the fruit fly trap: perfected.

Ok, for those of you who don't know, I'm pretty much addicted to Pinterest.  If I actually did all those wonderful recipes, crafts and ideas that I pin, I'd be superwoman.  Seriously though, Martha Stewart would have nothing on me.  In reality, however, I rarely get to any of those wonderful ideas floating around that site... but they'll always be there for me *just in case* I actually get around to them.

One Pinterest inspired idea I actually did attempt was the fruit fly trap (pictured to the left - not my picture).    I get so annoyed with those little fruit flies buzzing around my kitchen.  From the first time I made this (which consists of a jar, a piece of fruit, tape and paper), it worked great.  I was so excited to finally find a solution to my fruit fly problem.  I've been using this technique for months, the only problem I faced was how to dispose of it when I was done.  I like to be able to reuse the jars, but by the time I was ready to switch out to a new piece of fruit, I didn't really know what to do to get rid of the flies living within since most of them were still alive.  My solution was drowning them in water by filling up the jar and letting it sit.  The down side, I got a weird concoction of rotten fruit and dead flies to dispose of.  I finally just started throwing away the whole jar because it was just too gross to deal with.

Well, the other night I was "pinning" (of course), and one blog led to another, which led to another and I came across the idea of setting out a bowl of ACV (apple cider vinegar), putting a few drops of liquid dish soap, and setting it out to kill fruit flies.  I decided to give that a go.  Well, the results weren't quite as good as the other fly trap, but I did catch some flies.  The problem was so many of the flies were content hanging around the bowl and not making it to the ACV mixture.  So a light bulb went off: make the original fly trap but put the ACV mixture in the jar instead of the fruit!  PLUS - it will be much easier to dump out the ACV mixture than to deal with rotting fruit.

So this is my revamped version of the fruit fly trap.  Here is what you need:

A jar (I use old spaghetti sauce jars), scrap paper, tape, ACV, liquid dish soap and scissors.

First step: Make your mixture!

Pour in some ACV, then add a few drops of the liquid dish soap.  To be honest, I don't know why you use the soap.  I wish I could find the random blog I found that concoction on... should have pinned it!

Next step: Make the cone!

Take the paper and make it into a cone.  I usually make the point of the cone as tight as possible, then cut a hole in the bottom.  Don't make it too big, because you don't want the flies to be able to fly back out.  I also cut around the top to make the top of the cone even, but you don't have to do that.

Last step: Tape the cone to the jar!

I put a little pressure on the cone so there is a tight seal between the paper and the jar.  When you're taping, make sure there aren't any gaps where the flies can crawl out.  I usually put a finger on the inside and outside of the paper cone where the tape is and press all around it to make sure the tape is totally stuck and there is no escape.  Muahahaha...

And voila!  

You're trap is done and there are likely several curious flies wondering what that interesting contraption is.  Set it next to your bowl of fresh fruit, or wherever you see the most fly activity.  I left mine out for about 2 hours, and as you can see in this picture, I have already caught several flies (I stopped counting at 20 and there were plenty more waiting to be counted).  Most of them crawl to the ACV mixture and die.  If you wanted to, you could use pretty scrap booking paper for the cone and wrap the outside of the jar with it so it's not so ugly.  I don't really care that much, so mine stays ugly.  Plus, I like to see all those flies trapped in there, never to bother me again.

Well, there you have it.  My first DIY blog.  I know it's not that exciting, and my ideas were heavily inspired by other creative people's ideas, but I'm pretty excited about this.  Maybe next time I'll have a pretty craft or yummy recipe.  But for now... enjoy getting rid of those pesky fruit flies.

- Mama Frenchy