Homemade Laundry Soap

I LOVE Pinterest!  I've found so many fun ideas there, and actually had a chance to try a few.  Well, this one pin in particular intrigued me.  I've always wanted to try making my own laundry soap and had seen this pinned quite a few times.  I figured I might as well give it a try.  I read through all the comments on the blog post and decided that it couldn't be too difficult to do and should last us a while.  If I could save some money on laundry detergent at the same time, I figured that would be a win!  I usually buy the big bottle of detergent and it lasts us quite a while.
To be honest, I'm really not sure how much we're saving or going to save because I hate doing laundry!  I do as little laundry as possible because a) I hate doing it, b) I'm never home to do it and c) I hate doing it!  Actually, maybe I should clarify that...the actual process of gathering up the clothes and physically putting them in the washer and dryer is easy.  Hubby does his own laundry and I wash my clothes and the boy's clothes, although give it another year or so and he'll be doing his own too.  It's the darn putting the clothes away that I just seem to never find the time to do!  I think I actually put clothes away 3 to 4 times a year, when mount laundry gets too high and when there's actually a day when there's nothing else planned and I go on a house-cleaning rampage!  The last time I put clothes away ended up in a trip to the hardware store after the bar in the closet came crashing down at 3am because of the weight on it!  The thing just snapped clean off the wall and made quite the racket in the middle of the night!  It didn't help that the wall support was also holding up the shelf in the closet either, and that was rather heavy as well.  The last 6 shirts I hung up did the poor thing in!  We discovered, in putting new brackets up that the closet rod was never hung level to begin with.  Funny what you learn about your house when random things start breaking and you have to fix them!

Anyway...the pin that I was going off of was here:

Source: beingcreativetokeepmysanity.blogspot.com via Erika on Pinterest

which led to this blog post.

It took me a bit of time to gather up the materials I needed because I wasn't really in a hurry, and every time I went into the store, they were always out of borax!  Eventually, I rounded everything up and had an afternoon where there were a couple of free hours for me to get it made.  The longest part was grating up the soap.  Since we've got a front loader, I not only grated the bar of soap, but ran it through the food processor as well to make sure that it turned into a really fine powder that would dissolve easier.  I also added in a bottle of Purex crystals to give the detergent a bit of a scent.

All that's needed for the soap is: (it can all be found in the laundy soap aisle at walmart)
3 bars fels naptha (I grated them up and then ran it through the food processor)
1 box borax
1 box washing soda
1 4lb box baking soda
1 tub powdered oxyclean (I used the larger, 3lb one)
1 bottle purex crystals (optional for a light scent)

I'm pretty sure we're going to have laundry detergent for a LONG time!  It only takes 1 to 2 tablespoons per load, and with as much detergent as this makes, a tablespoon is nothing!  I add the mix right in the drum when I do a load, instead of putting it in the soap dispenser on top.  I'm not sure why, but everything I read said to do it this way, so I do!  I finally found a big jar at walmart, and just had to make it look fun.  To be honest, I really was just looking for another glass etching project!  I don't remember what font I used, but I thought it looked fun.  I grabbed some spare vinyl, cut it out, weeded and put it on the jar, then let the etching cream sit for a bit before rinsing it off.  I'm pretty pleased with the result, and so far the soap seems to be working like every other brand of laundry soap that we've ever used.  As long as the clothes come out looking and smelling clean, it's a winner in my book!  Now, if I could just solve the putting-the-clothes away issue!

Glass etching

When I was (very) pregnant with the boy, my middle sister got married. I was in the wedding party and as much as I wanted to help do things, at 36 weeks pregnant, there really wasn't a whole lot that I was physically capable of doing! There was one project that I was able to help with and it ended up turning into an addiction! She had toasting glasses for the whole wedding party, and had been working on etching everyone's names into them. Well, wedding day came and the project wasn't quite completed. Enter uber pregnant sister to finish the job! It was while I was finishing up the project that I discovered just how much fun glass etching was/is! The glasses turned out super cute, and I decided that if I ever got the chance that it would be a fun project to do again.
Fast forward a few years, and I still hadn't forgotten about that project. The problem was, I couldn't really think of anything worthwhile to do. One day a couple of months ago, I finally had a good idea for a glass etching project. I got sick and tired of how messy and disorganized that our laundry area had become and I went on an all-out cleaning spree! You know the type...the cleaning spree where nothing is safe from the garbage can, and you end up with stacks of random things that need to be put elsewhere. This whole cleaning spree was inspired by a mug that we had on top of the dryer. In this particular mug goes all the change, and other random knicknacks that end up in the dryer after a load of laundry is done...see where I'm going with this? I had found the perfect jar to use to throw all of our "laundered money" in, but there was no place on top of the dryer to put said jar, hence the cleaning spree!

Anyway, once I had the laundry area cleaned up, I finally got to work on my laundered money jar. I had some scrap vinyl left over from another project I had done, so I pulled out my cricut, threw a cartridge in, and made a quick stencil for the etching. I stole borrowed a paintbrush from the boy and grabbed my jar of etching cream and went to work.

After letting the etching cream set for a couple minutes, I rinsed it off, but it didn't look like it had set long enough.  I made sure that the jar was completely dry and put another coat of etching cream on.  This time I let it sit longer, rinsed again and pulled off the vinyl.

I ran downstairs, showed off my latest creation to hubby, and then proceeded to the garage to set the jar on top of the dryer.  I quickly put the change in there that had been collected in the mug (see that john deer mug in the background?), and left the mug to throw other random dryer treasures in!

I'm really not sure how much more change has been collected, or what is going to be done with the change that we collect.  I'm sort of thinking of letting it be a place that I raid for coffee money!  Finders keepers, right?!

Anyway, there you have it.  Glass etching...a quick and easy project that can really spruce up an ordinary jar.  Now, to think of the next thing that I'm going to etch.  I've heard that pyrex is a good candidate for that, but I just need to come up with something catchy to put on it!