Homemade DRY laundry soap and other laundry tips

I have several friends that use homemade laundry soap.  The number one reason - cost!  I haven't done the math, but it's pennies a load.  I made liquid laundry soap a time or two and while it did save a lot of money, it was a pain.  Cooking it.  Storing it.  Shaking it before every load.  Too much work for lazy old me!  I stumbled across a recipe for dry laundry soap and thought I would give it a try.  I've been using it pretty much exclusively ever since.  It's super easy to make/store/use.  And is just as cheap as the liquid version.  The only hard part is finding the ingredients.  Kroger carries them all in the laundry aisle.  Not sure about other stores, but if you ask around, I'm sure you can find them.

The ingredients are:

2 cups Washing Soda (not baking soda, although it is made by Arm & Hammer too),

2 cups Borax,

1 bar Fels-Naptha soap (I've heard that you can use other bar soaps, but have never tried).

First grate the bar of Fels-Naptha onto a piece of waxed paper.

If your kids are cheese lovers like mine, warn them not to eat the soap that looks deceptively like freshly grated cheddar!

Spread the soap out and let it air dry for a day or two.  This isn't a crucial step, but if you have the time it helps the soap break into smaller particles in the finished product.

 Using the waxed paper as a funnel, put dried soap along with one cup each of Washing Soda and Borax into a food processor.  Save waxed paper to use again as a funnel later.  You can use your every day food processor.  It's just soap.  Wash it when your done and you can still use it for food.

Process until WELL combined and the Fels-Naptha has broken down into small particles.  Add another cup each of Washing Soda and Borax (2 cups total each) and process until combined again.

Dump onto the waxed paper that you saved.

Used waxed paper as a funnel again and store in an air-tight container.  I use quart canning jars because I had them on hand.  My sister gave me a plastic lid that fits onto a wide-mouthed jar.  It's super handy because I don't have to fight with the lid and rim every time I open the jar.  You could also glue a lid into a rim to keep them together.  From one batch I get over one quart.  I store the extra in a regular sized mouth canning jar, which makes it easy to dump into the wide-mouth jar when I need a refill.

Now, here's the part you're going to have a hard time believing, but you're just going to have to take my word for it.  USE ONE TABLESPOON PER LOAD!!!!  I have washed hundreds of loads with this stuff and it works!  Trust me!  If you use too much it will build up on your clothes and washer parts.  Don't ask me how it works with so little, just trust that it does.

 

Using 1 TBSP at a time, you can see that a batch lasts a LONG time!  I don't know for sure how many loads it does.  Assuming that the end result yields about 5 cups, then you get 80 TBSP (thank you unit converter on my computer - ha!).  So, 80 loads.  I don't remember exact amounts, but let's say the Washing Soda and Borax each cost about $4.00 and the Fels-Naptha is about $2.00.  Also, you can get at least 4 batches out of each box of Washing Soda and Borax.  So, basically $3.00 for 80 loads of laundry - less than 4 cents per load.  And that's probably figuring high.

Some people have said that they don't want to use it because they like their laundry to have a certain smell.  That doesn't bother me, but I use softner in the washer and just buy a scent that I like for that.

I also dilute my softner with half white vinegar.  You can actually use just white vinegar as a softner, but I like to have the scent in there too.

Another laundry money saving tip...use cold water on most loads.  Unless you've got some really dirty, nasty, smelly stuff, cold water will get it clean.

One last money and time saving tip - Bounce dryer bars.  I bought one in March 2010 and haven't had to replace it yet!  It's just starting to show through to the bottom and will probably need replaced this March.  I think they cost about $3.  Can't beat that price.  And not having to throw a dryer sheet in with each load is just one more little time saver.

With 3 kids, I do a lot of laundry.  Probably averages out to a load a day.  So I've done anything I can to make it simpler and cheaper.  Hope what I have learned helps you out too.

Teacher gifts

I had so much fun making teacher gifts this year! It started with the little Post-it Note thingie.

Then I decided to make some caramel corn. I was going to put it in bags, but kept forgetting to buy them when I was out. I had 3 oat containers on hand because I was supplying reindeer food for all 3 of the kids classes, so I improvised and turned them into containers for the caramel corn. It was fun to decorate them.

