Homemade Recipes Reference Box

I love homemade and I much rather make something myself. Especially if it also means a safer product and saving money. Thanks to Pinterest and my general research (but mostly Pinterest) I’ve gathered a ton of recipes for all things natural and homemade.

But as I started to make some of these things I discovered a problem. I was jotting the recipes down when I went to go use them, but then I was ending up with a pile of scribbled recipes on post-it notes, the back of reused envelopes, and scrap paper. I also released I was finding it hard to track down a specific recipe I wanted quickly among the 100 plus pins on my board. Or I had returned the book it was found in to the library.

I needed a way to organize and save all these recipes.

Enter the homemade recipes reference box.

Otherwise known as, a hacked regular old recipe box that holds recipes for do-it-yourselfing to the extreme.

I simply bought a pretty recipe box off of Amazon.com and reinvented it. Here’s how I did it.

I started by creating a template in Apple’s Pages software (if you want it, just ask, but it will only work in Pages, sorry if you’re stuck with Microsoft Word). I actually started making the cards before I bought the box, but knew I wanted to create cards that would fit in a 4×6 box. Unfortunately, the standard 8.5×11 paper size doesn’t cater to this well, so I settled on 4×5.5 inch cards so that I could get four cards out of each page.

Then I started typing. And typing.

And typing.

I probably had close to 100 recipes typed before I actually printed them out. They are just printed on regular old white card stock.

This is what I then used to develop my categories. After I had cut them all down with my paper cutter, I sorted them in to piles with like recipes. I then tried to figure out general categories. Some were easy, like hair care or household, but others were more difficult. I also realized I needed subcategories. I used 4×6 index file card guides for this.

The categories I ended up with are:

• Personal Care (with oral and facial care subcategories)
• Skin Care
• Hair Care (with clean, condition, treat, and style subcategories)
• Make-Up
• Household (with kitchen, bathroom and laundry subcategories)
• Healthcare (with first aid, girly stuff, outdoors, and sickness subcategories)
• Baby and Child
• Pet Care

You can obviously make your own categories, or make adjustments to my list to suit your needs.

As I’ve continued to add recipes, I’ve sometimes added a subcategory, and these will probably continue to evolve and change as I continue to use it.

Right now my box has about 150 recipes in it, and I can foresee need to add another box eventually. But for now, it works great!

I have recipes that cover most of the basics and have found myself reaching for the box when looking for a solution to something (which is the whole idea, right). I’ve even been on the phone with someone a couple times and found myself telling them “hold on, I have a recipe for that!” Of course that’s usually followed by, “um, I don’t have any of those ingredients.” I need to get my friends a little more crunchy.

I’ve also found it a very helpful way to find areas where I’m lacking recipes and even add to my ingredients stockpile. I can make most the basics, but there’s a lot of specialty ingredients I don’t have. I’ve started to keep a running list, based on the recipes in my box, which is helpful when I go to place an order for something, but need to add a few items in order to make shipping worth it.

Now I know what you’re thinking. It’s “I really hope she’s going to share a download of all those recipes,” it’s it? I really wish I could honestly, but because they are not my own, I don’t feel that it would be right to do so. You can however find most all the recipes (except for the few I copied from books borrowed from the library) on my Pinterest boards. That will save you the time of hunting for them yourself. (If you need a Pinterest invite, just ask!) I was actually surprised at how little time it took me to type up a page of cards. It depended some on what the recipes were, but it wasn’t nearly as daunting as I thought it might be.

As I add my own recipes, I’ll try to type up pages of printable recipes so that my recipes are at least ready to go. Some other bloggers do this too, and usually in the 4×6 format, so keep and eye out for that too.

Please don’t think I sat down and did this all at once either. I’ve actually been working on it for months. Sometimes I’ll sit down and type up a page or two. Other times I’ll type 6-7 pages. I’ve just slowly been going at it.

It’s an ongoing project that will continue probably indefinitely.

And that’s half the idea.

Eye Make-up Remover Wipes

First, let me just say how much I love Pinterest. If you aren’t a member, please feel free to contact me and I’ll send you an invite. It seriously makes doing and planning almost any and everything easy. I find myself searching Pinterest more than Google now days if I want to know how to do or make something. Yeah, it’s that amazing.

Anyways, about a month ago I stumbled upon an awesome tutorial for making wipes. I also saw some tutorials for making eye make-up remover and kind of morphed them to my own-ish recipe. My favorite part – it’s cheap, of course! There is nothing I love more than something that used to be expensive for cheap. The fact that it’s pretty natural too helps too.

Roll of paper towls

Large sealable container (the 7 cup round container from Ziploc works)

Coconut Oil

Soap of Choice (I used tear-free baby soap, but this will probably change next batch)

2 c. Water

Cut your paper towels in half, using a sharp, non-serrated knife. It does require a little elbow grease, so you might want to delegate this to a strong boyfriend, husband, or son if you have them available. I cut it myself, it just required some effort and patience.  Place the paper towels in your container.

