laundry detergent

I've been seeing ways to make laundry detergent for a long time, and just never got around to making any.  I finally accumulated the last few ingredients I needed for this recipe from How Does She? (minus the scent crystals) and then sat on it all for a few more days before mixing it all up!  some days I'm just not up for extra projects.

I had baked the baking soda to make washing soda back when I made pretzels, so grating the Zote was the next most time consuming part.  great arm workout, though.  I can't imagine if I'd made the full recipe with two bars of Zote!  this would have been a 2 day project so I could rest up after the first bar was grated ;)

the Zote smells pretty good, kinda lemon-y, but I can't really tell that there's a scent after the clothes have been washed, which is fine.  I couldn't find the white bar so I went with pink, and after I got the pink I found the white.  way it goes!  so next batch I'll use the white in case the pink tints our clothes, as was suggested by someone else online.  I haven't noticed anything turning pink, but I'd rather be safe than sorry with a house of non-pink-wearers.

it made quite a lot more detergent than I was expecting (this is a 8QT mixing bowl!), so halving the recipe worked out fine, but I had to go find a larger container to hold it all so I didn't have a bunch of smaller containers full of detergent on top of the washer.

what I really like is I hardly have to use any at all so it should last a while before I need to make more.

pressed flowers hand soap dispenser

this is the soap dispenser I did for Mother's Day with laminated pressed flowers.  I've never laminated anything (besides paper at work) so I wasn't sure how this would come out, but it really made the colors of the pressed flowers pop.  I pressed rose petals and cut them to a nice size/shape and added stems from weeds growing in my yard to create made-up flowers.  I'm sure this is a big no-no in the pressed flower world, but I wanted something pretty and this was how I could achieve it with what I had.

I started by making a template to cut around later.  after tracing the dispenser I went in about 1/4" from the outer line and trimmed it until it looked like it would fit inside.

I laminated my flowers making sure to leave lots of space around each of them, placed the template under the transparency and traced around it with a dry erase marker so the lines would easily wipe off later, and cut it out.

I put the insert I already cut on top of the other to decide how I wanted the position of the other to be, and traced around that one the same as before, but on this one I left the top a little longer so it was easier to separate the two once they were in the dispenser.

I removed the labels from the outside, and drained the soap from the dispenser so it was easier to put the inserts inside.

I rolled the inserts together (making sure the front was facing the side I wanted to use for the front) and put them inside the dispenser.

the tricky part was prying the front and back inserts apart so I could put the pump tube in between them, but it really wasn't that difficult with one of the tops being a little higher than the other.  once the pump tube was in I just poured all the soap back in.

I like the ones I did initially better, but even just these two "flowers" makes this cuter than the regular dispenser.  I suppose I could always add more layers as I find more flowers to press.

Mother's Day gifts

for mother's day I did a couple of gift baskets for my mom and Matt's mom... and forgot to get a pic of them when they were finished!  this has become a common problem for me lately :(

I made 2012 Mixbooks - I think a year without one would be a disappointment!  I feel bad that Jack isn't in there (except for the sonogram pics) but he shoulda showed up sooner! ;)

 

I did get some pics of the grandmothers with both boys, so they'll at least have those.  I framed them and also put them on the fronts of some pocket mirrors I found at Michaels.

     

I saw this set of washcloths and made my own with some cotton twine, and added a loop on one of the corners so it could be hung up on a Command hook in the shower.  or, over the stove and used to set hot pots on.  they're cute and they were fun to make however they get used :)

after seeing so many posts around about using transparencies in liquid soap dispensers, it gave me the idea to laminate pressed flowers (some from my yard, some snatched here and there!) and submerge them in liquid hand soap dispensers that I peeled the labels off of.  these were a hit, and I'm totally making myself one next.

I used some fabric napkins I had leftover from the granny square pillow to put in the baskets as liners, and added some bar soap from World Market that smelled sooo good, and Ghirardelli chocolate assortments.  gift baskets are so much fun to put together :)