I started by cutting the containers in half. Then I cut verticle lines up the top half of the container so that it would nest inside the bottom half. The top half has that rolled over part that secures the lid.

After getting the containers the right size, it was just a matter of covering them with paper, ribbon and embellishments. I made a third, but I guess I forgot to take a picture of it.

Decorated hand sanitizer bottles were also included. Although this gift was more for the kids, I'm sure the teacher appreciates the killing of germs too! To make these, there's really only one tricky part - start with a bottle with smooth sides. A lot of bottles are funky shaped. These are from the Dollar Tree and are straight all around. Well, the front bumps out and the back bumps in, but it's still a flat surface to glue the paper to. After that, just use your imagination and make them fun. I had some black paper with silver guitars and thought that "clean hands ROCK!" was the perfect saying to pair up with it. My kids LOVE SpongeBob and they really liked that bottle too. I just used an image from the internet and cropped it to fit the size that I needed. I tried to come up with a third idea so that they'd all be different, but the creative juices must have been running low at that point.

Here's the reason that I had so many oats. The pile is for 1 of the classes. The other 2 classes chose to make the packets as an activity during the party. It's oats and some type of glitter. You can use cake sprinkles or actual glitter. This year I had purchased some blizzard snow for the captured snowflake ornament that I made, so I just used the left overs from that.

I've seen these done in several different ways. One way is to fold a paper lunch sack so that the top is a triangle. Then fold it more than halfway over so that the triangle point faces down. This becomes the nose of a reindeer face. Then you staple "antlers" made of sticks or pipe cleaners on each side at the fold. Add some eyes and it's all set. I go the snack baggie route because they are a lot cheaper and easier to work with...especially when you're making 60!

And, of course, the most awesome gift of all. I took a picture of each kid in the class and turned them into paper ball ornaments. To get them all the right size, I used photo editing software and cropped the faces into a 2.5" circle. I printed them on heavy paper/untextured card stock and then cut out the face circles for the ornament. The rest of it went together just like a regular paper ball ornament. The only tricky part is making sure that all the faces are "up". So, 10 of the 20 triangles should have the folded point at the top of the face and the other 10 should have the folded point at the bottom of the face. 5 "top points" make the top. 5 "bottom points" make the bottom. The remaining 10 alternate to make the middle ring.

Lastly, I added one of the felt Santa ornaments that I made and I had the kids and myself each write their teachers a note of thanks. All the websites say that's what teachers treasure the most...and one of ours confirmed it.

Here's the finished product. I got the baskets at the Dollar Tree and added a bow to the front. I wish I would have gotten a different size basket because everything didn't quite fit right into these and it didn't display as nicely as I'd hoped, but oh well.

So, all in all, I think I spent:

$1 per basket

$1 per sanitizer

$.50 per post-it set

maybe $1 each for the caramel corn supplies

$0 for the paper and ribbon - it came from my stash!

So, less than $5, but a whole lot of time and love went into them. I appreciate my kids' teachers and I hope these gifts help show that!

This is what my crafting area/dining room looks like when I'm done!

Post-it holders

One of the teacher gifts that I made this year was post-it note holders. They cost me a whopping 50 cents each (not counting the paper or glue, which I already had on hand). They aren't anything super special, but they are pretty cute and have that fun home-made flair that turns 50 cents into a gift worthy of giving and receiving.

I got the idea from this site, but made a few changes. Here are my instructions.

Remove the backer from on set of post-its and stick it on top of another set. Add tacky glue* along the top of the stacked set and glue the backer paper to it. When it's dry, cut off the excess backer paper. I'm not sure if this step is necessary, but I figured it can only help to reinforce the top.

*Aileen's tacky glue is my new best friend. This Christmas I have used it to repair many broken ornaments and other decorations that I have previously glued with hot glue. While I also love hot glue, it has it's disadvantages. It does not hold well on smooth surfaces. It takes time to heat up and cool down the gun. Being the klutz that I am, I usually end up burning one or more of my fingers whenever I use it. However, tacky glue has none of these issues and while it doesn't dry quite as quickly as hot glue, it does dry fast and already has a tacky consistency (hence the name) so it grips pretty good from the get go.

Cut a strip of heavier cardstock type paper. It should be just slightly taller than the post-its and long enough to wrap around the post-its and overlap just a bit.

