Bees Wax

I have a very strong hatred of wasps they swarm our house and make it hard to get inside or go out. My dislike for things that fly and sting you doesn't extend to bees. I have a respect of honey bees. They make my garden happy and produce liquid sunshine and Bees wax.

Good, Raw, Local, Honey is like summer on a spoon, even in the deep dark winter a spoon full of sticky sweetens adds light to my day. Not only do bees give us honey they give us wax.

block of wax

I just bought a block of bees wax at the ren fair this weekend and the weight of it the texture it just feels good and pure. Its a solid thing a good, no frills simple thing that is beautiful, the wax smells like honey it warms up into a mailable tool that lends it self to so many uses and it adds a purity and a goodness to everything it touches. The 1st thing I tried to make with my new block of wax was a replacement for plastic wrap. I dislike plastic wrap, I fail at getting it to make a tight seal, I hate the way it microwaves, I hate the waste and that its plastic, its frustrating and I have never been a fan of the stuff. I just haven't had a good replacement for it until now.

I have wanted to make a few bowl covers with pretty fabric and a little elastic to cover bowls in the fridge, or my new found pyrex glass from the thrift store ( last week I got three bowls with out lids for .99 cents each) I haven't actually gotten around to sewing any though I wanted them to be water proof and PUL well fine for diapers is not food safe so I have been debating how to make a replacement for plastic without using plastic.

waxed cloth

Enter Bees wax.
 You can grate the block of bees wax onto a cloth, stick it in the oven on low let it melt and infuse the fabric and you get a water proof manipulable reusable cloth. It holds any shape you bend it into and you can just flatten it back out, wash it in the sink and use it again and again. I'm definitely going to be making a whole bunch of theses amazing cloths and bowl covers in the future. I will post a tutorial soon too with pictures

New year New plan

We are always working toward a better life. A big part of  that is reducing the trash that our household makes, and reducing our impact on the world. We where both brought up in frugal reused, recycle types of households. My goal in our house is  to not  use toxic stuff, on our bodies, in our house, or our yard.

We have gotten rid of paper towels replacing them with micro fiber towels,
we don't have paper napkins, we use cloth
we buy mostly in bulk, and make food from scratch
we use vinger and baking soda for most of our house hold cleaning.
We make our own laundry soap.
We buy 98% of out stuff second hand.
We are trying to be more local/homemade
We don't eat stuff that is not real. (HFCS, other chemicals)
We are fazing out store bought lotions, soaps, ect for natural alternatives,
Come spring we will start our compost bin again (it sadly failed in the fall and needs some work so that it is not a doggie all you can eat bar.)
We are planning a good sized garden, planning on joining a CSA.
Thinking about getting some chickens.
we have reusable coffee cups,
homemade not store bought
planning on canning food and making beer
planning on biking more maybe making a no drive day.


when i write out what we do a and plan on doing it makes me realize one how much we do, and to how much we can still do.

Soap

On our quest to make our home less toxic and in the spirit of diy, we have embarked on making shampoo.
The  other day I made a yummy body scrub out of coffee grounds, and  today we ran out of shampoo. After reading Skin Deep and how toxic the stuff that we are putting on our bodies, I vowed to make over our shower. We are going green, and that means that we are making shampoo.  I read a lot about making shampoo.
What we ended up doing, and we will see how well it works it using  Castile soap, made out of olive oil it should be good!  All  the reviews are  pretty good online so here we go.
After trying it for two weeks we gave up on the homemade shampoo it is horrible,  We tried a few different combinations of  Castile soap, olive oil, mixing it with other shampoo nothing worked so we've broken down and have switched to another type of shampoo that is organic and much better than the other stuff that we had been using.
We may try again the Castile soap smells good and makes a nice body wash but as shampoo it just made our hair dry,oily. 

Going green

I have the worst case of Green Guilt.
I have always lived a Eco-friendly life. Growing up we lived in a tiny little house with a garden where we grew our own food. We walked most places we started a composting program in schools, helped with starting recycling in the town where we lived. Years later the way I was brought up is still a huge part of how I live.
Now I am living in my own home with my own family and we do a lot. We compost, use cloth napkins, have a garden (small), try to eat local/organic, we have the right light bulbs, we buy in bulk, buy most of our stuff second hand. We are very Eco-aware but it never feels like its enough. It seems that we are being bombarded with demands to live better, books about people who are going the distance, Companies are layering on guilt a lot of the guilt is misplaced companies telling us to buy things that are "Eco-friendly" when consumerism is not what we should be doing to be green.
I think that guilt can be a good thing, guilt for getting a to go cup at the coffee shop, for driving instead of walking, with out that guilt, I think, that  we would do theses things more.
There is another side to green guilt the Eco-smugness which comes with being the person who is  pulling out there reusable bags, or lugging locally grown, organic, vegetables home on foot from the farmers market.  Maybe that is what will make more people become over to the green side.