All-Natural Spring Cleaning

Spring is here! Hurray! 

Winter has melted away into warm breezes, longer days and sun shining through my windows... my filthy, filthy windows.

There is something about spring that reminds us how dirty everything got over the winter. My shelves are that dusty?? My windows are THAT dirty!? Goodness, winter's grey skies really hide a lot don't they?

Spring is a fresh start, a new beginning. It's a beautiful thing. Let's not ruin this fresh and lovely feeling by coating everything in chemicals, please.

With just a few ingredients from your kitchen cupboards and pantry, your house will be fresh, clean and your nose and body will thank you!

Here is a simple recipe for an multi-purpose cleaner that is great for cleaning up the kitchen.

Multi-Purpose Cleaner:

1 part vinegar

2 parts water

1 tablespoon castile soap
(found in the Health Foods section, Dr. Bronner's or Kiss My Face are great and come in different scents)

Juice of 1 lemon

In my recipe I used, 3 tbsp vinegar to 6 tbsp water, 1 tbsp soap and 1 lemon and it made just under 1 cup of cleaner!
Mix it all together and pour into spray bottle 

(checkout your dollar store for spay bottles or clean out an old spray bottle)

 I used it to clean my kitchen counters, cupboards, fridge and stove.

To clean my sinks, I pour a tablespoon of baking soda into each sink, sprayed the cleaner around and scrubbed them up good! WOW, what a shine!

After seeing how well it did on the kitchen sinks, I headed to the bathroom. I sprinkled about 2-3 tbsp of baking soda around the bathtub, sprayed the cleaner and gently scrubbed the tub, it worked GREAT! Way better than my other method of spraying cleaner and scrubbing with a bristle scrub brush.

I also used it on the sinks and counters in the bathroom. Everything had a slight lemon scent, it was lovely and fresh, not harshly scented like many cleaners that stuff up my nose while I'm cleaning. 

I hope you give this cleaner a try, it's easy, inexpensive and totally effective!

Happy Cleaning!!

PS: Here is a great tip for getting your wood cutting boards clean - coarse salt and lemons (I used the squeezed out lemons from the cleaner!)

Sprinkle salt over your boards and scrub them with the halved lemons, repeat on the other side and rinse clean.

*sun picture not an original by me