Measure out your 2 cups of water in a measuring cup. Add to that your (melted) coconut oil and soap. I used approximately 2 tbsp. of coconut oil and about 1/2 tbsp. of soap. So far so good, but I might experiment a little in the future. (That’s just what you wanted to hear in a recipe isn’t it.) Mix well and slowly pour over your paper towels. Then smash the container lid on (unless you have a container that actually fits the roll completely). Flip back and forth slowly a few times and let it all soak in. Open it up, pull out the cardboard center, and pull the paper towels from the center. Voila! You just saved yourself tons ‘o’ money! 

So far, so good. I do find that it requires a little bit more effort that what I was using previously, but not enough to make me go back to buying eye make-up remover. I find that gently wiping my lashes first and then the rest of my eye before washing my face works best. It does remove my water-proof mascara too.

As far as cost, gosh it’s hard to break down, but I’m going to assume it’s probably not much more than $1 for the whole container. My roll of paper towels had 154 sheets, so that’s not even a penny a wipe.

Test it out and let me know what you think! I just made some antibacterial wipes today, so I’ll share that recipe after I test it a little.

Update: I’m still on my first container, and yes, I still like them. However since posting this, I’m become more aware of the harmful chemicals in products, like the tear-free baby shampoo I used in this recipe. I haven’t quite figured out an good alternative to this. I’m trying to stick with all-natural ingredients so if you have a suggestion let me know. It’s up to you if you’d still like to use this recipe, but if you’d like an alternative, here is a recipe for a liquid version. 

Velcro Face Bandana Tutorial

With the pending arrival of blizzard number two in less than five days, I thought I’d share a tutorial.

Yes, I said blizzard number two. We already have about 3 feet of snow on the ground.

Anyways, when your trying to shovel snow in 40 mph winds when the tempature is about 10 degrees, you need something to cover your face to keep your skin from freezing.

I like bandanas, but they tend to come untied on me, which is okay sometimes, but not when you really need the protection and don’t want to be re-tying every 10 minutes.

So here’s my solution.

First thing your going to need to do is draft the pattern. I have no clue how to make a fancy PDF pattern for you and am lacking a scanner, so you’ll just have to draw it out on your own. I promise it’s easy.

Note: This fits the average adult. Since I don’t have a child to test out a child sized version on, please share the measurements if you do make a scaled down version.

Tape two pieces of paper together because it won’t fit on one. Starting at the far left,  go 8.5″ and mark it “fold.” This edge will go on the fold of your fabric. Moving clockwise, the top length is 12.5″. The right end is 3.5″, then go in 4.5 inches. Now connect your 8.5″ point with the 4.5″ point with an angle; it should be about 9.5″ long. And your done. Now cut it out.

Now using your pattern, cut out your fabrics. Your going to want to use one cotten fabric and one flannel fabric. This seems to be the best combo. Two flannels is too much and doesn’t breath well. You can use two cottens, but I like the softness of the flannel, and it tends to “stick” better to my hat, which keeps it from sliding down. It might seem like a good idea to use a waterproof fabric, but don’t! It won’t breath and you’ll end up with a wet, frozen face. You need the moisture from your breathe to be able to evaporate to keep your face at least semi-dry.

Open up your fabric and iron them and flip them over so the right sides are showing.

Cut at least a 7″ piece of Velcro. Take the soft side and cut it in half. Place it vertically on the right side of the flannel fabric on the right side. It should be next to each other so when sewn down it looks like one piece. Place it about 1.5″ in from the end and leave about 0.5″ of room at the top and bottom. You might need to trim the Velcro to give enough room. Pin down if you would like and sew.

Take the other half of your Velcro and cut in half and place horizontally on the right side of the cotton fabric on the right side. Again leave about 1.5″ of room from the end and 0.5″ on the top and bottom. This time also leave room between the two pieces of Velcro. Pin if you would like and sew.

So with both of your fabrics right side up, you should have the Velcro on the right side of each. Iron again if needed then put the right sides together and pin if you would like to.

Start sewing in the middle the top end. I built in a .25″ seam allowance into the pattern. Sew all the way around, remembering to leave 3″-4″ inches open for flipping.

Clip the corners, flip right sides out and iron.

Then top stitch along the edge and your done!

Throw on a pair of ridiculous looking sunglasses and you’re ready to go!

Few notes for wear: the bandana seems to stay on best if you put your hat on first and then the bandanna over that. The flannel will stick to the hat and keep it from sliding down. If you can, pulling your hair into a ponytail and attaching the bandanna on top of that will also help keep it from sliding down.