How to Clean Your Oven Without Harsh Chemicals

So, I, like I hope many others, have this "thing" about cleaning my oven.  It's a terribly difficult chore to do.  It is especially difficult with a son who loves closed in places and tries to climb into the oven when you are baking something, let alone cleaning it...and yes, that has given me more than a few grey hairs (every one of them hard earned) and yes, it probably has taken some years off of my life from sheer panic.  It's amazing how quickly you get good at using your body as a blocker, while shooing a kid away with a leg and at the same time taking a hot pan out of the oven and/or putting a pan into the oven.  And I've only burned myself...well we won't go there...and I've only burned off a LITTLE bit of hair in the last two years.

So *shakes head* where was I?  Oh yes, cleaning ovens.  So, with my son's obsession with the oven, I just plain would not, could not nor would I go anywhere NEAR my oven with the over the counter oven cleaners.  I mean the chemicals in those things BURN the gunk off your oven...think of what it could do to a toddler's skin, especially if it got into an eczema patch???  Okay *deep calming breath* I just gave myself a few more grey hairs thinking about that *laugh*.   Anyway, as a result of the lack of cleaning, my oven is starting to feel the neglect, so I've been on a search for oven cleaning alternatives and here's a few I've found for you and yes, I will be trying some of these on my oven...hopefully today.

1.  Take baking soda and add enough water to make a thin paste.  Slather this onto the inside of your oven with a damp sponge.  Let the oven sit overnight and then wipe clean in the morning.  The baking soda, if there's some residue will absorb dirt and other gunk in the inside of your oven and just flake off later, so don't panic if you think you might have missed some.

2.  Supposedly Lowes and other big home improvement stores sell a pumice type of stone to scrub the inside of your oven and it is supposed to be safe with most ovens.  I've heard good things about it, but honestly I'm going with the baking soda method because I just plain don't want to spend more money right now.

3.  Place lemon and orange peels in a shallow (glass) baking dish and cover with water.   Place in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes and then turn off oven and let cool with the pan still in it.  When it has cooled down enough that you feel comfortable touching the oven, scrub the inside with a wet sponge.  The citric acid in the peels should act much like sticking some lemon water in your microwave to help clean it...the acid will help to loosen the gunk on the inside of the oven (along with the steam) and make it easier to clean.

4.  There is also the ammonia method.  This one I'm not going to explain how to do (just google it if you are interested) because it is completely NOT safe for gas ranges (ammonia fumes in closed oven + open flame in pilot light = really BAD idea.  Dig?), but it supposedly works well with electric ranges.  I'm not really keen on cleaning my oven with ammonia anyway (the smell alone would make ME sick).

So, there you are folks.  Ways to naturally clean your oven.  Enjoy!

Hearth and Home: Make Your Own Bathroom Cleaner

I had to share this recipe because not only is it AWESOMELY simple to make it truly works wonderfully at cleaning up ring around the tub and pretty much everything else.  It'll even polish your facets for you (just don't scrub too terribly hard ;).  And the best part?  Minimal scrubbing is needed to get this stuff to work!

Here's your basic formula.  Ready with your pencils because this recipe is SO long (dry sense of humor?  Check ;) you'll never get over it.

Home Made Bathroom Cleaner (Soft Scrub or Scrubbing Bubbles)

Ingredients:

• Baking Soda
• Dish Soap
• Vinegar in a spray bottle (optional)

1.  First take baking soda.  I usually start out with like 1/2 of a cup or so if I'm doing the entire bathroom.

2. Grab your favorite container of dishwashing soap.  I use Seventh Generation dish soap as it's the only one I can use with my son's contact allergies (I've even started using it as shampoo every three days to strip my hair in between natural shampooings.  Works wonders).

3.  Add your baking soda to a container.  I use a wide mouthed 1/2 pint mason jar for this (don't use any dish you care a LOT about as it COULD get scratched doing this!).

4.  Add enough dish soap to form a paste (think library paste).

5.  Put the paste on sponge and scrub scrub scrub (well honestly I didn't have to do much scrubbing at all on our tub and it had a lot of soap scum on it...amazing how much MORE soap scum you get when you use real soap all the time).  When the area is clean rinse well with water until the baking soda is gone and voila!  Easy Peazy!

