I’ve gotten really into green cleaning products recently. With all of the attention we pay to the chemicals we ingest, we sometimes forget about the stuff we clean with. I collected some of my favorite DIY green cleaning recipes to share with you. If you’re looking to cut down on using chemicals that are harmful to the environment and to our bodies, this post is for you.

Whenever I tell people I make my own cleaning products, the first thing I get is the Huuuuh? face. As in, why on earth would you do that when you could run to the store and pick one up that’s already made for you?

Let me start by telling you right off the bat that if it wasn’t easy, I wouldn’t do it. I’ve got way too much going on to be bothered with complicated green cleaning recipes. The recipes I use are incredibly simple and nontoxic—in my book, this is key when you have a toddler who not only puts just about anything in her mouth but scales furniture when I turn my back.

The next thought that flickers across a person’s face is usually, How do you know it actually works? Most people don’t ask that out loud but you can totally see that they’re thinking it (my sister, however, absolutely asks it out loud). Once I explain the ingredients I use and their magical powers (which I’ll get to in a bit) the face is usually all Tell me your secrets!

Since I can never remember these magical recipes off the top of my head (I keep them on a card in my recipe box), I thought I’d lay them all out for you right here…

Oriental Trading Company provided me with product for review but all opinions (and drama) are my own.

My girls get their love of crafting from me. They also get their inability to finish projects before flitting off to another creative venture from me, but you can talk to my husband about that. I prefer to concentrate on the positive. Like making pretty ornaments for our tree and to gift to friends and family.

We got a few inches of snow dumped on us on Saturday and it was the perfect time to hunker down in front of the Christmas tree and get our craft on.

For me, tea and crafting go together like movies and popcorn. It’s a pair that you just don’t mess with.

There’s something so freaking zen about sitting down and making something with my own two hands while I sip a cup of tea. It puts me in my happy zone. Another thing that puts me into that zone is laughing my butt off with my closest friends. A few weeks ago I had a (brilliant) idea: why not combine these forces of goodness into one big, fat, happy party?

So I did.

Samantha is pretty opinionated (that actually might be the understatement of the millennium). She is very specific about her likes and dislikes, which makes something like finding valentines that suit her a little tricky. She likes things that are cute, but at the same time she has no interest in giving any of the boys in her class something lovey dovey that might give them the wrong idea (because, ew).

A few years ago, when I was pregnant with Ellie, my friends and I had an ugly Christmas sweater party. It was hilarious and ridiculous. We had a lot of fun and totally wanted to do it again. Fast forward a year and ugly Christmas sweaters were suddenly outrageously expensive.

I don’t know about you, but I have zero interest in shelling out $25+ to wear something once and laugh at its sheer ugliness. I’m way too cheap for that.

But I do still love the idea of a good ugly Christmas sweater. It just needs to be a cheap one. Like, maybe, a sweatshirt or sweater that I already own and never wear and a few dollar store embellishments. Now that sounds much better to me.

These ugly Christmas sweater DIYs having varying levels of difficulty, but all of them are nice and cheap. Now. Go forth and get ugly!

10 ugly Christmas sweater DIYs