Pages

Monday, February 27, 2012

DIY Laundry Detergent

Made my own laundry detergent.  For about $10, I probably have enough detergent for a year.  And it smells good. Can't beat that.

Got the idea from Pinterest but got the specific recipe from ehow.

It's pretty much a 1:1 ratio of washing soda and borax blended with a grated bar of laudry soap (fels-napatha or zote).

I used 1 cup each of borax and washing soda and 1 bar of fels napatha.  Put 2 tbls. of the mix into the washer for each load.  This will probably last me for a few months and then I'll make more.  The only boxes that Wal-Mart had were pretty big, so I have a lot left over.  I put the mixture in an old plastic ice cream container I had.

If I would have known it was that easy to make, I would have done that years ago.

Oh, and the taxes got done today as well.  Woo hoo!  Look at me, finished two projects!

Next up:
1. Refinish the dresser
2. Make these two shirts I've been drooling over
3. Finish the quilts for the nieces and nephews
4. Make a coffee table
4a. Make Frames for my paintings and crayon art.
5. Start Remodeling the kitchen (this will probably end up as number 7, 8, or 9 because it's a big project).
6. Make outside patio furniture
7. Make farmhouse table
8. Make king size bed frame for possible new king size bed
9. Landscaping (this should probably be #1) stupid HOA, think they own everyone.  The lawns mowed and de weeder has been layed down.  And nowhere in the deed restrictions does it say I cannot have flower pots on the front porch, so they will be remaining there for the time being.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

It's been a while......

My computer has been broken and lots of stuff has been going on so I haven't really had the time to blog about anything.  The good news is that I have a bunch of posts to make. 

This first one is the Pirate Party.  We hosted my nephew's 1st birthday party at our house and it was pirate themed.  Loads of fun! 

 
And I made Tyler (my nephew) and Oliver some custom pirate tee shirts.  I mostly used the "life is a beach" cricut cartridge (thank you Grandma) to make the templates.

Materials:
Tee Shirt
Fabric Paint
Brush
Freezer Paper
Iron

Time:  A few hours of dry time and 72 hours before you can wash the shirt

Cost:  <$10 for 1 bottle of fabric paint and 2 small shirt's

1. Cut out your templates.  I used a cricut but you could essentially use anything (freehand, tracing, etc...) as long as it's cut out of the freezer paper (shiny side down).

2. Iron the template (shiny side down) on the shirt.

3. Paint


4. Let dry and apply additional coats as needed.

5. Let the paint dry and then pull the template off.  On Oliver's shirt I pulled the template off when it was still a little tacky and it was pretty messy.  I waited for Tyler's shirt to dry before I pulled the template off and it went better that way.






6. Heat set the image.  You don't have to do this step but if you don't, I'm under the impression the paint will crack and fade with time.  Pretty much just iron over the paint until it changes texture.


7. Wash the shirt as directed by the paint bottle.  The paint I used suggested to wait 72 hours before washing.

Here's the shirt in action:

Once again, this is a pinterest find.  For additional ideas, and more detailed instructions, please click here.

Pin It