Homemade Laundry Detergent

I have seen this craze all over Pinterest lately.  And in my attempt to save us a little moolah, I figured it was worth a shot.  The “recipes” looked pretty safe and simple and I love the sense of accomplishment I have when I make something on my own. 

So, I found this pin on Pinterest and decided to use it as my guide.  I will say that I bought most of my ingredients on Amazon since we have Amazon Prime and the shipping is free…why not?  But I did buy the Oxiclean, the Borax, and the large 2 gallon jar at the store.  Here are what the ingredients look like (since I had never heard of washing soda or Fels-Naptha till now) and how much you will need of each:

4lb box of Baking Soda

4lb box of Borax

55 oz of Washing Soda (made by Arm n Hammer found in the laundry isle)

3 – 3.5 lbs of Oxiclean powder (I couldn’t find 3.5 pound containers, so I used 3 pounds)

3 bars of Fels-Naptha

So, the first thing we did was line a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket with a plastic trashbag. Then I dumped about 1/3 of each of the powder ingredients into the bucket. 

Then I used a cheese grater, and grated up the bars of Fels-Naptha one at a time.  It actually looks a lot like cheese, but it is much easier to grate. 

Then I threw that into the bucket with the powders.  And mixed that all up.  Repeat that until you have used all 3 bars, and all of the powder ingredients.  (I used my hand to mix it, just make sure you wash your hands before and after).  So then you should have a powder mixture that looks like it has bits of cheese in it! 

The technique we used to get it in to the container was to lift the bag out of the bucket, and cut off one of the corners of the bag and let it empty into the container.  And voila!  There you have homemade detergent! 

It works great in our HE front loader washer, I just place the detergent directly into the drum instead of in the compartment.  You only need 1-2 tablespoons per load.  And it really has no scent at all.  I’ve read where you can add essential oils or fabric softener crystals to the mix to make it smell better, but we prefer the no-scent route.  And all these basic ingredients are great for sensitive skin.  It was a win-win for us and I know it’ll save us money over the year because of how long it lasts!

DIY Jewelry Shelf

So this project has been sitting on the kitchen counter for about 3 weeks.  And now it has been hanging on my wall for about 2 weeks and I love it.  It’s so simple and clean and gets rid of clutter!  I love how great it matches with my earring holder and I love that the colors were totally customizable.  I opted to stick to mostly white just because I like that light airy feeling it has.  But I added a little sum’n sum’n with the gray knobs.  Looking back, I probably should have gone with a longer shelf, but I suppose I can always change it out later, or just move things around and add a second one!

Ok, so the process was super simple. I went to Home Depot and bought a plain white shelf that came with the supports.  I got the all in one package instead of choosing the shelf separate from the supports. 

Then, I used a piece of scrap wood that I had left over from our closet makeover a while back.  The hubs cut it down to size for me so that it fit in between the two supports at a 90 degree angle from the shelf.  This is where we screwed the knobs in.  After I spray painted the knobs, and we screwed them in, it was ready for installation! 

I had the hubby hang it just below my earring holder with enough space for my large chunky bracelets to sit on the shelf.  I love the way it looks and how little space it takes up.  And now all of my jewelry is so accessible, so I have no excuse not accessorize!  I’m excited to make another one so that I have a spot to put all of my “stud” earrings and more delicate necklaces.  

Organized Earrings

So I know I have been majorly slacking when it comes to posting.  And I wish I had an excuse for it...but alas, my only excuse is that I've become super engrossed in my Harry Potter books during my free time!  I'm currently on book 6 and almost half way through with it.  So bare with me as I finish the series!

But for now, I do have a jewelry organization DIY project to share with you.  I've decided that keeping all my "fashion" earrings in a drawer is just not convenient at all.  I never remember what earrings I have, and they always get all tangled together.  And normally my mornings are one big rush so I don't have time to go rummaging to find earrings to go with my outfits.  So I've seen this simple idea floating around Pinterest lately and I really wanted to try it.

So I went to Home Depot and bought one long piece (96 inch) of moulding.  Hubby and I measured it out (ok so this was mostly him, but I watched and finally learned how to use the saw!) and cut the 96 inch piece in to 4 equal pieces.  We cut the ends at 45 degree angles.
NOTE: You could always just go buy a frame and take out the backing a glass. But I thought it would be fun to try totally from scratch.

The piece came unpainted, so I just slapped a couple coats of white spray paint on there.

