Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent

That's right. I said it. Homemade. Oh wow, I used to make so much fun of my older sister for doing things like this (sorry Kim!) and today I found myself calling her for a recipe for homemade soap. My skin is so sensitive and she made some homemade soap over Christmas, gave me some, I tried it and w.o.w. it's fantastic. Anyway, as soon as I get that recipe I'll post it, but for now, the agenda for tonight is...

Homemade Liquid Laundry Detergent

4 cups hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 c washing soda
1/2 c Borax

Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water.   Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

Fill a five-gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover, and let sit overnight to thicken.

Stir and fill a used, clean laundry soap dispenser (or a gallon milk carton) half full with soap and then fill the rest of the way with water.   Shake before each use.   (It will gel)

Optional: add 10-15 drops of essential oil per each 2 gallons.

*For a front load machine add 1/4 cup per load

Yield: Approximately 640 loads

I'm not going to lie, I haven't actually tried this yet; tonight is a first. BUT I got it from my extended family website of a million chefs (not that you have to be a chef for this, but guess it can't hurt, right?) and everyone raved about it. Apparently it ends up being less than one cent per load and $2 per batch. Here was my cost:

Fels-Naptha Soap Bar: $1.79

Washing Soda: $3.59

Borax: $3.84

Total: $9.22

Ridiculous, right? The soda and borax boxes are huge also so this will last forever!

Where to Buy:

Fels-Naptha- I couldn't find it at Target, ended up buying it from Fry's, but I'm guessing any regular grocery store would have it. It was in the laundry section (obviously) in a white and green soap wrapper.

Washing Soda- Again, couldn't find it at Target, bought at Fry's. In laundry section. Made by Arm & Hammer. Yellow box.

Borax: Found at Target and Fry's. White box.

Obviously I'm super excited to try this. I'll keep you posted on what I think! :)

Aqua Spray Paint Before & After

I refinished this cedar hope chest for my sister before I moved to Arizona last year, except I didn't have time to paint the handles and fix the missing lock hole. My sister promise she would do it, I even showed her how, yet every time I went back to Utah to visit the poor hope chest was still unfinished. :) Sooo, this past week I finally decided it was time. It had to be done. 

Here's a little bit of the process. I primed with KILZ spray paint (I think 2 coats) and sanded lightly in between. Then spray painted a few coats of this...

After that it looked like this...

Then glazed the entire piece with a black glaze. This picture shows what exactly glaze does. The left side is bare and the right side has already been glazed. It makes a huge difference...

Glaze up close...

And another before & after...

 It was hard to find a replacement for the missing lock so I decided to browse Hobby Lobby and see what I could come up with. I ended up with this cute little thing- I think I found it in the scrapbook section? I could be wrong though. Anyway, I just glued it on there and it ended up looking really cute..

Spray painted the handles with black(ish) metal spray paint...

 

And 11 months later she's finished! :)