If you are not lucky enough to have a scoring tool and tray (or whatever it's called), then you'll have to improvise, like I did. Find something with a shallow groove - like a paper cutter - and something with a rounded point - like this tool that I have from Creative Memories. Line up the paper where the folds need to be and score along the lines. For this project you will need 4 score lines - 2 to each side of the post-its - so the paper will wrap around the post-it stack. To determine where these lines should be, just lay the post-its on the paper and make a mark to each side. Then turn the post-it pad up on it's side and make another mark at the proper thickness. Be sure to make the "thickness" marks equal on each side. After the score marks are made, fold your paper and check that it wraps nicely around the post-its, but do not glue it into place yet.

Momma needs a mani (and a pedi too for that matter!)

Now for the closure. You have a lot of options - velcro, string wraps, elastics, etc. I was going for simple and what was on hand, so I just used more paper with a flap. Cut an appropriate shape out of the paper you are using or a coordinating paper. With the paper wrap around the post-its, lay the cut-out on top to determine where it looks best. You will be gluing the cut-out to one side of the paper (the left) and making a flap for it to tuck into on the other side (the right). After laying the cut-out on top, make a mark on the right half of the paper, where the flap opening needs to be cut.

Cut the opening and then glue down the cut-out piece. Also glue the post-its into the wrap. Write a nice little note on the first post-it and Ta-da! You have a super cute gift ready to go!

Part old, part new made to look old

This grate was in the ceiling of the kitchen in our house. It was covered over by the drop ceiling that the previous owners had installed and that we ripped out. Back in the day, it must have been how heat got from downstairs to upstairs. I'm guessing that it didn't work so well!!!

Greg took it down before he installed the new ceiling (Yes, I have an awesome husband who can do that sort of thing. Installing new ceilings, that is. Not taking down old grates. Ha!)

I was looking at it the other day, thinking that it would look really cool with something in front of it. So, I set it aside, with plans to make it cool some day. That day came sooner than expected.

When my girlfriends were over for the ornament exchange, I showed them the grate and told them about my plan, when suddenly I remembered a cross that I bought for $3 a few days earlier. It was black, which wouldn't work over top of the dark grate. Someone suggested that I paint it cream and scuff it up to make it look old. That's exactly what I did. Did you know that a nail file works just as well as sandpaper when you want to "antique" something but don't want to walk out to the garage in the cold? This picture is before antiquing.

I LOVE how it turned out. The more of this repurposed old stuff that I add to my house, the more I fall in love with it.

Here is it's new home in my home!

Ornaments

And here it is!!!! The BEST homemade ornament EVER (if I do say so myself...and I do)!!! During the ornament exchange, my sister pulled out a "special" ornament just for me. It was the original Baby Jesus ornament that I made and then gave them all away. It was so super sweet of her and I was about to tear up over it until she broke into the sweetness with a "now you can quit complaining about not keeping one of these for yourself!" comment. Sisters! HA! Love you Melissa!!!! You do have to admit that it really is awesome, right?!?!

I have made quite a few ornaments this year.

Ever wonder what 10 starfish would look like if they were painted like Santas? Well, wonder no longer. These are the ornaments that I made for the exchange this year. I bought the starfish 3 years ago in Daytona Beach on a trip that we made after Christmas. This was after the first ornament exchange and because it was fresh on my mind, and I had made Santa ornaments before, I bought the starfish in anticipation of making them the following year.

Funny story about them...at the store, I had picked out my 10 starfish and left them at the counter to be wrapped while we continued to shop. When we were done looking around the store, I went back to the counter to pay for my starfish, only to find they were gone. Apparently, there were 2 cashiers and 2 different people buying something that had to be wrapped. The cashier that wasn't the one I dealt with, sold my starfish to the other person! The really funny part is that they weren't there to buy starfish! What a surprise they got when they got home and opened the box!

