Oil Cleansing Method

While playing on pinterest I cam across a link to the oil cleansing method. I am always on the look out for cheaper and more natural ways to keep my face clean, and have tried a few already. A while back I came up with a concoction that had lots of ingredients in it including rolled oats and honey. It worked OK but left the bathroom looking like it had been smeared in porridge!

I have sensitive skin with patches of rosacea (thanks Mum) and it can be both dry and oily in different parts. I find that scented products, or ones with lots of chemicals in them are not good, so prefer to either buy or make very natural products. So I thought I would try this one!

Basically the oil cleansing method uses a combination of olive and castor oil (the drier your skin the more olive, the more oily the more castor) that you stroke onto your face, then steam and wipe off with a hot flannel. I bought organic high quality oils as I was putting it on my face! I have been using it for a couple of weeks now and it is working fine. No break outs, the little red patches are a lot better than they would be with supermarket cleansers and you don't need moisturiser and only need to do it once a day! I am also using a combination of witch hazel and apple cider vinegar (half and half) as a toner. Together the oil and toner get rid of any make-up, although I use watered down baby shampoo to clean off any eye makeup.

I will give you an update after I have been using it a bit longer, but seems to be working fine at the moment!

3 star Michelin Baby Food Chef!

It never ceases to amaze me how many of my Mummy friends buy copius amounts of baby food. The reasons it surprises me are:

(a) Its expensive
(b) It tastes AWFUL especially the savoury stuff
(c) It is so easy to make your own
(d) Home made is better for your baby

I can't say I have never bought a tin of baby food, when we are travelling or out and about a lot I have resorted to the stuff in a jar, although I generally try to stick with the organic varieties.

I have had both ends of the appetite and fussiness sprectrums with my girls. Mia was (and still is) picky with her food. She wasn't really interested until she was about 8 months and would turn up her nose at my carefully prepared varieties of baby food. Ellie on the other hand seems to eat anything I serve up (so far), although she is currently going through an octopus stage where she has to try and grab everything so a lot of food ends up everywhere except in her mouth!

Making your own food seems such a simple concept to me. You need some fruit and veges (and later on dairy, meat and grains), a stick blender and some ice cube or muffin trays, and a pot of course. Chuck your ingredients in the pot with some water. Boil until really soft and then blend it and freeze it. Heat it in the microwave when you want it and voile! Start with simple root veges and fruit, and then get more complicated. Once its heated add some breast milk or water and rice cereal to take it to the desired consistency.

Ellie is 6 and a half months so what she can eat is expanding. Over the weekend I had a big cook up and here are some of my creations:

Mouse traps for chewing on. Neither or my girls have been that interested in bought rusks but marmite is a hit so these are slices of bread with marmite and cheese on them cooked very slowly to make them hard. Ellie loves them at the moment.



3 varieties of baby food:
1. Stewed pears and apples and also some prunes as Ellie sometimes needs a litte help in the number 2s department!

2. 2 varieties of lamb food. Lamb, kumara, lentils, carrot and date. Lamb, pasta, kumara and zucchini.

3. "Fish pie": Fish, potato, kumara, zucchini and a little bit of cheese.




If you are a big time buyer of commercial baby food, I challenge you to make your own!

Spring in the garden

As you can tell from the "Four seasons in one day" weather we have had for the last few days, spring is here! I have planned to enlarge our vege garden since last summer, when it was neglected and left to grow weeds due to the fact I was heavily pregnant with E! Nathan and I have bothe been busy. He has been building 2 new beds which are now ready to be dug down and lined and filled with soil and compost. As we live so close to the beach our garden is basically sand, and if we want to grow anything we have to ship the soil in!




I have been busy planting plants and seeds and so far I am very pleased with how the garden progresses. As the weather improves I plan to enlarge the range that is growing in our garden, and I really want to try to grow almost all our vegetable needs over the summer and autumn months.




Last autumn Mia and I planted daffodils. It was really easy and it makes me feel so good to look out the window at their beautiful white and yellow heads and know that spring is here and the weather is improving!

Washing liquid

I have been on the search for a "make your own" washing powder or liquid for a while. I had made a powder before and used it, but rejected making it again as it wasn't any cheaper than the ecostore brand powder I already buy, and also because the grated soap didn't dissolve very well in the cold washes I prefer. Recently a friend gave me a copy of a book by Wendyl Nissen which contained a recipe for lavender laundry detergent. I have been using it and it seems to work really well. It was so cheap to make and I had fun going back to high school chemistry and mixing stuff together and watching it do strange things, turning into a really viscous liquid! Have a go at making it - I dare you!

DIY nappies and wipes

When I had my first daughter I was determined to use cloth nappies. As well as being environmentally friendly, I was sold on the fact that after an initial outlay of money, it would save me lots on my weekly grocery bill not having to use disposable nappies. So many people dismiss using washable nappies by forming images in their heads of hours spent slaving over washing them, when the reality is you chuck them in a bucket to soak and then chuck them in the washing machine. When the child gets older and the number 2s get a bit larger and more solid you can add a flushable liner so that you can just empty any poos down the toilet. It really is very easy.

