Homemade Laundry Soap
I’m almost out of laundry soap. I’ve heard a lot recently about people making their own and I’ve found several recipes on Pinterest, my latest addiction. I never thought I’d be granola enough to actually make my own laundry soap, but a few days ago I found a recipe that sounded easy so I figured, what the heck, I’ll give it a try. I used a recipe I found here.
I found all of my ingredients at WalMart. I looked at Target and Ralphs, but Target only had the Borax and Ralphs didn’t have anything I needed. Here’s what I got:
Borax – $2.98
Washing Soda – $3.24
Fels Napthia – $.97
Jar to store my laundry soap in – $0.00 because I already had it at home
I reduced the size of the recipe I found by 1/3. I mixed together 1 cup of Borax, 1 cup of washing soda, and 1 finely grated bar of Fels Napthia. I used a fine grater that would normally be used to grate parmesan cheese. Grating the Fels Napthia required a little elbow grease, so I got a workout while making my new concoction!
I mixed it all together, dumped it in a jar, and found an old 2 oz coffee scoop to measure it when I wash my laundry. Since the Fels Napthia smells like lemon, this stuff smells awesome! I can’t wait to see how my laundry smells after using my new soap. I have tons of washing soda and Borax left for future batches of laundry soap.
Since the mouth of the jar I used is on the small size, I ended up dumping it all into a larger jar I got at Ikea a long time ago. Scooping it out of a large jar is more convenient.
The first wash with the new soap is in the washing machine as I write this. Ro’s shirts are going to smell lemony fresh!
Update: The load I did came out great! It smells fresh and is super clean. Yay for cheap DIY laundry soap!
Update 2: Don’t use this on your cloth diapers. I did and while they came out really soft and it removed all the stains, they won’t absorb anymore so I have to strip them. Darn. I guess I’ll have to keep purchasing detergent for my cloth diaper washing.
3 comments August 31, 2011
Shower Toys Solution
Soooo, yeah. I haven’t blogged in a long time. No excuses. I think the main reason is that I think of what I want to write about at inconvenient times…driving, in the shower, pretty much whenever I can’t be in front of my computer.
Paige has hit quite a few milestones in the last few months. She learned to scoot, then she learned to crawl but preferred to scoot because it’s faster to scoot than to crawl, she pulls herself up now on everything she encounters, and I think she’ll be standing alone and walking very soon. She tries to repeat words I say to her. She’s such a smartie! She can wave bye-bye, and a few days ago she started clapping and can clap on demand if she’s not having a shy moment. She turned 9 months last week and today weighed in at 16 lbs 1 oz, and she’s 28 inches tall. Getting her to eat food has been a slow process, but we’re on the right track. Cheerios are her favorite thing, but she’s learning that summer fruits like peaches, mangoes, and cherries are also pretty awesome.
Okay, so let’s get to the reason I decided to blog this evening. I made something and I wanted to show it off in case you need something similar and want to save a few dollars. We’ve been remodeling our bathroom. I’ll blog about that sometime soon. Wow. That’s a headache. Anyway, Paige has tons of little bath toys and I’ve been wanting to get something to put them but being the frugal mama I am (let’s just say it like it is – I’m cheap) I didn’t want to spend $10+ on some shower toy bag thingie that I didn’t like very much and wouldn’t be happy with.
Today I went to Target. I was browsing through the dollar section and came across a 2-pack of mesh bags for washing lingerie for just $1. I tossed them in the cart and headed to the shower section where I picked up a 2-pack of shower suction cup hooks for $2.99. At home I found a piece of ribbon that I cut in half, looped over, and sewed onto a corner of each of the lingerie bags. I put the hooks in the shower, filled the bags with Paige’s shower toys, hung the bags on the hooks, and voila! Two shower toy bags for just $4! Here’s a picture of my genius creation:
They’re functional, nice looking, and won’t be in the way when I need to use the shower. And they’re better than anything I’ve seen that was designed for shower toys. Actually I didn’t look very hard for other options, but that’s okay. They probably would have cost more than $4.
1 comment July 20, 2011
Vote!
I’m behind on blogging, as usual. I’ll catch up after all the snots and fevers leave my house. In the mean time, here’s some quick news.
Ro sent some pictures of Paige to Parents Magazine and she’s in the running to be a finalist to be on the cover of the magazine. She needs your votes. Please vote for her! PLEEEEEEASE. You can vote every day through May 8, 2011. After you vote, click “LIKE” to add it to your Facebook or Twitter or whatever you use to socialize online so all of your friends will see it and will want to vote for Paige too.
Thank you!
Add comment May 2, 2011
“May need repeat washings.”
I was watching a new show on TLC tonight called “Extreme Couponing” about these people who save a butt load of cash on groceries, but end up buying so much stuff that their groceries take over their houses and they look like organized hoarders. Is it really necessary to buy 30 bottles of mustard? It doesn’t matter because that’s not the point of this post. Have you seen this commercial?
Who could have possibly thought this was a good idea? Probably someone who doesn’t have kids and doesn’t do laundry. Are clear bubbles not good enough anymore? Supposedly these new colored bubbles are washable (it’s in the name), but my favorite part is the fine print that pops up at 0:23 that says, “May need repeat washings.” Fabulous. Thanks for the warning, Crayola. Now I definitely won’t be purchasing your product. Every mom (and laundry-doing dad) will be thrilled to have to wash their kids clothes multiple times to get the colorful fun out. I have 1 word for this: OxiClean.
The latest Paige news is that she is now a kisser. I captured this cuteness yesterday afternoon. Enjoy!