So, back to the ornament saga! Like I said, I bought these starfish 3 years ago. However, for the following 2 years, I forgot that I had bought them until after I made my ornaments for the exchange. This year however, I remembered the starfish when it came time to plan for the ornaments. Of course, things never go smoothly, so although I remembered that I had bought the starfish, when we moved I packed them away "somewhere" and I couldn't find where that somewhere was. I figured that, being the logical packer that I am, I had to have put them with my Christmas decorations, but when I started searching for them I wasn't having any luck. I have 6 plastic storage containers full of Christmas decorations. Can anyone guess which box I found them in?!? That's right, the very last one. And by that, I don't mean the last box that I looked in because obviously I wouldn't keep looking in more boxes after finding them. I mean that I had to look through all 6 boxes to find the starfish and they were in box #6! But I did find them and the end result was very cute!

This is the "dolled-up" version of one of the paper ball ornaments that I posted about earlier. I added the ribbon hanger and some glitter snow paint along the seams. Pretty cute, huh? (BTW - see the little Santa poking his head out of the corner? That was my original starfish Santa. He's quite a bit bigger than the exchange Santas, but you work with what you've got!)

My sister found this paper star ornament idea online. Easy and fun. If you're dying to make it, comment on here and I'll post instructions. The picture doesn't do it justice - it's a lot cuter in person.

This Santa is probably the cutest of the ornaments that I made this year. He almost caused the starfish Santas to be delayed yet another year. But, after making one and realizing how much work he took, I went back to the starfish.

This is another "copied from the internet" ornament. Actually, I think they all are. Maybe not the starfish. I can't remember if I came up with that idea on my own or copied it from somewhere too. Probably copied it. I'm crafty and cool, but better at copying than actually making an original. The hardest part was getting the snowflake to spread back out after shoving it into the ornament hole. In the words of my crafting buddy, Angi, it's a bit "wonky", but still very pretty. The picture could be better, but I liked it best without the flash and there wasn't enough daylight at the time. You get it though. The "snow" in the bottom is iridescent. So pretty!!! The etsy shop selling them called it a captured snowflake. I think that's a pretty good name.

This ornament wasn't made by me, but it's one of the reasons that I make ornaments...because of the memories that go along with them. Pretty much every ornament on my tree has a memory or story behind it. Whether that story is that someone made it, someone bought it for me or that I got it for 75 cents when it was 90% off at Cracker Barrel after Christmas, there's a story that makes each ornament special. So, this one is my husband, Greg when he was probably about 4-5 years old. The red bobbles are coiled pipe cleaners. It's old and no where near up to my crafting standards, but it's one of the sweetest ornaments on my tree. For many years it hung on Greg's family tree. And it still does. We are his family now. Hold the phone! Does that mean that one day my daughter-in-laws are going to want all the picture ornaments of my kids? Not sure I'm prepared to think about that type of thing quite yet!

Merry Christmas Everyone! This year, make an ornament for someone you love!

Cracker Mix, Wishbone and Tree

I got the recipe for this Cracker Mix from a co-worker, Lynn. Mostly it gets made around Christmastime, but Greg suggested that it should be made much more often. It is super yummy and not at all hard to make. You'll be amazed at how quickly a HUGE bowl will disappear!

Cracker Mix:

Crackers - Any will work - oyster crackers, Cheez-its, triscuits, wheat thins, small pretzels, etc. I forgot pretzels in this batch, but usually they are included. My favorite are the oyster crackers, but I even like the Cheez-its, which I won't eat out of this mix. I buy mostly generic (Kroger brand) crackers. I break the triscuits in half.

Break out your calculator and add up the ounces for all your crackers. For every 16oz. of crackers/pretzels, mix the following:

3/4 cup oil (I use Canola)

1/3 pkg Ranch dressing mix (the powder stuff in an envelope)

1/2 tsp dill weed

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp lemon pepper

Mix the crackers in a large bowl. Pour the oil mixture over the crackers and toss to coat. Layer the crackers on cookie sheets. Bake at 200 for 1 hour, stirring (aka slightly moving around on the cookie sheet, trying not to knock any off onto the bottom of the oven) every 15 minutes. Cool and store in an airtight container or ziploc bags. Cook in batches if you can't get it all on the cookie sheets in one batch.

Can someone tell me who wins when this is what the wishbone looks like after the pull? Claire and Gavin where on one side. Garret and I were on the other. We all pulled and the top went flying!

This cool aluminum tree was my Grandma and Grandpa Armstrong's. The base too. Every year I put it up, usually with red lights on it, which make it glow reflectively. This year, with the new house, I had to come up with new homes for all of our Christmas decorations. Mr. Aluminum Tree fit just perfectly on top of the buffet that I scored at the Salvation Army for $50 (on half off furniture day! WOOOO HOOOO!!!!)

