Try It Tuesday: Homemade Powder Laundry Soap "The Many Uses of Ivory"

This just takes a little bit of time and some cheap ingredients and you will have made you & your family some inexpensive gentle soap to do laundry in.

Homemade Powder Laundry Soap
1 bar of Ivory Soap, grated
1 C Borax
1 C Washing Soda

Mix them all together and store in an air tight container (re-use some plastic container that would have been thrown away). Use 1T for a front loader and 2T for a top loader.

That's it! How simple was that!

Make It Monday: Banana Cake

Extra ripe bananas? Milk gone sour? Use them both up and make some delicious banana cake. Don't throw away food that could be used in a recipe that calls for it. If don't have any sour milk, don't worry, a 1/2 tsp of lemon juice in the milk will turn it sour easily enough. This cake is perfect on it's own, dusted with powdered sugar, served with whipped cream, or -- my favorite -- topped with cream cheese frosting!

Banana Cake


1/2 C butter or coconut oil
1 C raw cane sugar
2 C whole wheat flour (I like to use white whole wheat)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/2 C + 2 T sour milk
1 C mashed rip bananas
2 eggs
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 C chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 13x9" cake pan with non-stick spray.
Cream coconut oil (or butter) with sugar. Mix in bananas, extract and eggs. In a smaller bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Stir in dry ingredients, alternating with milk. Stir in nuts.
Bake for 25 minutes.

Thrifty Thursday: Dollar Store Workbooks

Help your kids out and prevent some of that loss of reading/math/etc skills that is lost over the summer months and pick up some workbooks. Sure, you can spend more money and buy some online or spend money on ink to print of sheets, or you can just run to the Dollar Store and pick up some workbooks. The only catch is that I have not seen any about Grade 3 & 4 (I did pick up some preschool ones for my son too.)

I also picked up a couple of books with science facts in them (animals & space) to read segments to my daughter. These were from the dollar store as well.

The other packets & reading chart came from her soon-to-be 1st grade teacher to work on over the summer.

We had been sent home a brochure to order a Time for Kids workbook (which included a "free" magazine subscription) that was about $15 and included enough pages equivalent to only 1 -2 of these workbooks. I didn't need the magazine subscription and knew $15 was kinda spendy for the workbook, so I went in search at the dollar store since I had seen some there before.

Also, someone had come around trying to sell educational books similar to the ones I picked up from the dollar store. The ones that were thinner like these hardcover ones were $10, whereas I paid $1.

I bought 6 workbooks (she already finished one after only a few days out from school, my little eager beaver, even though I told her my expectation was to finish 3 this summer) and 2 hardcover science books for $8, whereas it would have cost me $25 to get the equivalent of 2 workbooks & 2 science books.

Wordless Wednesday: Wisconsin Veterans' Tribute

WISCONSIN VETERANS' TRIBUTE

Try It Tuesday: Crab Hand print Craft

This is a fun & easy one for toddlers, preschoolers & even early elementary kids to do.

The first thing I had my kids do was smear glue on the bottom of the page to create a beach using some sand from the sandbox and some gold glitter.

Next their hands were painted (I helped my son, but my daughter did it on her own) to make hand prints for the crab. Google eyes were glued in to place, as well as some shells and stone from a previous project.

Simple, cute & fun!

GIVEAWAY and Review: PottyCover

As you read this post, I may be packing for a trip or already be on one. Guess what we are bringing along!

A Potty Cover!

We have the opportunity to review the potty cover and I just don't know what the bathroom facilities will be like and I feel better about having one just in case, than not.

I have a little story to tell you, and yes, it will probably give you the heebie-jeebies, but it's the whole reason that potty covers are necessary. We went to a festival last fall and on the way to the parking lot there were porta-potties and since w3e had an hour drive home I knew we better go while we had a chance. My daughter & I went in to one and I placed my purse down in front, not thinking it would be anything but clean (not sure what I was thinking - it's a porta potty!) and when I left, I saw there was poop - someone else's poop!!! Yuck! on the side of my purse, towards the top! Which had I had a potty cover would have protected my purse with the long flap in the front. Personally, I find most porta-potties repulsive and no one maintains them until they are full. I feel much better about having to use them (because you know that when a child has to go, they have to go!) with having a Potty Cover handy.

PottyCover is a disposable toilet seat cover for children that covers the sides and the front of the toilet, to keep away germs at public rest-rooms. It is made of non-woven fabric coated with a layer of plastic, creating a waterproof barrier between the toilet and the child. This product has the largest coverage of all seat covers on the market and for added convenience, each seat cover is individually packaged in a small, easy to open bag that makes it super easy to always keep one or two in a purse or a back pocket.

Using a public rest-room with a young child could be very stressful, but with PottyCovers the whole family can feel safe knowing that even at the filthiest bathrooms they will be protected from germs. We designed this product for kids, but it has become a must-have travel item for many of our adult customers.

A pack of PottyCover sells for $5.99 and it is available on Amazon, Ebay, all Buy Buy Baby stores around the country and at select Bed Bath & Beyond stores.

ONE LUCKY READER WILL WIN A PACK OF POTTY COVERS.

a Rafflecopter giveaway I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

GIVEAWAY and Review: My Hikes Cuff Fasteners + 40% off COUPON

Are your kids between sizes like mine are? For my son, 2T is too short but 3T is still too long. Previously the only solution was roll them up. But rolled up pants don't stay rolled up for very long and before you know it you have a kid tripping over there pants or wearing out the cuff that they are walking on.

The solution is My Hike Pant Cuff Fasteners! I would liken them to decorative sturdy paperclips. They work in much the same way as a paper clip does where you hold two or more items together by sliding those things (in this case fabric) between the fastener. Where it differs from a paperclip is that it slides up (instead of down), it is a very sturdy plastic, and you have seven different designs to choose from.

I chose the dump truck design to review for my son, but I was really thinking I like the train design as well, plus there is a baseball and soccer ball design as well. For my daughter, I would have a hard time choosing between the princess crown, butterfly and flower. Each package is a set of 2 so that you can hold each pant cuff up.

If you also want to think outside the box on how to use these, they would be great to help keep long sleeves up when you are trying to keep a child from getting them wet or messy.

These are just so cute!

ONE OF MY LUCKY READER WILL WIN THEIR OWN SET OF MYHIKES!!!

If you don't want to wait to win a set, would like an additional set or were not my lucky winner, then you can use coupon code: MyHikes40off26 to get 40% off when you purchase from MyHikes.

If you are trying to leave a comment, for some reason the comment form is not showing up in IE. You will need to leave a comment by viewing this is Firefox or Chrome.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.