To make home made "Scrubbing Bubbles":  Make paste the consistency of toothpaste, slather onto the walls of your shower, let sit until allowed to dry a little bit (10 minutes is usually about what I do) and then take a spray bottle of vinegar to it and watch the sudsing action occur.  Home made scrubbing bubbles!


Note just from the overly paranoid:  I don't care if it is just vinegar and baking soda compared to oxygen activated commercial chemical induced reaction.  Mixing an acid and a base is mixing an acid and a base, so PLEASE be sure to be in a well ventilated area to mix them (at least make sure your exhaust fan is on) and just be careful :).

Make Your Own Homemade Pledge!

Want to make some homemade pledge for your wood furniture?  Yeah, me too :).  So, here's some REALLY easy (and very cool) recipes to try.

Homemade Pledge Recipe One (Super Simple):

In a 2 Cup Spray Bottle combine:

• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup lemon juice

Shake well before each use.

And here's another one that's a bit more complicated, but honestly I like it a bit better since I'm not sure how long the lemon juice will last before it starts growing things in your olive oil.

Homemade Pledge Recipe Two: (base recipe from The Make Your Own Zone)

In a 2 Cup (16 oz) Spray Bottle Combine:

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon essential oil (I use a combo of 1/4 tsp. sweet orange and 1/4 tsp. lemon essential oils just for a more "general citrusy type of smell.  If you don't mind the scent of vinegar you can even leave the essential oil out, but I don't see why you would want to :)
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1-3/4 to 2 cups water

Shake well before each use.

I'm still working on my own "homemade" recipe that will double as a leather conditioner (like my store bought "homemade pledge" that I buy from Picnic Basket Crafts), but haven't QUITE perfected it yet :).

Enjoy!

Hearth and Home: Home Made Lysol Recipe

If you are wondering why I didn't post yesterday it's because my poor little boy came down with a terrible stomach bug and it became a battle to keep the poor kid hydrated for about 12 hours.  LUCKILY *fingers crossed* we're hoping he's on the mend now.  While all of this was going on I reached for my bottle of home made disinfecting spray/air freshener (think Lysol) constantly; to disinfect and to just plain take the sick smell out of the room (trying to avoid like heck that anyone else gets sick...of course then my daughter grabs her brothers soda and sucks it down while I'm not looking, so I'm not sure how effective my efforts are going to be in the long run *sigh*).  So, now that my son is napping and we have a lull in sickness around here I thought I'd share this recipe.  It's actually pretty simple, is gentle enough to use anywhere in the house pretty much (keep out of reach of the kiddos though as essential oils are potent and you don't want them going to town with this) and is just a nice overall "everyday" spray.  I just use it anywhere I would think to use Lysol and hey...it doesn't irritate my lungs!  This recipe is adapted from Nursery Room Spray found in Herbal Crafts: More than 60 Simple Projects to Beautify Your Home and Body.

Home Made Lysol 

• One 2 to 4 oz spray bottle (glass or metal preferably....I used a stainless steel bottle I had left over from some other product I'd bought and repurposed it).
• 3/4 to 1 teaspoon lavender essential oil (depending on how "lavender-y" you want your spray to smell like)
• 3/4 to 1 teaspoon sweet orange oil (I did 3/4 lavender and 1 teaspoon orange oil just because I like the smell of orange better)
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon essential oil
• 1/4 teaspoon tea tree oil...optional (I've made this before with the tea tree oil and it threw off the fragrance to the point I left it out the next time and upped the lavender oil...it just didn't smell...well right to me with the tea tree oil in it, but it's a good thing to add for germ killing power.  If you use the tea tree oil knock back the lavender oil to 3/4 of a teaspoon).
• Distilled Water

Fill bottle to about 1 inch from the top with distilled water (distilled water is "super cleaned" and doesn't grow mold or other things as readily as tap water) and then add your essential oils.  Put the cap on and shake to combine.  Spritz on objects or into the air as needed, shaking well before each use (the oils and water will separate naturally so you have to shake to re-combine them).  Remember to label it so you know what is in it and always list ingredients on your bottles (to let other people know what is in them too...you don't want someone who is allergic to citrus, for instance, picking up this and spraying it around their face or something...it would be a bad thing).