Homemade Laundry Detergent

Ever feel like all you do is laundry? It has started to get out of hand at our house with my daughter deciding she needs to change her outfit at least twice a day. Couple that with increasing food/gas/living costs and I am on a mission to reduce how much we spend.

There are a lot, I mean A LOT of recipes out there for homemade laundry detergent. Since the same ingredients kept showing up in different formulations, I threw caution to the wind and combined them all into my own recipe.

 

                                                                                              Source: sewlikemymom.com via Kim on Pinterest

I started out with the basics:
- Borax
- Super Washing Soda
- Fels-Naptha
Most powered recipes call for these ingredients.

I also added:
- Generic oxyclean
- One bar or ivory soap (because I was planning to make a lot)

Add one tablespoon for each load.

                                                                                                    Source: ehow.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I shredded the bars of soap in my food processor and then chopped it up some more with the blade that goes in the bottom of the food processor, then added three cups each of the powders. I have more left over but I thought before I go hog wild I would see how well it cleans.

I have read mixed reviews on if this detergent is safe for cloth diapers. Since my daughter is rarely wearing a diaper any more this isn't a big concern for me, but if anyone else digs further than I did a gets a definitive answer I would love to find out.

After an afternoon of laundry everything looks clean and smells nice. I read somewhere that it breaks down to about nine cents a load versus twenty-one if you are using Tide or something similar. That doesn't seem like that big a difference but if you do one load a day for 365 days you are looking at $32.85 vs $76.65!

I spent more time trying to find the "right" recipe than it took me to make the detergent. Now I am motivated to make my own dishwasher detergent and granite cleaner.  An easy 5 pins!

Vase With Rubber Bands and Spray Paint

                                                                                        Source: rachelmahan.tumblr.com via Sarah on Pinterest

This Christmas my goal was to decorate using things I already own. I saw these awesome vases and just knew I could make these suckers. I didn't have vases but I did have random glass jars of green chili sauce, jelly and olives and figured these would do!

The original craft can be found here. He uses yarn and tape to get the effect but rubber bands definitely sounded easier. I was happy to see that the original also called for jars that were washed "sparkly clean." I couldn't get mine sparkly clean so I left some of the goo from the paper wrappers and hoped for the best.

My naked jars.

Wrapped in rubber bands... feeling good about this craft so far!

I balanced them on the handle of my plunger because it was handy and now I have a nice sparkly handle plunger.

After three coats of silver spray paint (what I had on hand after Halloween.)

With the rubber bands removed they are living up to my expectations! The paint wasn't totally dry because I am impatient and I left some random finger prints.

Add the tea lights and enjoy the glow.

 

The process was really easy to do and I would only change two things next time:

1. Use a different color spray paint. The silver looks too aluminum can-like to me.

2. Plan on a way to cover the threads of the jar... oh wait I did do that after the fact - here is the result. 

I added a ring of glitter but that still didn't cover the jar threads enough and I probably should have used a ribbon like the original post called for.

I gave this craft 5 pins because it is completely do-able and if you are patient and have clean jars/vases you will get something worth of display on your mantel.

Let us know if you tried this craft and how satisfied you were with the results!

Cheers,