Then using some Gorilla Wood glue

I glued the four pieces together.  I had to use some Irwin Quick Grips to hold the pieces together, otherwise I would have had to hold two pieces at a time together until they dried enough.

While at Home Depot, we also picked up some insect screen material

I unrolled that and hubby used a staple gun to tack it down to the frame.

Once it was pulled tight, and stapled all the way around, I cut off the excess

And voila, this is what I ended up with!

We attached a simple picture hanger to the back of it, and stuck it up on the wall.  And it soon became this beauty

Now all my "fashion" earrings are out on display in all of their loveliness!  I love being able to see them all so clearly.  And all of the pairs are not jumbled up together.  It ended up being a great way to spruce up a blank wall and organize my jewelry!  I have plans to add a shelf underneath with some knobs for necklaces.  I will *hopefully* be working on that this weekend.  So I should have another post for you quite soon!

Upcycle Crafts

I'm trying to catch up here, so yes, you get two posts in one day.  Another small project I worked on this weekend was upcycling some old wine bottles.  I have saved a few over the past few months and finally decided to get on it and actually use them.

Since I had already washed them out right after we finished the wine, that part was done.  I took the bottles upstairs and wrote on them with my hot glue gun.  I didn't remove any labels and I think they turned out fine.  I made sure that my words were within the label, so after it was spray painted, it somewhat looked like a little frame around the words.  Make sense?

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the bottle with just the glue and no paint.  But here is one of the bottles after one coat of white spray paint.

And here they are after they have been coated 3-4 times (sorry for the less than stellar pictures).

My plan for these beauties is to make a few more coffee filter flowers died with food coloring and use them as decoration on the dresser in our master bedroom.  I even like them so much, I might try to make a few more to go above the cabinets in the kitchen.  Maybe I'll even try something other than white :-)

Stay tuned for some other fun crafts I have in progress!

Cheap and Easy Upgrade

Happy Monday! Wait, is there such a thing?  Can Mondays be happy?  Not sure if I've experience that one yet!  But nonetheless, I have a cheap and easy upgrade to show you that I completed this weekend.

Remember the upcycled toilet paper roll wall art project that I showed you a while back?

Well it was looking a little sad up there on the big wall all by itself.

So last week I went to goodwill and picked up a nearly brand new oak frame for $3.99!  Score!  So I got some gray spray paint at WalMart and went to town.  I took off the backing of the frame, and removed the glass since I wouldn't need it anyways.  I gave the frame a couple of coats and let it dry over night.

Then for an extra special touch and a pop of color to match the wall art, I added some of these felt flowers from a previous craft night.  A couple dabs of hot glue later, and here is my new wall art!

Now it doesn't look so sad up there on the wall by itself.  It also matches really well with the new color theme I am in the middle of switching my house to.  Stayed tuned for a bedroom overhaul update! What have you all been up to?  Any upcycled or spray painted crafts?

And don't forget to follow me for a chance at the 50 Followers Giveaway!

Co-Host!

Hi All!  I am thrilled to be able to be a part of the 1 year blogiversary for Jaime over at Crafty Scrappy Happy!  It’s one HUGE link party so join in on the fun!!  Check out her site, and any of the other co-host sites J  And check back here later today for an easy peasy pillow cover!

Feel free to link up anything and everything Crafty, Scrappy and/or Happy!  No giveaways or etsy shops please.Check out other links, be inspired and make some new friends!Grab a button if you would!And check Crafty Scrappy Happy for features all next week!!!!

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Craft Night - Toliet Paper Wall Art

I know the title makes this craft project sound weird, but trust me, it looks a heck of a lot cooler than it sounds!  Linda came over last night for some crafting.  She brought fabric and worked on some fabric rosettes like the ones I posted about here.  I sat down with the masses of TP rolls that I had been collecting, and got to work on my DIY on a budget wall art.  The inspiration came from this on Pinterest:

Pinned here

Pretty cool if you ask me.  TP rolls, and spray paint!  No joke!  So one by one I flattened a tp roll and cut it into strips

Flatten by just pressing down with the palm of your hand

Then you take groups of 4 at a time.  Here is the layout of how they will get glued together:

Then I used hot glue and glued all the sets of 4 together to make little flower looking things.

Finally, once you lay them all out next to each other, it starts to make a beautiful display

Very geometric looking.  The next step will be to glue all of the little flowers together, so that it makes one larger piece.  And then finally, spray paint.  I plan to use a nice teal color and then hang this on a blank wall in our bedroom.  I'm really excited to see how this looks when it's all completed.  I will be sure to take pictures! 

