Using safe, chemical-free, all-natural products around the home is never more important than when you have children. Babies are extremely sensitive and entirely dependent on you to make choices that will keep you healthy and happy. On top of that, kids can be expensive! Babies come with more accessories than Barbie, all necessary to be able to keep them warm, dry, fed, rested, and suitable for taking out in public. Fortunately, taking the all-natural, homemade route for baby care products can also save you a bit of money Baby Food Making your own baby food
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Whether you are a parent with kids who like to be creative, a recreational or professional artist, or a DIY renovator looking to brighten up your living space, there are many fun and useful ways to employ paint in your home. However, purchasing paint tends to come with a price – both literally and figuratively. Commercial paints tend to come in one of two forms: somewhat affordable factory-produced paints containing ingredients that can be toxic to both people and the environment and very expensive natural paints that will seriously strain your budget if you purchase
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The oils you choose to make your homemade soap with will greatly affect the final outcome—the soap’s bubbles, ability to condition the skin, its hardness and therefore durability, just to name a few. Often beginning soap makers use oils readily available at the grocery store, which is fine, but if you want to have more control over the soap, the oil you use is a great place to start. Soap Qualities First, a basic understanding of soap’s qualities is helpful. You might not have ever thought so in-depth about soap, but there are many important
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In a country that is working to establish energy independence, every energy possibility is being thoroughly explored in the hopes of finding oil’s replacement. Wind and solar face issues with being incorporated into the national electricity infrastructure and still don’t provide as much electricity as they could. With as much attention as electricity-generating energies like wind and solar get from the media, exciting and yet less glamorous possibilities like algal biofuels fall by the wayside. One of the most promising characteristics of algal biofuel production is the rapid rate of cell reproduction that occurs, making
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Firearm lubrication is an interesting topic for the off-the-grid lifestyle, especially if a situation develops which threatens normalcy in the future.  Not having access to high quality lubricants in a stressful or necessary situation could have a negative impact in your survivability or comfort. Very few guns can function on minimal lubrication, no matter what you do, so you will want to take a look at the options and reinforce your supplies to meet the need going forward. Lubrication isn’t just about oil though; greases, dry lubes, and finishes can be a big part of
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Threats of oil heading for $250 or more per barrel have consumers rightfully scared. Gas prices nationwide are already flirting with record highs, and the national average price per gallon is expected to be $4 or more by June. With this kind of economic threat on the horizon, how can you prepare? Some may advocate government action, but by the time the government gets done meddling with the situation, things may well be worse than ever. Remember that gas prices have risen rapidly each year Obama has been in office, and he’s supposedly proactive with
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People have been making and using soap for nearly 5,000 years, and possibly much longer than that. At around 3,000 B.C. enterprising Babylonians, Mesopotamians, and Egyptians began making simple soaps to use for sanitizing cooking implements. These days, we rely on soaps to clean just about everything…our cooking utensils, our clothes, and, of course, ourselves. For most of those 5,000 years, people made their own soap. So if you are thinking about homemade soap of your own, you are in good company, at least historically! It is a simple process, with lots of ways to
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WASHINGTON, DC – Things are on track for this to be the most expensive summer to drive ever. Motorists in the U.S. have already seen the national average for regular gasoline rise above $3.50 a gallon in just three different years, but never this early in the year. According to the U.S. Energy Department, the national average hit $3.523 a gallon, up 4.1 cents from a week earlier. Analysts predict the early price hikes are likely a sign that pain at the pump will rise to the highest peak levels ever this year. “This definitely
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The proposed 1,700-mile long Keystone pipeline would transport crude oil from Canada’s oil sands region in Alberta to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. TransCanda (TRP), the company that would build the pipeline, predicts Keystone would create 20,000 direct jobs and upwards of 120,000 indirect jobs. So, with 13,000 construction jobs, 7,000 direct support jobs,
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In 1818, a salt well suddenly began to fill with oil, making it the first well to produce crude oil in America. People had known about such oil seeps in western Pennsylvania for centuries. Native Americans, as far back as 1410, had been harvesting oil for medicinal purposes by digging small pits around active seeps and lining them with wood. For years European settlers had been skimming the oil from the seeps and using the petroleum as a source of lamp fuel and machinery lubrication. The Seneca Indians and Revolutionary soldiers serving under General Benjamin
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