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Lemons and Lavender: The Eco Guide to Better Home Keeping by Billee Sharp has had some rather mixed reviews. When I was first contacted about doing a review I decided to do a bit of research.
What I found is that a lot of people loved the book and a few people just didn’t.
Those that didn’t seemed to have the issue of this book being published in 2010 by the same author under the title Fix It, Make It, Grow It, Bake It. I so like the new name better 🙂
Now while I totally understand being frustrated in buying a book that you thought was a new book…in my opinion that is kind of your fault! Most online shops allow you to “look inside” of a book. I NEVER buy a book without doing some research and looking inside.
With that being said, let’s get into what this book is all about.
This book is promoted as a helpful guide to living a life that is healthy and more affordable, while possibly picking up a new habit or two (like gardening).
According to the publisher, this book has a HUGE variety of creative topics to learn about.
“• Garden-to-table recipes for every meal
• Eco-deco ideas for furnishing your home
• Recipes for nontoxic cleaners, house paint and more
• Start a seed sharing garden with your neighbors
• Easy-to-make gifts with handcrafted gift wrap
• Grow your own cup of delicious herbal tea
• Learn to use organic sea salts, skin scrubs and detox bath therapies”
Now on to what I thought of it!
My hubby and I live a rather “country” life. We grow as much of our own food as we can, we compost, we have chickens (I am so not eating my chickens after I named them…but their eggs rock!), we recycle and reuse as often as possible, and so much more!
I thought that this book would be an awesome addition to our already decent knowledge of living healthy and eco-friendly.
While reading this book, I kept finding myself saying…”Yeah, I already do this!” or “Doesn’t everyone know that?”.
Inside of the book you will find some pretty great recipes for homemade remedies, detox ideas, and quite a few dinner/dessert recipes!
I loved how they handled the loaf of bread recipe! It broke it down by ingredient and cost per ingredient so you could easily see what making it yourself could save you! I wish they had done this with more of their recipes!
There are tips and tricks for crafting ideas such as stenciling, screen printing, decoupage, and more.
If that isn’t enough…just look in the section for cleaning tips! Oh my gosh…while I already used quite a few of these, it was nice to learn a few new ones!
We use something very similar to the natural wood floor cleaning recipe and love it! I also found that their Mother Nature’s Mold Treatment is AMAZING! It works great than bleach and smells a whole lot better!
They even put in a recipe for homemade eco-friendly paint! I haven’t tried this yet but I totally want to!
The only down fall I have with this book is that there are a few ingredients that are used A LOT that are not easy to come by where I live. I’m pretty sure there are several things that I can use as a substitute…I just hated that it is billed as a frugal living book and there are quite a few things that around here would cost me a TON to purchase or even get the seeds to start growing my own.
With that being said, this book still gets my two big ol’ thumbs up! I believe that we all need to take a step back and start living more eco-friendly.
What do you do to live eco-friendly?