Homemade Glass Cleaner Recipe

11.06.16

Hi everyone! Today I have a recipe for a Homemade Glass Cleaner Recipe for you all. Hope you all enjoy 🙂

Working in research, I have to constantly be aware of all the things we use that are carcinogenic and a certain level of safety is always in effect. But, I realize, at home, I am not so aware. I don’t do anything to change the amount of toxins that are present at home that we encounter on a daily basis, the biggest one being cleaning products.

I would like to change that. On this blog, I will be adding recipes for natural, DIY cleaning products (this homemade beard balm is so amazing), starting off with a DIY Natural Window Cleaner, perfect for mirrors and windows.

Making your own cleaning products has many benefits, including being aware of what is in the product as well as saving a ton of money, since they are fairly inexpensive to make. And for those out there that aren’t into DIY projects, this recipe for a homemade glass cleaner is fairly quick to make. Less than 1 min to prepare, so give it a go.

Okay, so while researching homemade natural cleaning products, I realized that there a select few ingredients that are commonly used. In today’s recipe, we will be using the following and I did a little research as to how they work and why they are necessary for a natural homemade glass cleaner.

First up is Vinegar. I always see on Pinterest that vinegar is an effective natural cleaner and I know some of my friends use it as well. Vinegar is effective in removing microbial contamination and is best used as a rinse to help disinfect a surface after you have cleaned it with a soap based cleaner.

Rubbing Alcohol. In research labs, we often use alcohol to precipitate DNA because we know that DNA is insoluble in isopropyl alcohol. But, in household cleaning, we are not interested in this property. Instead, we use it for its ability to disinfect and kill bacteria, fungi, and virus. You can omit this if you would like in this recipe.

Finally, cornstarch is used to prevent streaking. The surfaces of glass are not perfectly smooth so when water is sprayed on, the water molecules get caught in these microscopic holes. Streaking occurs when water clings to itself through hydrogen bonding. Cornstarch works by disrupting these hydrogen bonds to prevent the streaks.

INGREDIENTS – Homemade Glass Cleaner

1/4 cup vinegar

1/4 cup rubbing alcohol

1 tbsp cornstarch

2 cups water

essential oils of choice (I used lavender, peppermint, and sweet orange)

DIRECTIONS – Homemade Glass Cleaner

Mix all ingredients together in a spray bottle.

Shake to mix and spray onto window or glass and wipe clean with a microfiber cloth.

Kamfort Food

Vegan BeaverTails Recipe

10.31.16

Vegan BeaverTails Recipe

A couple of months ago I had my first ever Beavertail and it was so amazing that I had another one the same day, and ever since I’ve been looking for where I can buy one more. And the other good thing, they are VEGAN!!! Vegan beavertails are a Canadian only pastry that’s in the shape of a beaver’s tail. I am from Vancouver and I had never heard of them before until I moved to Toronto, where they have 3 storefronts. Outside of Canada, they have franchises in Japan, South Korea and UAE, if you’re wanting to try an authentic Canadian Beavertail.

But for today, I am going to try to re-create them as best as I can. I had some clues as to what to use in this recipe. First of all, they are vegan, so I know they don’t have eggs and dairy. And second, I watched a Beavertails video online and I know they are made with yeast and are fried. The best things usually are, so no surprise there.

These Vegan Beavertails turned out AMAZING!!! Everyone at home said they taste just like the ones you get from the store, and they did!

It’s an easy recipe as well and makes around 12 vegan beavertails. I made 4 and froze down the rest of the dough. They taste best when made fresh and are warm.

Vegan Beavertails recipe

INGREDIENTS

1 cup warm water

2 tsp yeast

1 tsp brown sugar

1 tsp alcohol free vanilla extract

1/4 cup canola oil

2.5 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup sugar + 1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

To your hot water, add 2 tsp of yeast and let sit a couple of minutes, until mixture becomes frothy.

Next, add brown sugar, vanilla and oil and mix. Then stir in flour salt, 1/4 cup sugar and knead to get a dough.

Oil your bowl and cover with saran wrap and let sit for 45-1 hr or until dough has doubled in size.

Heat up your oil. To test to see if the oil is ready, take a small piece of the dough and place it into the frying pan, if it rises up, it is ready.