What do you think?  Pretty awesome way to recycle huh??

Happy Crafting! 

Edit: Refer to this post to see the finished product!

Linking up to IHeart Organizing

Upcycle Crafts

I wanted to post some pictures of the new items I made for my cube at work.  Since I finally have my own cube (first time ever since I started working back in 2007) I wanted to decorate it with some fun and functional items.  Both of these items started as frames from Goodwill.  They were about 2 bucks each.  I bought some fun spray paint colors at Lowes and gave the frames a face lift.  I took out all the glass and matting and all that good stuff so that I wouldn’t have to worry about taping anything.  The first frame I planned on using as a white board. 

Once the paint was dry on the frame, I covered the matting that was inside the frame with some pretty yellow fabric.  I used Mod Podge on this one…and I think I used a little too much because you can see the streaks.  Oh well, first attempt.  Then I put the glass and newly covered matting back in the frame and voila!  A pretty new whiteboard.

The second frame I wanted to use as a corkboard.  I had bought the little squares of cork at Office Depot for like $6.  I hot glued them on to the matting that came with the frame and then covered the whole thing with some awesome fabric.  I left the glass off (obviously) and put the new covered matting back in the frame.  What do you think??  I love the way it brightens up my little space.  It was a total upcycle and I love it!

Happy Crafting!!

Girls Night Craft Night - No Sew T-Shirt Scarves

Last night was our first craft night of the new year.  Jamie and Bethany came over, I made some spaghetti (always a crowd pleaser), Bethany brought some garlic bread and Jamie brought some super delicious peanut butter cookies with Hershey Kisses on top.

The craft we decided to do was some No Sew T-shirt scarves.  These are a great craft for many reasons, but mainly:
1) No sewing!  This makes it super easy and super quick.  Don't get me wrong, I do love sewing, but for a group activity, these are great.
2) Upcycle!  It's a great way to reuse old t-shirts. Remember how I said in this post, that we had at least 8 bags of Goodwill?  Well for this craft I went digging through those bags and found some old t-shirts to use.

We used this tutorial


and this tutorial


Pretty right?  Super simple.  I did the first one since the t-shirts I used had text on them.  Jamie created one like the second picture.

For the style that I did, all you need is a t-shirt or two (or however many colors you want) and a pair of scissors.

Lay the t-shirt out flat and cut 1-2 inch strips going horizontally working your way up the t-shirt.

Once you have a strip cut off (which will be a circle when you open it up because you want to leave the side seams in tact), then you stretch it out.  Stretching it will cause the sides of the strip to roll up (this is why you don't need to sew!)  After you do this to a few strips, you should have a pile that looks like this...

Once you have as many as you want, grab a piece of scrap t-shirt that you didn't use, gather all of the strips and tie them together like this:

And that's it!  You can cover up that spot where you tied it with a cute flower or other embellishment.  Super easy right?!  

The design that Jamie did was just as easy.  She started with an X-Large t-shirt (for this design, the bigger the better) and used a paper plate as her template.  The first step is to trace as many circles on the t-shirt as possible.  I think you should be able to get any where from 8-10 circles total (4-5 traced circles, once you cut them out, then you'll have double, one from the front of the shirt, one from the back).  It should look like this:

Then, on each individual circle (separate the front from the back) cut in a spiral.  Follow the black line that I drew on the below picture:

After you cut the spiral, you'll want to stretch it out similar to how you did with the first design.  This just helps to curl in the edges again.  Once you have all of your circles cut into spirals, you can use an extra piece of t-shirt to tie them up again and cover with a cute embellishment.  If you watch the video in the tutorial, it should help explain it a bit more.  

So there you have it!  Two super easy scarf tutorials!  Now, go find some old t-shirts and start cutting!  

Happy crafting :)

2012 Resolutions

I know it seems a tad bit late to start making New Years resolutions, but in all fairness, I had these picked out before the new year, I just didn't have time to post them!  I wanted to post my resolutions because it seems like that will be a good way to hold me accountable.  You know that feeling of - Now that you've told someone, it's real and you have to keep your word - kinda thing.

