Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

Homemade laundry detergent is so super simple to make you will be asking yourself why you haven’t tried this before! Here’s how…

What you need

~ 1 bar Fels Naptha Soap
~ 1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
~ 1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax
~ Water
~ A large pot
~ 2 large containers…about a gallon each
~ A box grater or large knife

How to make it

1. Finely grate the Fels Naptha Soap. Put it in your pot.

2. Add water until your pot is about half full.

3. “Cook” the soap on medium heat until all of the bits of soap are completely dissolved.

4. Add the washing soda and borax. “Cook” again until completely dissolved. (Do not let this come to a boil! It will overflow your pot!!)

At this point I let the soap cool so I don’t burn myself when pouring into my containers.

5. Now it’s time to pour your soap into your containers. I use an old laundry detergent bottle and a ziplock storage container. Pour about half of your soap into each container.

6. Add water to container until it is about half full. (I don’t add it to my ziplock container until I’m ready to use that batch of soap.)

7. SHAKE! SHAKE! SHAKE!!! Then leave the soap alone overnight.

8. In the morning the soap will be very thick. This is how it is supposed to be! Shake the blob of soap to break it up a bit. Then add water until the container is almost full. Shake it again to ensure the soap is mixed well.

I use about 1/2 – 1 cup per load. It might seem like a lot but it’s so darn cheap I don’t care if I use a lot!

Make Your Own Fabric Softener

I ran out of fabric softener today. So instead of running to the store I decided to take a leap of faith and make my own! I found many different recipes for fabric softener online and I decided to tweak a few and make my own.

FABRIC SOFTENER

6 cups boiling water
2 cups hair conditioner
3 cups distilled white vinegar

1. Boil 6 cups of water. Turn off heat. (you can use cold water but I think it helps break down the hair conditioner)

2. Add 2 cups of hair conditioner.

3. Add 3 cup of vinegar.

4. STIR!!!

5. Pour into container of choice. (I used an old laundry detergent bottle with the pour spout.)

It smells awesome! I was afraid it would smell like vinegar but if you pick a good strong smelling conditioner the smell is great:) I also learned that vinegar is great for your clothing!
www.vinegartips.com
I use almost an ounce per large load.

~Em

How to remove SLIME!

Now that you made slime it’s probably all over the carpet and your kids clothing, right? Well have no fear! There is an easy solution to removing slime….

VINEGAR!

Simply saturate slime with vinegar and wipe away!

Clothing…

First remove excess slime from clothing.

Saturate with vinegar. Soak for a few minutes. Then run warm water over the area. Wash like normal.

Carpet…

Remove excess slime.

Pour vinegar on slime. If slime is already dried out let the vinegar soak for a few minutes until the slime has softened. Wipe with a towel and like magic…it’s gone!

~Em

How to remove stains from your carpet

As a stay at home mom everyday is an adventure…today my adventure is to get this RED kool-aid stain out of my carpet.

Last week I attempted to remove the stain using a mixture of water and dish soap and salt. First I saturated the stain with dish soap and water. I poured salt on it and let it dry. Then I vacuumed the salt up. It sure did lighten the stain up but I’m definitely NOT satisfied!

Today I will be trying something completely different. I saw a recipe on onegoodthingbyjillee.com for ammonia, water, towels, and a hot iron. Here is a before picture….

I mixed one part water with one part clear ammonia. I saturated the stain with the mixture then placed a white towel on the stain. I ironed the stain…over and over and over…I lifted the towel and….IT BARELY CHANGED!!! How disappointing!

So I sat around moping for an hour and it dawned on me! I decided to mix dish soap with water. I put it on the stain, put the towel on, then I started ironing away. At first I was concerned because there was no sign of the stain on the towel but as soon as I lifted the towel I could see a difference!!!

I repeated the process a few times and look…

I was so excited I started to look for stains:)

Recipe:
2 TBSP dish soap (I used green Palmolive because that’s what I had)
1-2 cups water
Light or white towel
Hot iron

~Em