Magic of Lemon and Orange peels

Since few months I am trying to have Minimum Waste program at my household. It includes less shopping (which my hubby would say I am lying ;)) and reusing stuff instead of throwing away.
By not throwing things in second step, I tend to fill my home with clutter and then sometimes skip that step all together. For example, the empty tin boxes of my son's formula milk. They look amazing once the sticker is removed. But a home can have how many numbers of vase/cutlery holder/pen holder etc. So there is limitation on the number of tins I reuse in my home. I had a thought of saving such tins and making some artistic gifts out of it. But my store room is already about to overflow because of such 'would be reusable things'.

But I am happy to share one minimum waste success story I achieved with lemons, limes and oranges today ;)! After making roast chicken in orange sauce I left with orange peels. This time I baked the peels to dry them, stored in a bowl and kept it in book rack. Now my book rack is smelling amazing with natural potpourri.

Next I found few old limes and lemons at the bottom of vegetable storage container in fridge. I would have thrown those occur yellow limes otherwise but this time I decided to use them. Thanks to Internet, I found multiple articles about using lemon and lime peels.
First I cut all limes. Few pieces kept in different compartments of fridge for the deodorization purpose. Some peels I kept in kitchen corners, under the fridge etc to get rid of few ants I saw in these days. Other few I put in microwavable bowl along with water. Switched on microwave for few minutes till water started boiling, removed bowl and wiped all mess in microwave. My microwave was never this clean. All the sticky things, dirt, oil etc came out immediately. That hot bowl served as room freshener for a while. Then that water and peels in it, I used to clean stained steel pans.

Rest of the cut old lemon pieces I rubbed on clean chopping boards and I was surprised to see them even more clean after wash. All these used lime peels I threw in garbage bins and they deodorized the bins as well. I didn't just achieved minimum waste but I used a natural all purpose household cleaner too! Now no lime/lemon/orange peels would go to dustbin without using them in my home :)

By using these age old technics to reduce waste and make my home cleaner with just few old limes was a full filling experience which I couldn't wait to share with you all!
Enjoy living green and take care you all!

Babysafe Paints

Hello Friends! Summer is getting hotter in Dubai and we mums keep finding ways to keep our kids busy indoors during the day! Evenings are still good so we spend an hour or so outdoor. Ruhaan either plays downstairs trying to copy big children or loves splashing water in pool!

During day he likes to clean the house or cook LOL, no it is no way a help for me, but it is just a favorite role play with lot of added work for me ;). So I try to engage him in different activities and one 'my favorite' is coloring or playing with colors. And so I was on a big quest of finding baby friendly, chemical free, VOC free colors. Even before this, when Ruhaan was few months old and I was haunted by hand and foot print of him to keep in my baby memory box, But I couldn't find paints which could be safe for babies. You get so many organic baby products right from clothes, but organic paints are not easy to find. I remember how we dipped Ruhaan's hand and foot in turmeric paste and attempted to take yellow prints when he was 4 months old. It looked very funny. Then my husband wanted to play with beetroot in same way but I resisted (definitely in the fear of mess afterwards. But it could have been equally memorable too).

I used to check those footprint kits kept in baby stores, but it is never mentioned that the paints are chemical-free on that made in china products. My husband proposed the molds of hand but I am always partial for paints.

We Can Too Plant Based Crayons

You get lot of paints, like face paints etc which are safe for toddlers, 3 years and above but not for babies. On this background you could imagine how happy I would have been when I found crayons not just safe for babies but are made from fruits and veggies and the company claims they are edible. Of course I am not ok with edible part but I can now let my son have fun with colors.
And here is what he did more than painting,

Yes he loved the fresh fruity, flowery smell of these crayons LOL.