I'm not sure what the difference is about this year, but there is something that really makes it feel like a fresh start.   Maybe it's the fact that I knew my resolutions before the new year started?  Maybe it's that I'm finally settling into married life and feel much more confident about where my life is going.  Who knows!  But I do know that I'm excited to get started on my resolutions and see my progress throughout the year.

So without further ado, and to start my accountability as soon as possible, here are my 2012:

1. Make better food choices - i.e. No more cinnamon toast for dinner when hubby is away.  I really want to start making more conscious food choices.  I want to teach my body that food is fuel not comfort or reward.

2. Exercise more often - So often in the past I've thought that if I'm not about ready to keel over at the end of my workout, then I didn't do enough.  Now I'm sure that's how one would get into model-esq shape, but that's not my goal.  I'm trying to learn that doing anything is good: taking the dogs on a walk, going for a short jog, biking, playing tennis.  My goal is to get out and do something more often.  Every little bit counts :-)

3. Drink more water - Kinda goes along with the health theme here.  Water is good for your body and metabolism, it cleanses, helps your skin, and helps curb appetite.

4. Take care of my skin - Along with more water which helps your skin, one of my resolutions is to make sure I wash my face morning and night.  Sometimes I get lazy (especially on the weekends) and don't take off my make up, or just use some astringent in the morning instead of washing my face.  My new goal is to take the couple extra minutes and let that amazing Mary Kay 3-in-1 cleanser do it's magic on my skin! (Shameless plug...)

5. Live simply - This is my final resolution for 2012.  Live simply.  And by that I mean getting rid of all the clutter we have in the house.  All of the things we keep but never use.  And also, organize!  When things are organized, everything runs smoothly.  Along with the "purging" of unnecessary items, is to stop purchasing unnecessary items!  There will always be things that we want.  But are they things we need?  Probably not.  So, part of this resolution goal is to make use of what we have and only purchase what we need.  I think my SIL put it best saying that living within a budget is actually really freeing.  Instead of pondering over whether or not you should buy that new purse, or new pair of shoes.  You don't even have to think about it because you know it's not in the budget and you don't need it.   

So those are my 5 2012 resolutions.  Hopefully writing them out and posting here for all to see will help me stick to them.  I'm really excited for what this year will bring.  I know it will be lots of new adventures!  What are some of your resolutions for the new year?

Weekend Recap

Happy Monday everyone!  Hope you all had a great weekend J  What did you do?  Finish Christmas shopping? Relax? Hang out with family?  We did a little of each.  Friday night was my company holiday party.  It was at a local hotel and it was a really nice gathering.  Food, friends, and door prizes.  Sadly we didn’t win any, but it was still fun.  Saturday I went and got a haircut.  This was the last one I’ll have from the amazing Erika L  She is packing up her shop and leaving the country for whatever amazing adventures she can find!  So brave.  So I got my last haircut in before she leaves and before the holidays.  Then I went and did some last minute Christmas shopping. 

Meanwhile, John was having  gravel delivered to our house for our back patio.  He really wanted to get that layer down in case it rains anytime soon.  Although according to the 10 day forecast…there is no such rain in our near future.  But, none the less, now if it does rain, the patio area won’t become a mud pit.  It proved to be quite the task to shovel and transport all of this gravel from the driveway to the back yard.  So about half way through, I pitched in and helped J  Have I mentioned how sore I am today?!  Wow I’m out of shape!

The pile of gravel

 

We also let the puppies have their Christmas presents a little early since we won’t be able to spend the actual Christmas day with them.  Lexi got a new bed, they both got fleece jackets, and new bones.

Lexi's new bed

Paddy's new camo jacket!

Dressing the baby girl

That night we went to dinner with my dad, and stayed at my parents house that night so that we could wake up and take my dad to the airport.  My mom already left for Palm Springs, and my dad flew down to meet her and some more of my family.  His flight was super early in the morning, so we thought it’d be easiest to just stay at their house, to save us some sleep.  Although we didn’t take into account the fact that Lexi snoring would keep us up half the night…oops!

So needless to say Sunday morning we dropped my dad off at the airport, and went back home and back to bed J  We ran some more errands on Sunday afternoon, and I was able to finish my casserole holder that I’ve been working on and off on for the past week.  You can find the tutorial here.  Although I did buttons instead of Velcro closures.  And I also did the handles more like hers.  It turned out pretty good for a first attempt at sewing something completely on my own!  It was a gift to my friend and coworker and his wife.  They love to cook J 

 Hope everyone else had a great weekend.  Let the countdown to Christmas begin!!