Lehmans recycled toys review and giveaway

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED! Congrats to commenter #15, Gwenn S.

Many of us recycle, which is a very good thing, but have you ever wondered what becomes of those old milk cartons once they're shipped off to the recycling center?

Have you ever cringed when you hear about yet another toy recall due to it containing lead? (Honestly, WHO still thinks it's acceptable to paint toys with lead-based paint?)

Have you ever bought a brand-new toy, only to have it break that very same day, or week?

Well, I can answer "Yes" to all three of those questions, so I was just thrilled to see that one of my favorite companies, Lehmans, recently started carrying these neat, durable, Made-In-America recycled toys.







Lehmans is a fantastic company that sells all sorts of things to help people live a simpler life.

Here's part of their story:
"Founded by Jay Lehman in 1955 to serve the local Amish and others without electricity, Lehman's ships old-fashioned, high-quality merchandise all over the world.
Jay's vision was to preserve the past for future generations. "I was concerned that some day the Amish would not be able to maintain their simple ways of life because these products would no longer be available," he said. His goal was, and still is, to provide authentic, historical products to those seeking a simpler life."
Click here to read more.

Many of the items Lehmans carries are tried-and-true favorites that are no longer easy to find in the stores, such as Smith's Rosebud Salve, which is something I hope to never be without. It's awesome stuff, and my favorite use is when I (or one of my kids) have a cold and my nose is raw from too much wiping. I will literally put some of the salve on my nose before bed and the rawness is completely gone in the morning!



Another favorite of mine from Lehmans is the vegetable peeler I have always hated peeling potatoes, but this little gadget does the job quickly, and with little effort. (AND IT'S LIFETIME GUARANTEED!)



There are also a number of items from Lehmans on my wish list. One of them is the natural peanut butter mixer (to mix in the oil that collects on the top of natural nut butters).



Another is the set of REAL bayberry candles (these are very hard to make AND to find). I'd love to get a set just to burn at Christmas every year!



So, yes, I think Lehmans is awesome and I have been a customer for years and will continue to be a customer for years to come.

But back to the toys.

I contacted Lehmans about these recycled toys when I heard about them, and they very generously agreed to send some out for my boys to put to the test. (NOTE: I did NOT pay for these, just so you--and the FTC--know!) The dump truck and tool set arrived on a rainy afternoon and the boys spent the rest of the day happily playing with them.

There are a couple parts of the tool set that are too small for Jordan, but he can play with most of the tools and he loves to put things in the dump truck, like dead leaves (when he's not tasting them) and the black walnuts that are dropping from the tree in our yard.

Logan has been having fun playing with both the dump truck and the tool set. He likes to pound in the nails and pretend to fix things with the tools. And yeah, sometimes he uses the saw to pretend he's amputating one of my limbs. I don't know what that's all about, but I play along anyway. Maybe he'll be a surgeon one day!







The toys are extremely durable, too. I don't think the boys could break them if they tried. And there's no lead paint, BPA or anything like that to worry about, either.

Perfect!

Lehmans is going to give one of my readers the opportunity to win one of the recycled toys (your choice of the tea set, dump truck or tool set), just in time for Christmas, Santa!

So how do you enter to win? Easy peasy.

Pop on over to the Lehmans Web site and browse around a bit. Then come back here and tell me a couple things you saw there that you found interesting and would like to try. Be sure to leave a valid e-mail address in your comment!

Want extra entries?

The following are worth 1 extra entry each:
(Please leave a separate comment for each entry and be sure to include an e-mail address each time)

Become a public follower of my blog, or let me know if you already are.

Follow me on Twitter (hikermom13)

Tweet this giveaway, with a link (can be done once daily)

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This giveaway will end on Thursday, Nov. 5, so you have just over a week to enter. I will choose the winner using random.org and announce the winner here and will also e-mail the winner, and he or she will have until Saturday, Nov. 7 to get a mailing address to me or a new winner will be chosen.

Good luck!

This soap is nuts! Review

As you know, I'm always looking for ways to "green up" my household. We recycle and have switched to cloth napkins instead of paper. I'm also planning to try out cloth diapering and am working on getting us down to one bag of trash per week.

Well, I got a catalog in the mail recently and as I was paging through it, I saw something called Soap Nuts. Supposedly these were some all-natural thing you could use to wash your laundry. Intrigued, I (of course) Googled it and found this Web site. I decided to try these soap nuts out and do a review.

Soap Nuts are actually berries that grow on trees in India and Nepal, and they contain a lot of saponin (the stuff that makes soap soap!), and I've learned they can be used not just for laundry, but for all sorts of general cleaning around the house.

My Soap Nuts arrived, packaged in a muslin bag with instructions printed on it. There is one small plastic bag inside the muslin, and other than that, there is no packaging waste. Awesome.

There was a mild, earthy odor about the nuts when I opened them, and they looked brown and wrinkly, kind of like dates. Hubby thought they smelled gross and forbade me to test them out on any of his stuff. I did anyway.

After reading the packaging, I decided to make some concentrated Soap Nut liquid, so I boiled ten or twelve of the nuts in 6 cups of water for 30 minutes and put the liquid in a glass jar. It was brown and weird looking, but did not smell like much of anything. Then I grabbed some of our dirtiest laundry to test it out. I washed some reallllly sweaty gym shirts that had been fermenting in the hamper for a few days, some soiled baby clothes and some stinky bath towels. Then I dried them. Supposedly, you don't even need fabric softener when you're using Soap Nuts. The clothes came out soft and clean-smelling.

I have since tried out the liquid in place of my normal dishwasher soap and in place of the cleaners I use in the kitchen and in the bathroom. There is a recipe to make a general cleaner on the bag. You mix a small amount of the liquid with water and a small amount of white vinegar and put it in a spray bottle.

I have to say I am impressed. I was not expecting the Soap Nuts to work this well. My big bathroom mirror was even streak-free, as was my glass stove top. Everything I have cleaned with the Soap Nuts liquid has turned out perfect, with one exception: It did not get out a blood stain. However, right on the Web site it says that just like with regular detergent, tough stains will require a pre-treatment, so I didn't really expect it to get out the blood stain.

A 500-gram bag of Soap Nuts will do up to 200 loads of laundry, according to the Web site. I haven't done that much yet, but I will say I have only used that first batch of liquid and I have done about five loads of laundry, two loads of dishes in the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen and both bathrooms and I still have liquid left in my glass jar. A little goes a very long way.

In addition to the lack of packaging, the remnants of the Soap Nuts after you run them through the wash or make liquid are compostable, and the stuff that goes down the drain is antimicrobial, so it's actually beneficial to a septic system. These things are great for the environment, and they don't have anything added to them, so they're good to use on baby clothes or for people who are sensitive or have conditions such as eczema.

I'm glad I tried these weird little critters. I can honestly say they surpassed my expectations, and I don't feel that little twinge of guilt like I did pouring a capful of regular detergent into my washer.

if you want to find out more or try Soap Nuts for yourself, go to www.buysoapnuts.com.