DIY Thursday: No-hands toilet bowl cleaner

I'm a big fan of DIY. Not building a house DIY, that's more than a bit extreme. But little things that help my budget and allow me to use less chemicals. I found these toilet bowl bombs on Maria's Self Blog: she has them for sale, if you don't want to make them.

I give Maria's Self full credit for these (and the picture) and thank her profusely for posting her how-to so I could replicate them! They're amazing and smell great. I bought my citric acid and essential oils from my local health foods store since I originally did this as an experiment and didn't want to buy in bulk. I bought a candy mold to use as the mold since there was no way I'd use the candy molds I use for candy!

WHAT I USE: (for approx. 24 bombs)

--1 1/3 cup Baking Soda - amazing for all-natural cleaning AND deodorizing!

--1/2 cup Citric Acid - (low-strength acid that exists naturally in fruits like lemons & oranges) - used in many kitchen & bathroom cleaners for its cleaning, whitening & deodorizing properties

--30 drops Lavender Essential Oil***

--30 drops Peppermint Essential Oil***

--30 drops Lemon Essential Oil*** --Medical Mask

WHAT I DO:

Since I work with citric acid and baking soda, I always put medical mask first and then mix together soda and acid. After that I put oils in a spray bottle and spray little by little stirring the mixture at the same time in order to not let it fizz away. If the mixture isn't damp enough I add just A TINY BIT of water in my spray bottle and spray the mixture - but again, I try to prevent the acid from fizzing away, because bombs won't explode and will just sink without fizzing if they're too moist.

After that I put the mixture in silicone molds and let them dry for about 6 hours. And then I store the bombs in a container with a lid - don't they look adorable?...I usually drop one in the toilet bowl whenever I feel like it;-) 

Goals 24 and house cleaning

I took a few days off to make a long weekend and feel so accomplished I need to shout it out.

• Almost finished my new m/m Hellfire Club Erotique story and titled it! The Devil's Pawn: A Hellfire Club Erotique.
• Also did the blurb for it!
• Will be sending it off to my editor within the next 2 weeks, then the book converter as soon as I get the edits back, so hopefully it'll be out by the end of July!
• Made an Olympic cake out of cupcakes (see not too bad picture of it to the right!) for a Father's Day Extravaganza.
• Cleaned. And cleaned and cleaned! I cleaned so much, my house now looks like I'm ready to show it to potential buyers (I'm not which is a shame, because it looks beautiful!)


• Organized my office area. Technically I suppose I could lump it in with cleaning but the office area is a special place for unfilled papers, potential shredding or filing of papers depending on how long they've sat around, pieces of writing ideas, and other misc. junk.

I do love working in a clean space. (It's the cleaning I do in spurts!) What does your office or other working space look like?