1 comment April 6, 2011
Moving Out
Paige will be 6 months in 17 days. She still spends her nights in the bassinet next to me in our room. I had expected her to stay there until she was a year, but she has almost outgrown the bassinet! It’s time for her to move to her room. I’m not ready for this. I know she’ll just be on the other side of the wall and I’ll be able to hear every peep she makes, but I’ll miss her and I know I’ll lose sleep worrying about her not being right next to me. It’s for the best though. Ro and I won’t wake her up anymore when we hit the hay, and she’ll no longer wake us up with her sleep grunts and the loud conversations she has with herself when she wakes up way too early in the morning. Wait, let me rephrase that. She won’t wake Ro up anymore. I’ll hear everything and I’ll rush to her room immediately to see what’s wrong. And she’ll be fine, of course. *sigh*
2 comments March 29, 2011
Paige’s Photo Album
Paige loves books. So I decided to make her a book she can use to learn the names and faces of all her family and friends. I found pictures of everyone who needed to be included in the book, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, etc. I uploaded them to my favorite photo editing website, Picnik, added names to the photos, and sent them off to Costco to be printed. I put them in a little photo album, asked my sister to make a cute cover on her fancy schmancy sewing machine, and voila! Paige’s photo album was done! There are lots of empty pages in the back where we can put pictures of her new friends. She loves her new book!
Paige's Photo Album Cover
Page 1
Mommy and Daddy's Page
Paige looking at her new photo album with her Ta.
Add comment March 21, 2011
Oatmeal Awesomeness
Paige and I met with our playgroup a few weeks ago and one of the moms brought these yummy bars for us that she called Oatmeal Carmelita bars. I asked her for the recipe because they pretty much rocked my world and I HAD to make them again myself. I revised the recipe a tiny bit by adding a little more salt and by using the chunky sea salt instead of table salt (I like salt), and they were even more awesome. I also changed the name to Whoa Nellie These Things Are Amazing Bars because when I tried them, that’s the first thing I thought, but the name has been shortened to Whoa Nellies. If your taste buds want to experience some super deliciousness, you need to make these things. I don’t have a picture to post here, but if I make some sometime soon I’ll take one and update this blog. Here’s the recipe. Enjoy!
Whoa Nellies
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup oats
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup melted butter
1/2 teaspoon chunky salt
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup caramel ice cream topping
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9×9 inch square pan.
2. Combine the 1 cup flour, baking soda, oats, brown sugar, salt and melted butter. Mix to combine, mixture will be very crumbly. Press half of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 10 minutes.
4. Let cool slightly then sprinkle over the crust the chocolate chips and chopped nuts. Mix the caramel ice cream topping with the 3 tablespoons of flour and drizzle over the chocolate chips. Top with the remaining oatmeal mixture. You will need to break it into small pieces to cover.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 15 minutes. Let bars cool before cutting.
Add comment March 16, 2011
Poop
So we’ve got this new poop thing going on. Paige has never had any poop issues. At home she does dainty little girly poops pretty regularly. We have rarely had diaper leaks and, when we have had leakers, they haven’t been anything major. Lately she has still been having dainty little girly poops at home, but when we go out, WOW! Explosion! And I don’t mean, “oops, her diaper leaked a little.” Nope. I mean big, wet, running down the leg, on the carseat poops. Serious poop. And it’s always when we’re out. The latest one happened this evening. I thought it was nothing major until I lifted her out of the car seat. It was everywhere! How does so much poop come out of someone so small? I haven’t even checked out the car seat yet. Eww. Her outfit was poop-soaked and it was even on her sock. Poor baby girl.
By now, after all of our poop mishaps, I should have had to toss out a few outfits. You’d think they’d be ruined, right? Because that stuff stains! Nope, all of her outfits still look clean and newish. Have you tried OxiClean? When they say, “Gets the tough stains out,” they aren’t kidding! They really should market that stuff to new moms. I keep a bucket of it diluted in water in my laundry room and whenever Paige poops all over something, I toss it in to soak and wash it when I do my next load of laundry. That yucky greenish yellow baby poop that is notorious for staining whatever it comes in contact with, but I’ve never had a stain. It’s seriously amazing. If you know a new mom and need to get her a gift, get her a Costco-size bucket of OxiClean.
By the way, no, I was not paid to declare my love for OxiClean. My love for it is 100% real.
Actually, now that I think about it, there was a stain that the OxiClean failed on. A few weeks ago I was wearing a white shirt and eating In-N-Out Burger in a car in the dark. Some of the In-N-Out deliciousness dribbled down the front of my shirt and multiple soakings in OxiClean and washings with bleach have failed to remove the stain. Don’t worry though, OxiClean. My love for you lives on. One failure won’t make me change my mind about you.
2 comments February 20, 2011
Paige Laughing
Paige had a laugh attack today. I caught the end of it on my phone. Enjoy!
Oh, and I learned how to post a video here. Yay!
Add comment February 14, 2011
First Word
Paige said “mama” today! She’ll be 4 months on Tuesday and she already said her first word! We were leaving the house and my friend, Rose, was in the front seat of the car while I put Paige in her seat in the back. She was being a little bit fussy, which is normal when I have to strap her into the torture device otherwise known as a car seat. I got out, shut the door, and as soon as I got in the front seat I heard, “MAMA!” Rose and I both looked at each other and said, “Did you hear that?” She said it! It wasn’t like she was crying “maaaaaaa,” which she’s never done. She said “mama!” I’m a very proud mama.
Add comment February 12, 2011