Most people I talked to (and myself now) prefer pocket nappies. What these are are an outside waterproof "case" or cover that you slide a pad into to absorb all the waste. Pocket nappies are probably the most expensive re-useable nappies to buy, so when my sister had her baby I decided that I was proficient enough in sewing machine use to create her some homemade pocket nappies. I have since added to our mutual nappy collection by making some more of my own. They work just as well as the bought ones and cost about a third to a quarter of the cost (although having said that I bought my original ones from the US and our dollar is very strong at the moment so wouldn't be as expensive!). They are pretty easy to sew, especially if you have an overlocker to go around the edges of the liners and stop them fraying.

There are 2 websites that are invaluable if you want to make your own nappies:

• The nappy network: This has advice on both buying cloth nappies and DIY. It even has some free patterns. My first attempt of homemade nappies were the Wee Weka pocket nappy. I used velcro, which tends to stick to everything. Also I found the pattern quite small, especially for my gigantic nephew! For my second attempt I purchased a cosy bundles pattern which can adjust to fit a huge range of sized babies, and my cousin and I went halvies in a stud press, which meant we could put domes on the nappies which don't get covered in fluff like velcro.


• Greenbeans. This is where you can purchase everything that you need to make the nappies, including our friend the stud press (also very useful for quickly putting snaps on kids clothing!)

I would highly recommend having a go at making your own, even if you have to con a friend or relative into giving you a hand.

The other thing that you can spend copius amounts of money on when you have a baby in the house are wipes. And most of them are not supposed to be flushed down the toilet, so your choices are either put them in the bin (ew) or clog up the loo! With a bit of experiementing I have discovered 2 ways that you can save on money, although one of them doesn't really reduce the number of paper wipes that have to find somewhere to go after being used!

First is the mix for the wipes. After experimentation and reading a variety of recipes for wipe solution you have quite a few options that work. Basically you need to take about 2 cups of boiled water and add to it a couple of tablespoons of any of the following: rosewater, castile soap, witch-hazel and a nice oil such as almond or calendula e.g: Add 1 T castile soal and 1 T of almond oil. You can also add a few drops of essential oils such as teatree for its antiseptic properties and lavender for its nice smell!

You then have 2 options. You can dip clean cloths in this mixture and squeeze out excess liquid (I keep it in a sealed icecream container) and wipe. I use a mix of homemade wipes made from flannel or velour. You can then soak and wash these with the nappies. Your other option is to get a container (icecream would work again, or a plastic huggies container is perfect!) and to place about 10 paper towels (chopped up to wipe size), pour on a little liquid, 10 more wipes, bit more liquid and so on. This makes wipes that are much cheaper than commercially produced ones, contain less crap, although are not as soft! You may need to experiment with the type of wipe. I find the homebrand ones from woolworths work fine.

2 ways to save money with a baby in the house, I dare you to try one!

Make your own cleaning products

This is something I have dabbled in for a while, but has fallen off the wayside a bit since the arrival of Miss E. A few nights of enough sleep and reading A Home Companion: My year of living like my grandmother by Wendyl Nissen, a present from a friend for my birthday, has inspired me to get back into it.

As well as sewing I am keen to become more self-sufficient in other areas, for many reasons including self satisfaction, saving money and helping our planet out a bit. This week I am going to focus on making my own cleaning products. Check out Wendyl's website it has some recipes for products that she has tried and tested. I am going to try them out too. I also have a few other recipes I have used in the past:

Jif
Mix baking soda with enough liquid detergent or castille soap to make a paste. Add teatree oil and lemon oil (a few drops of each) to make it antiseptic and smell nice. This goes hard like rock pretty quickly if you don't use it up, but apparently a bit of glycerine keeps it soft. I am going to try this. It works really well!

Disinfectant
I use a mixture of white vinegar and teatree oil to clean the toilets. Together they kill pretty much all the germs. I use ecostore toilet cleaner for the bowl though as the only alternative I have found is a mixture of (a lot of) vinegar and baking soda which actually ends up costing more!

Cleaning spray
I use Dr Bronner's liquid castile soap for my cleaning products. Its quite expensive but it lasts for ages. This cleaning spray works well, although it does leave a build up after a while. I think that Vinegar would remove this though:

1. Mix 1/4 c white vinegar and 1 t borax (can get this from chemist) in a spray bottle.
2. Fill most of the bottle with very hot water from the tap. Shake to dissolve the borax.
3. Add 1/4 c liquid soap and shake.
4. Add 10 - 15 drops of essential oil.

Window Cleaner
Mix half vinegar and half water. Works on mirrors too. Apparently a little bit of cornflour stops streaking but I haven't tried that yet.

Have a go at making your own and share your recipes!! I will share any I try over the week.