Reuse » Four Against Two

Baking Soda and Mis-Matched Socks

Apr 122010

Whoever said that little girls are sweet and rosy smelling has never met my four daughters. They have to have the smelliest feet the world has ever smelled. At least that is what I tell them anyway. I’m sure that there are other children that smell worse, but I really don’t plan on entering them in any contests to find out!

At a Girl Scout event I learned of a way to keep down the shoe stench is using baking soda and some mis-matched socks. I don’t know about you, but I have a few hundred socks with no mates in my basement and some of them are really cute Littlest Pet Shop or Wizards of Waverly Place socks. The cuter the sock the more fun they have with this project.

Simply fill each sock with 1/3 cup of baking soda and tie tightly with a string or a rubber band. I also tie the sock in a knot just to be sure.

Place filled socks into shoes to keep them fresh and clean! These sachets can also go into drawers or sports duffel bags.

Notice who is still in her pajamas!

Enu was home sick for the day, so I put her to work.

Ahhhh...fresh smelling shoes...okay..Fresher smelling shoes!

This makes a great rainy day or lazy day project before the hot summer heat hits your house and their shoes!

Some baking soda will ooze out of the sock if the sock is used as a weapon to hit with..not that my children would ever do such a thing…but I consider a little baking soda on the carpet deodorizer, so this works for me!

For more Baking Soda ideas check this out.

A Kid’s Take On the Three “R”s

Earth Friendly Ideas, Moments with Elle 1 Response »

Mar 182010

Reduce, reuse, recycle. These are familiar concepts to almost everyone now. What was once a mantra for “tree huggers” (a term my father still uses!) is now a way of life for many families, if not for environmental reasons, then for economical ones.

The other day I was feeling quite proud of myself. Needing curtains for Mita and Enu’s rooms I shopped at Gabriel Brothers and dug for the matching curtains I needed. I saved a lot of money with that little bit of digging.

Then Elle and I were off to the Good-Will to see what treasures we could stumble upon. As we walked into the store Elle was confused as this was not the Good-Will she was familiar with. I explained that I often dropped off things we didn’t need anymore at the Good-Will drop of near our house, and that the store we were going into was the place were every-ones donations were sold. I then proceeded to over-explain for my five year old’s age level and discussed how this was a form of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and it helped people find jobs. Not thinking anymore about it, I went shopping and I scored some Timberland shoes for Elle at $1.99 and some brand new Girl Scout shirts for adults for $1.99 each.

The next day I was wearing my “new” Girl scout shirt when someone commented on it and said, “Where did you get that?”. Before I could answer Elle jumped in and said,”My mom got it in the trash.”

So much for my lesson. All that fuzzy-good-for-me-feeling was gone as my attempts at being earth/people friendly were reduced to an episode of dumpster diving!

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