DH and I have recently decided to make homemade butter, rather than buying store bought! The kids and I made some today and it was FAB! I convinced DH to make homemade butter a regular by telling him I would gladly make him his favorite Honey Butter on a regular basis as part of a package deal! LOL Of course he agreed!! I'm super psyched about this, because I feel homemade is WAY better than store bought! It has less "additives" and it tastes better too. The kids (especially Paddy) have expressed an interest in making homemade cheese as well. We're going to see about that. :lol: lol Has anyone done it with success at home?? On a non-food related subject, we also make our own baby wipes out of bounty, baby wash, and baby oil. Works really well and last a lot longer! What other kinds of things to you make at home, food or otherwise? I'm looking for some neat-o ideas!
I make: eyeliner cleaner glass cleaner dish detergent clothes soap shampoo conditioner deodorant lipstick grow my veggies fruit, although the squirrels are helping us eat them :lol: raise my chickens/ducks for eggs and soon meat make my own natural insect or bug sprays eyeshadow blush lotion makeup remover natural remedies air freshener chicken broth tortillas baked goods candles perfume toothpaste and other things I can't think of off the top of my head Our goal is to be self sufficient, or closer to it, by the end of next year.
Mmm, homemade butter would be so good! Do you get milk straight from a farm? I have been making our yogurt for a few months. Still haven't quite perfected it, but my two big girls eat it.
We did homemade butter once by putting the ingredients into a mason jar and shaking it A LOT. Well, we all lost interest quickly so my husband took a cordless drill and instead of a drill bit put in an electric mixer beater and used that to mix it into butter! lol Funny man. Patty- how do you make all of those things? Makeup, toothpaste, shampoo ect
Our Cub Scouts made butter this past year. With cold, heavy cream from the store. It was good, and the leftover milk was good to drink. My first MIL used to make butter too. They had their own cow. She had a churn that was like a large glass jar with a paddle inside fastened to the lid, that you turned with a crank. She would let her cream curdle before churning, and I didn't like the buttermilk because it was sour. She would wash the remaining milk out of the butter and mold it in a coffee cup and freeze it.
I'll give you the easy ones right now, then I'll share the others when I get back from the movies. waterproof eyeliner: activated charcoal and oil (essential oil, grapeseed, or castor oil. I use grapeseed because the skin absorbs it well. I have heard that Sweet Almond also works well.) Mix a small amount of charcoal with oil until stightly creamy. It will not be creamy like a store bought liner. It might have a slight grit, but it goes on smooth and lasts all day and is very black. toothpaste: baking soda, glycerin, mint essential oil. Blend into a paste and put into a squeezable container. My gums bled a little when I started using this, but stopped about a week later. I think it was due to poor gum health. Brush up and down, not side to side. shampoo: I mix one bar of pure glycerin soap with a gallon of water. Add a few drops of essential oil. I have been using tea tree oil. If I get hair spray build up, I will use the "No Poo" baking soda rinse, but it is too strong for me to use on a regular basis, so I came up with the glycerin shampoo instead. conditioner: I made this from the "No Poo" vinegar rinse. But their recipe lightened my hair a bit. So I stopped using it for a while, but liked how it worked. So now, I get a bottle, fill it with about 3/4 water, and add 1/4 vinegar or less, add a few drops of rose fragrance oil. The coconut essential smells FANTASTIC once your hair dries. I receive a lot of compliments on that one. makeup remover: I wash my face with oil. I usually use two to three of the following: grapeseed oil, castor oil, sunflower/safflower oil, almond oil, olive oil. I always use one light, medium, and heavy oil. Use the heavy oils sparingly. So about 3/4 a bottle of a light oil, then 1/8 casto, and 1/8 olive. After, I moisturize with grapeseed and sweet almond oil since the skin absorbs them beautifully. I also use the oil to clean myself with in the shower. Then I use a pad to lift the dirt. It works better than any soap and your skin is soft after the shower. If you do not like the oil, you can always wash it off after and lotion as usual. Since everybody has a different chemistry, it would be wise to alter the ingredients accordingly. I'll share more when I return.
