Just as promised, we are letting you know of some great products this month for Earth Day.  This time, I had the opportunity to review some of the Bright Green™ cleaning products. Bright Green is a new line of home care products featuring cleaning and laundry soaps made with biodegradable and naturally derived ingredients, energy-efficient light bulbs and paper products made from 100% recycled content.  The Bright Green products are sold exclusively at Safeway stores.

I was able to review the Bright Green dishwashing liquid and all purpose cleaner.  The question that I have often asked myself is, “Is it possible to use green cleaning products and get the same results?”  My experience so far has been a positive one.  In all the environmentally friendly products I have tried, I have not found a difference in the way the product cleans from the other products. 

The Bright Green dishwashing liquid cleaned my dishes very well.  It took the grease off my dishes and had a very pleasant lavender scent.  My son especially enjoyed it.  He asked if he could wash dishes, which in our house means that I put some soap and water in a bowl and he “washes” some of the dishes in the sink.  He ended up using 1/2 of the bottle, so there were lots of suds and my kitchen smelled great for days.  lol  The Bright Green all purpose cleaner is great for the kitchen or garage and it has a refreshing lemon scent.

And now, on to the giveaway!

The giveaway includes an attractive  reusable shopping bag and $1 coupons for Bright Green cleaning products.  Safeway credits customers $.05 each time they use any reusable bag at the checkout.

There are many ways to enter this contest.  You can choose as many as you’d like.

You can earn an entry for each item you complete, but you must leave a separate comment for each one.  It just makes it easier to tally and pick a random winner.

1) Leave a comment telling me why you’d like to win this prize or why you use green cleaning products.

2) Give this post a thumbs up at Stumble Upon and leave your Stumble name.

3) Tweet this post and leave your Twitter name or status url. To retrieve your Twitter status url, simply click on the timestamp of your tweet. It will say something like, “5 seconds ago from the web”. You can earn 3 twitter entries each day for each time you tweet this giveaway. You must leave a comment for each tweet.

4) Follow @thriftymommy on Twitter. Leave a comment with your Twitter name.

5) Blog about this giveaway and leave a direct link to your post.

6) Mention this giveaway on any forums or message boards and leave me a link.

7) Add Thrifty Mommy and/or Keeping the Castle and/or to your blogroll.  You can earn a separate entry for each one.

This contest ends Sunday, April 12, 2009 and is available to those with a U.S. shipping address (no P.O. boxes please). The winner will be contacted by email and will have 72 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen. You will not be put on a mailing list, but you must include your email address in the second box under your name (not in the comment box).

Good luck everyone!

Seventh Generation is offering a $1 and $2 printable coupons to Seventh Generation Nation members.  Click here to join.  The registration process is simple.  You can print each coupon twice.  Coupons expire 30 days from when you print them.

Let us know of any other great printables you find.  Thanks.

image: seventh generation

Everyone has his or her own generic decluttering habits. But can’t we always learn new strategies. Yes, decluttering, for me, is like a game of chess. You just have to start with the pawns before attacking the queen. Yeah, whatever that means. Isn’t it obvious I’m clueless myself on how to deal with clutter? Hehe..

Here are two fun-filled, (yes, tidying up our houses could be fun with these) 15-minute, (okay, one will just take you 5 minutes) decluttering tips suggested by the Fly Lady, herself.

The 27-Fling Boogie

The idea is to get a bag and storm through your house picking up 27 items that you don’t need and putting them inside the box without having second thoughts. As soon as you pick those 27 unnecessary items. Tie that bag and throw it away A.S.A.P. That will leave you with no rescue time for your stuff. Pack rats need to master this.

The 5-minute Room Rescue

Remember your eerie attic or maybe it’s your basement that’s already growing snakes and monsters just because you never have time to do the cleaning done and over with. So, Fly Lady’s request is to finally heed that part of your house’s plea. And with just 5 minutes per day, you can start clearing it portion by portion, nook by nook.

More of these decluttering tips from FlyLady.

(image from homeeconomiser.com)