Now, take a small ball of dough and roll it into the shape of a beaver’s tail and place it into the frying pan. Fry each side for around 30 seconds or until golden brown. Place on paper towel to let the oil drain out.

In a ziploc bag, add the remaining sugar and cinnamon. Place the freshly fried beavertail into this mixture and give it a shake. Your beavertail is now ready.

I like to add some chocolate spread and sliced bananas along with powdered sugar! So delicious!

Hope you enjoyed this recipe for these delicious vegan beavertails and if you’re on the hunt for some more delicious recipes (mostly vegan), check out the Kamfort Food Section of Getkamfortable. My personal favourite are these vegan sugar cookies.

Kamfy Living

How To Set Up A DIY Wedding Photo Booth Quick and Easy

10.23.16

The ultimate easy DIY photo booth for your wedding, bridal shower, birthday party that is super easy to set up and very affordable and fun!

One of the DIY projects that I did for my wedding that worked really well and saved a lot of money was a DIY Wedding Photo booth! Photo booths are quite popular and fun at weddings but they can be quite expensive. There are companies that you can hire to set up a photo booth, but the pricing for a couple of hours can be over $400, not including printed pictures. So, this DIY wedding photo booth is perfect for those that want to save some money for their upcoming wedding or event.

I did a lot of research when planning this DIY project, but to be honest, I was actually quite unsure that it would work so well. But it worked amazingly!!! And it was a lot of fun for the guests!

There isn’t much out there on Pinterest and blogs about how to do your own DIY photo booth so I hope this is helpful to anyone looking for ideas on how to save and make your own photo booth along with printing photo booth pictures. And this entire project cost me less than $200, and I get to keep the printer and supplies. Which is a win win!

First of all, you will need a backdrop for your photo booth. I can do another blog post on how we did the floral backdrop which was another easy, inexpensive, and fun DIY project that looked amazing! We chose to do a floral backdrop because it went with our wedding lunch reception theme, however, there are many other backdrops out there that you can choose to do.

Next, you will need a printer, and a wireless printer is perfect for a photo booth. I bought the Canon SELPHY CP910, but there are other wireless printers available out there as well. I bought mine on Craigslist for $90 so I could save some more money, so try looking on Kijiji or Craiglist in your city first before purchasing online or in stores. This printer is also very easy to set up, just follow the instructions provided with the printer and once you have the printer connected to your WiFi network you are all set for the next step. My printer came with an ink cartridge as well as some printing paper, however, you can purchase them separately as well. See the links for where to purchase the printer, ink and paper on Amazon!

Okay, so now you will need something to take pictures with. I chose to use my iPad2 because it was easy to set up and had the perfect app to take pictures and send them directly to the wireless printer to print. I bought an iPad to tripod mount to have a perfect setup for taking the photobooth pictures. We already had a tripod, so didn’t need to worry about that.

One last thing you need to get before you are all set is an app that will take photo booth style pictures and send them directly to print on your wireless printer. Again, I did a TON on research on this. There are so many options available, some that are in the 100’s of dollars, and others that don’t send the pictures to print. But, I finally found the perfect one. It is called My Photobooth and cost me $13.99 and was well worth it. You can choose from one of the templates available on the app, or create your own and upload it into the app. We chose a default wedding template. You just click start and the app will take 4 pictures, so your guests can strike a pose for the camera.

Once it has taken the pictures, just click finish and save photos. This will save the pictures on your iPad as well as give you the option to Print a copy. If you click on Print a copy, your printer should be connected and all set to print!

SUPPLIES

Canon SELPHY CP910

iPad

iPad to tripod mount

Backdrop of choice

Printer paper and ink (if not included with printer)

My Photobooth iPad app

DIRECTIONS

Set up your Canon Selphy CP910 printer and connect it to your WiFi network and place it in a secure location. Have someone at hand that can help guests if need be.

Install the My Photobooth app on your iPad and mount the iPad to your tripod so that it is facing your photobooth backdrop.

When taking pictures in photobooth, click start on app and strike a pose. Then click Print a Copy and wait for the printer to print you your very own photobooth picture.

If you’re looking for ideas on how to make your own backdrop, check out this post on how we DIY’d a Sprinkle backdrop.