of hot water
1/2 bar of soap (like ivory or some other non-perfumes soap) - grated
1 cups Baking soda

Over Medium High heat melt the soap in 2 cup of hot water.  Once it's melted mix in the remaining gallon of hot water.  Then add the baking soda.  Allow it to coll and then you can store it in an old milk jug or plastic coffee can.  Use 1/2 cup per  load or 1 cup for heavily soiled laundry.

For a more environmentally responsible green version of fabric refresher try spritzing your clothing with a couple of spritzes of vodka and than allowing the item to air out.  Vodka kills odor causing bacteria and the smell of the vodka will dissipate quickly. 

For more green laundry solutions and free green laundry detergent recipes check out Tipnut.com.

Furniture Polish - Black Tea



Strange but true, you can polish your furniture with black tea.  Steep a pot of black tea with several tea bags.  Allow it to cool and then polish furniture with a cotton cloth dipped in the cooled tea.  Tannic acid will remove residue and build-up on furniture.

Household Deodorizers

First, get some plants.  House plants clean the air in your home and help reduce odors. 

You can place out dishes of lemon juice and baking soda to absorb smells. 

For cooking odors you can boil a little vinegar and water on the stove while you are cooking and you can clean off cooking utensils and cutting boards with vinegar after cooking with fish or other seafood. 

I also love to boil cinnamon sticks and whole cloves on the stove if I am having a party or make some hot spiced cider to full the whole house with great smells.

Deodorize carpeting and floors with baking soda.  I even use this try on my hardwood.  I sprinkle some baking soda on the floor and allow it to sit for about 15 minutes (sometime I leave it overnight).  Then vacuum or mop it up. 

Great Green Products

For everyone who doesn't have the time to actually make their own green cleaning items, I found some great products on etsy.  

'Green Clean' by c1h8r9is

Large Wool Dryer Ba... greenbelledesi... $16.00	Fresh Bamboo Handma... sweetsnthings $4.50	Reusable Swiffer Cl... SassmowthDesig... $23.45	CLEAN AND HEALTHY P... YourSecretIngr... $6.95
26 Bird-E Towels (e... AthenaCreates $25.00	Vegan Natural Laund... showertreatsoa... $5.00	Do it all Cleaner -... lapetitevie $7.00	Six Apple Dish Scru... peacoxcreation... $14.50
eco-scrubby (handm... EarthToGert $11.10	Laundry dryer bags MeadowValleycr... $4.00	SALE Lemongrass Sag... BungalowBathBo... $4.00	Soap Nuts Natural L... lostcabin $25.00
Organic Hand Saniti... GardenofHolly $8.50	Dish/Wash Cloths - ... magnoliasurpri... $10.00	Set of 5, Fleece Wa... MitsuyoDay $17.00	Ecofriendly All Nat... picnicbasketcr... $4.85

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Free Tutorial Friday ~ Busy Beaver Lunch Sack

Check in with us every Friday to get your free tutorial/patterns. I thought that Friday was a perfect day to find a great weekend project. And this one can be accomplished in time to send a yummy lunch on Monday for your little back to schooler. Try it out this weekend by packing up a picnic lunch and taking the family to a local park or nature center. This little guy will be right at home!

Busy Beaver Lunch Sack PDF Pattern

With under a yard total of felt you can make this little guy in just a short period of time. New to sewing? Not to worry!!! This pattern comes with a step by step picture tutorial to aid you along the way.  Please feel free to post questions/comments in the comments box below.

We would love to see what you've done! Head on over to the Boutique It on Flickr group to post photos of your finished projects.

Happy Crafting!

Our Favorite Back To School Ideas

Fall is my favorite time of year! School is just getting under way for most of us. The weather is pushing our kids indoors. It's the perfect time to put on our crafting hats and get creative. I tought I'd give you all a head start by compiling this modge podge of some of my personal favorite back to school ideas.

So here we go!!

Family Fun knows back to school!!!



For the best in easy and fun back to school ideas check out Family Fun

Crafts, recipes, party ideas, and so much more. It's a go to site for me!! Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments box!

Leave it to Martha Stewart!!!

Love her ideas always but this one is sure to get a smile from your little ones. She has created this FREE printable for these super cute little lunch labels/stickers. She's got about 18 new back to school ideas to browse through!

My kids use a reusable lunch bag at our house, so I just printed the labels out on card stock and used the back to write a little "I love you".  My oldest daughter loves to find a surprise in her lunch, I think it helps with the home sickness kids can feel during a 7 hour school day! Find another use for this great freebie? Tell us in the comments!!

School Lunches

So my favorite site for back to school lunches is Weelicious. Now this is kids food at it's finest! She even has a recipe for homemade graham crackers.

This site has made it into daily browsing habits by focusing on healthy and homemade alternatives to the processed convenience foods that we find our kids asking for daily.   She makes the recipes easy to find by breaking them up into food groups or just simply by searching her recipe tab at the top of the blog. Like weelicious on facebook for updates on her son's bento box lunch. I love to see what she'll pack next. The use of a bento box really gives your kids a wide variety of things to eat with smaller portion sizes. Love them!!!

Go Green all the way to Back to School

If you have a preschooler at home (or even an elementary aged child) this fun supplies box is simple to make and FREE if you use items that you already have around the house. And best of all it's a GREEN craft!

The holes in the box top are made by poking a hole with a pencil so your child can feel super independent doing this craft. Try using all different containers for this activity. Instead of a shoe box seal up the ends of a cereal/pasta box for a different shape. Give the kids some fun alphabet stickers and let let them spell their name or the contents of the box on the side.

Just follow the link under the picture to head on over to Preschool Rock  to check all of the other awesome preschool crafting ideas they have!

The Long Thread

The peeps over at The Long Thread are forever coming up with wonderful handmade ideas for every occasion. Follow the link below to find a round up of 20 back to school ideas including the ones pictured below.

Apple backpack from Alpha Mom

Reusable Snack Sack from Reprodepot

Free Embroidery Patterns from Sarah Jane Studios

Good luck to all of you back to schoolers!!!

Happy Crafting!