Make Yourself - Popsicles

Instead of buying Popsicles in the store, make your own! Obviously, it will save you money, but it also gives you the ability to control what and how much goes in them (Organic, sugar, etc.). Not to mention, it is a good way to keep from wasting food. In our house, wasting fruit is a big problem, since the fruit sits in drawers in the fridge, so it's "out of site, out of mind". This way, if I realize something is going to go bad before we can eat all of it, I can just make up some pops!

Go read this great post with some tips and also some interesting ideas to help you get started and think out of the box in terms of ingredients.

Green Factor:

• Can be made with organic produce.
• Making them yourself cuts out all the unnecessary fillers.
• You can control how much sugar (if any) goes in them resulting in a healthier treat.

Saving Green:

• Cheaper to make yourself then buy pre-made.

Homemade/Natural cleaners - Vinegar

I have been learning about homemade/natural cleaners lately. My current favorite is Vinegar.


My favorite use for it is de-stinking. It works wonders for clothes! I have a bad habit of forgetting about the laundry in the washer OR the wet clothes in the basket waiting to be hung up to dry. The clothes are left smelling mildewy and it takes A LOT of washes to get the smell out. Honestly, most of the time the smell wont completely come out. However, I have been using vinegar to get it out and it works in the first wash! I rewash the clothes with the regular temperature and amount of detergent. Then after they are done washing & rinsing, I turn the washer on for another rinse cycle and throw a downy ball full (not just to the fill line) of vinegar in with it and when they are done they smell like perfectly washed fresh clothes! Don't worry, no vinegar smell is left behind. I have used the same amount of vinegar for a small load of cloth diaper inserts and it worked perfectly!

It also works well for smells on hard surfaces around the house. I had a corner of my house my kitties had decided was their litter box! I used 1 part vinegar to 1 part water in a spray bottle and it got a LOT of the smell out. It would have gotten all of it, I'm sure, if the pee hadn't gotten under the flooring. It will smell like vinegar for a little while, but the smell with go away after a while. I used it on painted walls, baseboards, Pergo flooring, & concrete.

Green Factor: Replaces harsh chemical cleaners

Saving Green: MUCH cheaper then chemical cleaners

Reusing/Making Crayons

This is my 19 month old enjoying his new crayons. These are the first ones he was able to color with! (He made the horizontal marks, I made the vertical ones)

Have kids? Have bazillions of random broken crayons?? (Can you have one without the other??) I have a GREAT solution for you! Instead of throwing them out, recycle them! Turn them into new cooler ones! These are GREAT for little fingers (toddlers)...and super easy to do!

Chica & Jo is where I found this first. They have a great rainbow (or any other multi colors) crayon idea. They utilize various shaped silicone ice cube trays. Very fun for older kids!

Make & Takes has another spin on the idea. They used two colors and swirled them together & utilize baking tins. This is the better idea for toddlers I think (unless you can find larger sized of the above mentioned trays).

I was very excited about trying this because my toddler can't color with regular crayons or the Crayola ones specifically for toddlers ("Tadoodles"). He turns them on their side so he can't get them to color. These have no "wrong" side and he can hold them any way he likes and still make color. Yay!

He also likes to hit them together and throw them on the ground while he's coloring. They are pretty sturdy, they haven't broken or chipped (yet)! That makes me feel good knowing he's not going to be putting little pieces of crayon on everything...or eating them! Especially because his baby brother is at the point of putting everything in his mouth now!

So I finally made them the other day and they turned out great! I ended up using the instructions from here because it suited what I wanted better (no oil spray, using muffin pans). Here's some pictures of the process:

First I de-wrapped the crayons and broke the larger pieces up a bit. I decided to sit some muffin papers out to put the wrappers in to keep from going back and forth to the trash can or dropping the crayons in there accidentally. I filled the holes up about 1/2 - 2/3 full. I decided to divide them by types: Crayola & cheap. ;) I was curious how the quality would affect the outcome. You can divide them by color families or however you like.

Then I pre-heated the oven to 275° F. Stick the pan in for around 10 min. Keep an eye on it though. You want the crayons to melt but not turn completely to liquid or you'll have one yucky colored crayon. Once you take it out, let it sit until the pan is cool to the touch. Then put it in the freezer to cool them down the rest of the way. **For those of us with mommy brain, that doesn't mean once it's cool enough to touch. It means when it actually feels cool to the touch. Hence why my crayons are all cracked down the middle. ;) ** Once they are finished cooling, pull them out of the freezer and they will pop right out.


In the next few pictures, the top two are made from cheap brands of crayons and the bottom two are made from Crayola crayons. The crayola made a little bit better mixture of colors on the bottom of these, but they all turned out colorful. Side note: I think I left these in a little two long so they might would have had a little less color mixing going on.

Now that I've flipped them over, you can tell that the oranges/reds rose to the top for some reason. This could be due to leaving them in a little longer then we should have though. The Crayola's still look more vivid on top.

Here's the cracked open side. Notice anything unusual? I found it interesting that the cheaper crayons actually mixed the least so there is more varied color "spots" on the inside of the crayon. The Crayola's made more "lines" of color.

Crayola crayons used this way do make a little "richer" color, but the cheap ones work great for this project. I was concerned that the cheaper ones would be to waxy and wouldn't color right, but they worked very well!

Let me know if you make them and how you did it. I think I might try it again sometime using a whole box of Big Lots brand crayons (most of the cheap ones I used were this brand) and make crayons of one color family. This is a great time to purchase cheap crayons (or any kind for that matter) since it's back-to-school season so don't shy away from this project just because don't have "stubs" to use. Enjoy!