I do not make anything all of the time. I am on the other hand learning to make a great many things myself. I am learning to can, preserve, ferment, etc many types of foods. I am handy in terms of reparing and building things I need. From computers and electronics, to rebuilding my own transmission to building my own out buildings. I feel that things are changing quickly and that I will need to be ready to live a different lifestyle than I do now. For this reason, many things are a time versus money consideration. As long as it is cheaper to buy things I often opt for that option even while I am learning to do it myself. In the mean time I am working to get the infra structure in place for a more self sufficient lifestyle. I am working on getting fruit trees, bushes and canes in place. I have built a chicken coop and shed and am working on a green house and water catchment etc. Later when the infrastructure is in place I can put more time into the dyi of foodstuffs that are a result of the infrastructure.
I love your recipes! I make my own shampoo, and vinegar rinse for my hair.. I have a recipe and the stuff for body wash.. I just have to try it. I make my own laundry soap. I really want to try and make our own deo. BTW, my family thinks I'm crazy! :lol: I say I'm smarter than the average bear for not putting yucky chemicals in my body! :wink:
The kids did the first batch with some heavy cream in a jar with a marble or two and they shook it forever! LOL So for the bigger batch I put it in my kitchenaid and covered the bowl and top with saran wrap (no splashies!) and waited about 10 minutes and we had butter! Easy! We used Shatto (a local dairy farms) cream! So good! We also saved the buttermilk and made pancakes with it. They were really good, and we froze what we didn't use for other breakfasts. I would like to make homemade bread too, bc I REALLY love that, but DH has grown up completely on processed foods/boxed dinners and so on, so he has to get used to the homemade stuff (which is really quite annoying, but I've seen so much progress in the last 7 years! lol) My next project is freezer food. Preparing food way ahead of time and storing these homemade-readymade meals in the freezer. Just thaw and bake, pretty much OR toss in a crockpot! Even better! lol I really like the idea that goes along with that about portioning out meals ahead of time, too. So for our once a month trip to Aldi, I am researching these meals, and going to go crazy with it this month and see how it goes! Any of you do this freezer food prep? I've always wanted to try making homemade shampoos and conditioners. My favorite shampoo is Rosemary and Basil (?) all natural shampoo but it is SOOO expensive!! I really want to make it on my own because the smell is heavenly, I just don't know how to go about it!
Ummmm... I make doll clothes..lol When we had littles in diapers, I made all their diapers, wool covers for when they wore fitteds (knit and crocheted) and my own wipes and wipe wash as well. I really miss making these I also made my own cloth pads.... but I have found a love for Always Infinity.. the only pads ever that have not made me break out horribly (even cloth bothered me by the end of my cycle). I recently bought a bunch of zorb and have left over PUL and want to make some more of them to give them a new try... I should get on that I have never tried really to make my own cleaners, I have thought about making my own laundry detergent... but haven't ever tried.
Watch yard sales for bread machines.... I do make my own bread often, love that machine... throw everything in and in a few hours it's all done Oh and I make my own noodles for chicken noodle soup... no fancy machine to do that for me, just me my counter and pizza cutter lol
We can and do make a lot of our own stuff. Though I don't ALWAYS make our own just because I can. Things I almost always make myself: Bread yogurt sour cream hand soap body wash shampoo cleaners-dishwashing, glass, all purpose, bathroom, carpet, etc air freshener (I difuse essential oils, make my own blends) coffee cream chocolate syrup magic shell pancake syrup salsa whipped cream/cool whip natural home remedies spice blends (like taco seasoning, etc) hamburger helper type things from scratch. I have made: butter crackers laundry detergent I can cook about anything from scratch, though I don't always. Other things we do: We're very DIY. Between the two of us, there isn't much we can't do... We garden for food and have a few trees and cactus (prickly pears) We want more fruit trees. I do freezer cook some, but my crew eats so much at a meal that I don't have the freezer space for once a month cooking. We're hoping to get some milk goats with tax money. We have chickens for eggs and meat. Hubby knows how to process about any animal (deer, chicken, rabbit, squirrel, etc) Hubby can do about anything to a car. We only hire someone to work on things if we've tried to fix it ourselves first I used cloth wipes and diaper lotion potion when my kids were little-loved that stuff! Natural and smelled soooooooo good! I make handmade gifts when I have the time, I almost ALWAYS make a handmade card tog o with gifts. I put together my own curriculum HA! Print out books instead of buying them.
