Pinterest Flips & Flops: Homemade Lemon All Purpose Cleaner

Welcome to Pinterest Flips & Flops!  A new monthly link-up to share successes and failures of Pinterest pins.  I've got a TON of potentially great ideas on my boards just waiting for me to try.  I'm hoping to love many of them.  But chances are, I'll regret a few.  

Here's my FLIP and FLOP from the past few weeks...

FLIP

Homemade Lemon All Purpose Cleaner

I've used vinegar as an all-purpose cleaner for the last decade.  Consequently, my house has smelled like vinegar for the last decade.  I love the chemical free cleanliness but hate the pickly smell.  When I came across this Homemade Lemon All Purpose Cleaner, I was immediately intrigued.

As summer rolled around and I began to make my weekly batches of Arnie Palmer (This lemony tea is a summer MUST HAVE for the Hubs!), I thought it was the perfect time to make a batch of cleaner.  

Twelve batches of cleaner later...I think it's safe to assume I love it.  While it doesn't completely mask the vinegar smell, it sure helps A LOT!  I know...I know...I could just plunk down the money for a small bottle of lemon essential oils to solve the "pickly" stench problem.  But, I find this recipe to be a great cost-effective alternative that uses what I already have on hand...lots of lemon rinds.

Cleaner solution after 2 weeks of "steeping".

The Arnie Palmer recipe calls for the juice of 4-6 lemons.  And as I make at least one batch every week during the summer, I have been making quite a lot of cleaner.  (I can make 2 quart-sized jars of cleaner with the lemons from one batch of tea.)  

Obviously, I don't go through 2 quarts of cleaning solution each week.  So, I've saved an empty vinegar jug to dump all the cleaner into once it has "steeped" for 2 weeks in the canning jars.  When I need cleaner, I fill a spray bottle with equal amounts of water and lemon/vinegar solution.  The big vinegar jug of cleaner should last me through the winter until next summer when I'll be squeezing lots of lemons again.  

I've loved the solution so much that I'm thinkin' I might try an ORANGE version!

FLOP

Baking Soda Mini Volcanoes

I hesitate to put this in the FLOP category, because in truth, the project DID work exactly how it was listed in the pin.  This was a project that I had chosen for our Summer Bucket List and one that ALL my kids were excited to try.  We actually ended up making these mini volcanoes as a 4th of July project during some down time in the day.  

I guess my major complaint is that each volcano creation only took 1-2 minutes to complete from start to finish.  Consequently, in order to occupy my kids for any length of time, I had to agree to let them each make several volcanoes.  After 15 minutes of play, we had gone through a couple of boxes of baking soda and nearly all of my food coloring.  

All in all, it WAS a fun afternoon activity, but perhaps a little too short lived for cost effectiveness.  Then again, baking soda is cheap!  I can see how this would make for a great project for one child at a time...but, not five.  

Now it's your turn...

I invite you to link up your Pinterest FLIPS & FLOPS in order to showcase the successes and failures.  Who knows?  You just might save another mom from wasting several boxes of baking soda!

Head to any one of these lovely blogs to add your link or to get ideas for your next Pinterest project.

Heather at Blog, She Wrote

Sharla at The Chaos and the Clutter

Alisha at Flourish

Dianna at The Kennedy Adventures

Amy at Milk and Cookies

Jamie at See Jamie Blog

or HERE at The Unlikely Homeschool

An InLinkz Link-up