For the first 5 years of the kids' lives, I took their picture and turned it into our Christmas card. On the 6th year I got lazy (and cheap) and just did the "e-card on Facebook" thing. Every year I take the pictures, cut them down and put their faces into an ornament frame. Kohl's has very accommodatingly sold triple packs of ornament frames every year. Maybe not just for me, but none the less, I appreciate the gesture and respond by buying a set of frames. Until this year the frames have been put on our regular tree with all the other ornaments. I've always been bummed by the way the frames blend in with everything else when the tree is fully loaded (and my tree gets VERY loaded!). This year I set the frames aside, not having a specific plan for where they would go, but knowing that I wanted them in a more special place than on the tree with all the other ornaments. By now I'm sure you've put 2 & 2 together, as well as noticed the picture, and realized that I found a new perfect home for all my ornament frames! My awesome aluminum tree now proudly displays all 21 (and counting) of the kids pictures. Greg and I shared many smiles as we looked at all the old pictures while I hung them on the tree. That reminds me...better get to working on a picture for this year. And I better make sure Kohl's didn't sell my frame set to anyone else yet!

Here's the awesome buffet that I got at the Salvation Army for $50! I've done nothing to it other than clean it up with some Murphy's and wipe it down with Lemon Oil. It's a beauty and fits perfectly into my dining room! There was an older mirror left behind in this house when we bought it. It has flowers etched into the sides and is sorta cool in a vintagy kind of way. I knew I wanted to keep it in the house, but never found the perfect home for it until I got this buffet. It hangs above the buffet now and they look great together!

My friend spray paint

Spray paint is my friend. It lets you take something outdated, worn, and just not cool anymore and turn it into something fresh and new that you are proud to display. Set me loose with a can of black spray paint and I'll cover up every brass surface in your home! I don't know why brass is no longer cool. Gold = rich, right? But alas, silver is cool, brass is not. I've given new life to several things in my home with the use of spray paint. An old brass picture stand spray painted matte black = cool! The ugly black floor grate for the cold air return on our furnace looks much nicer now that I painted it copper to match the vent covers. Not to mention how the interior of the opening in the floor beneath that grate almost disappears after I covered up the silver pipes with a coat of black spray paint. Anyhow, you get the point. If you don't like the color of something - spray away! If you don't like it when you're done - spray again!!! It's the easiest and cheapest way to make a change.

Back in the late 90's, I decided to sell Home Interiors. It was a big waste of my time. I'm a terrible salesman. I would sell the hostess only items to people if they really wanted them and not make them host a party. I would give discounts to pretty much anyone. I definitely was not a go-getter. But, I did get a ton of stuff to decorate my own home. This picture was one that I really liked. It has that Thomas Kincade feel with a nice mat and a substantial frame. In the late 90's it was very nice. Even into the early 2000's, I still liked it. But by the time we moved into our last house in 2006, it just never found a home because it didn't really match my style anymore. But, I hated to part with it because it is well made and I could see that it had potential to still be something cool.

About the time that we were getting ready to move to our new house in 2010, I saw a black and white picture of a tree in a local florist shop's window and thought it was super pretty. It got me to thinking that a tree picture would look really cool in my new living room. When I came across this picture again as I was packing, it all came together in my mind! I could just see a spray painted frame and mat with a black and white picture of a nice, fat tree. The only thing I was missing was the tree picture. I am lucky enough to have a friend who is a super talented photographer and when I mentioned what I was wanting to do, she was not only willing to take the picture for me, but she was excited to do it! She texted the picture of a couple of trees to me until she found THE tree. She did some photo mojo on it to make it even more cool and eventually I got around to ordering the print from her.

The print was delivered and it didn't take me long to break out the spray paint! Please learn from my stupidity and do NOT use spray paint outside on a windy day! You will get little particles of grass stuck in your spray paint. DUH!!!! Luckily no major grass pieces got stuck and nothing was ruined. Before I completely messed everything up, I moved my operation into the garage...where I should have been from the get-go. Anyhow, here are the astounding results! This picture is now proudly hung in my living room. Who says I'm not "green"?!