I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that it’s finally warm out. It’s supposed to be 28°C (82°F) tomorrow! That’s amazing! That’s nearly double the average temperature for this time of year, which is to say spring has sprung decidedly early for this part of the world. My tulips started coming up in early March, I had to mow my lawn before April was out, and I’ve already earned my first sunburn (oops). All this warm weather and these sunny breezes are making me think about freshening up my house and my wardrobe, and while I’m no Martha Stuart, here’s what I’m doing these days.
Opening windows
This one’s not terribly exciting, but I love having fresh air dancing through my home again. On particularly nice days I’m popping open windows and letting the fresh air breathe new life into stale rooms and carry away the cozy-gone-old smells of winter.
Changing sheets & packing away heavy bedding
I do this tentatively, as Calgary has a tendency to whip a spring snowstorm at you as soon as you trade in your fleece sheets for cotton ones. While you’re at it, refresh your mattress with this fantastic bandit’s oil mattress refreshing powder.
Diffusing essential oils
This is something I do all year, but at this time of year I am in love with bright, fresh scents like pine, fir, spruce, and camphor. Check out my scent blends from my Canadian Inspired Essential Oil Blends back in 2014 for some fantastic spring scent ideas that’ll have you longing to be outdoors.
Travelling
I’m not sure what it is about May in particular, but May just makes me want to pack up and head somewhere new; call it spring cleaning for the soul. In a few short days I’ll be heading across the world for what’s turning into an annual bit of wandering and a major dose of inspiration. I’m beyond thrilled—follow me on Instagram to see where I am and what I’m doing 🙂
Actual cleaning
Ok, not so exciting, but more in keeping with the spring cleaning theme. Here are some of my favourite DIY cleaners:
Magical Sticky Label Removal Goo
If you, like me, like to re-purpose old jars, you are going to love this stuff. It’s amazing at dissolving the weapons grade adhesive that seems to affix labels to jars these days.
Lemon Cream Cleaning Spray
Freshen up counter tops, tubs, and more with this simple citrus-scented spray.
Orange Wax Wood Polish
Revitalize dry looking wooden cutting boards and spoons with this beautifully citrussy wood polish (it also makes a great gift for any woodworkers in your life!).
Aluminum Foil & Soda Silver Polish
My day-to-day cutlery is a set of vintage silver plate stuff I found up in Edmonton on Whyte Avenue, and it needs a good polish every now and then. I’m not nearly Downton Abbey enough to polish it all by hand, so I use this awesome boiling water + washing soda + tin foil method to get it all polished up with minimal effort.
My DIY Grease-Busting Cleaning Powder
This stuff gets SO much use in my kitchen; I can’t recommend it enough. I mostly use it to blast tea stains out of oft-used travel mugs, but it’s amazing for cleaning up all kinds of greasy kitchen messes. Just pair it with boiling water and it’ll do just about anything!
Taking a long, hard look at winter clothes I didn’t wear last winter
If I didn’t wear something winter-y for an entire winter, do I really need it? Probably not. Op shops, here I come! Or perhaps a clothing swap with some girlfriends is in order?
Examine the fridge
I am the sort of person who will make a simple syrup at Thanksgiving, forget about it entirely and find it months later. Fridge cleaning is definitely a thing I need to do… and probably more often than I actually do.
Go through my DIY stash
I’ll sniff my oils—have they gone rancid? Has anything leaked or spilled recently that needs to be cleaned up? Is my packaging in complete disarray (spoiler alert: definitely)? Now’s a great time to sort everything out and toss anything that’s not smelling fresh anymore.
I’ll also take a look at things I’ve got in current use, and things I made lots of and popped in the fridge to use later. If you make as much as I do you might find that “lotion for later” has now been in the back of your fridge for 18 months and should probably be thrown away. Heh. Oops.
Ok, that’s what I do in the spring. What’s on your to-do list? Any traditions you’d like to share?
I have to try all these especially the orange wood wax for my olive scoops,bowls etc and of course the lemon cream cleaning spray, an upgrade from the usual lemon and vinegar. Thanks again Marie.
Thanks for reading and happy DIYing!
Any good ideas for what to do with slightly rancid oils? I have seabuckthorn oil and rosehip seed oil that were pricey but I didn’t use them fast enough. I’m hoping for ANY kind of use for them aside from straight throwing them in the trash 🙁
I make them into soap! You can’t tell at all after the soaping and it doesn’t seem to impact the shelf life of the soap either 🙂
I am in the course spring cleaning.
Have fun! 😉
I have made bar soap, lotion, body butter and lip balm all by following your recipes and they have all turned out amazing. The one thing I have not seen on your recipe list is a dish soap. I saw the bars for cleaning that can also be used as laundry detergent but nothing that references dish soap. I have been using castile soap and a couple variations of recipes for dish soap with it but I find that hat my hands end up greasy and dirty yet soft. I have to use vinegar to get that filth off my hands. Please help. I have become a trusted fan of your recipes and share what I make with my closest friends. I am I’m desperate need of a dish soap recipe. If you have one stashed somewhere or even one that you use and it may not be published but it works, I’ll happily leave my email here. I would love to know what you do for dish soap. Thanks Marie!
The reason I don’t have a dish soap recipe is because soap just doesn’t clean dishes very well. I wouldn’t want to break your trust by telling you it’ll work when soap’s weakness in cleansing dishes is a pretty core part of how it works. Most of the things your skin likes about soap are the same thing that make it a crappy dish soap. It’s just not as strong of a cleanser as the types of detergents used in dishwashing liquid, and that’s why it’ll always disappoint you. I’ve found even “natural” commercial dish detergents really lack in the performance department—I always have to use 3x as much as I would’ve with a traditional Sunlight/Palmolive sort of thing, and even then the results are dicey. Ick.