Humble Homemaking Words to Live By

I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. ~Helen Keller

Coming soon on high demand: Homemade Laundry Detergent

There has been a HUGE demand for Homemade Laundry Detergent. I've been holding off because as you can tell, I like to post step by step pictures of the process to help people along. The "problem" is that I made a batch 2 months ago and I'm not even a quarter of the way through it yet. I guess that's not really a "problem"...but it does pose an issue when my Laundry Detergent Container doesn't have enough room for another batch. That means I can't do pics...YET.



So I've decided to post JUST the recipe for now. I'll make another post to include pictures as soon as possible.



Here it is. The ever popular, insanely high in demand and biggest money saver to date:



Homemade Laundry Detergent (safe for front AND top load washers!)

Ingredients:

- 1/3 Bar Fels Naptha

- 1/2 Cup WASHING (not baking) Soda

- 1/2 Cup Borax

- Water

2 gallon Bucket for making

Similar sized container with a top for storage (I use an empty 150 oz Tide container)



Directions:

Grate soap & put in sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat until soap melts (stir as it melts). Add washing Soda & Borax and stir until it dissolves. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups HOT water into the. Add soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon + 6 cups water and stir. Let sit 24hours. It will gel up some but it won't be as thick as a store brand detergent...that's ok! Use 1/2 cup for a top load washer and 1/3 cup for a frong load washer.

*Optional: Add 1oz essential oil to scent. I did this with lavender oil and to be honest...it didn't add anything to the detergent and just drove up the cost (.5oz costs $7!!!). The fels naptha has a very nice scent to it so I don't bother with the oils anymore.



Cost Break Down

Tide

150oz Tide: $17.50 >.12cents per ounce> about 6oz per load > .70cents per load



Miller Brand:

Fels Naptha: $1.09 per bar > .36cents per batch

Washing Soda : $3.57 per 55oz box > .25cents per batch

Borax: $4.51 per 76oz box > .23cents per batch

Water: Free

Each Batch Costs .86cents to make.

Each Batch makes roughly 2.5 gallons of detergent (that's enough for 80-120 loads of laundry depending on if you're using a front or top loader)

END COST: .01-.007cents per load





Nuff said :)



I don't know about you-- but that gives me warm and fuzzy feelings









P.S. Since I'm not able to post pictures right now, feel free to leave comments with any questions you have!

Homemade DISPOSABLE Baby Wipes!

I've always been intrigued by the idea of homemade baby wipes. My only problem was that I needed them to be disposable. Since we are currently living in an apartment where each load of laundry costs $2, it wouldn't have been very economical for us to use cloth baby wipes. The money saved on wipes would have just been used on the added laundry! Finally I cam accross a great recipe for homemade DISPOSABLE baby wipes in the book "The Duggars: 20 and Counting!" I've been using this recipe for about 2 weeks now and I'm very happy with it. Not only are they easy to make but they are MUCH less expensive than the store brand wipes that I used to use. Try them out and tell me what you think!

Note:I was a little worried about the wipes drying out but thankfully this hasn't happened.

Recipe:

-1 Roll BOUNTY Paper Towels (this is the only brand that works- trust me! there are lots of coupons out there to make it even more worth your extra pennies)

-2 Cups Water

- 3-4 TBSP Baby Oil

- 1 TBSP Rubbing Alcohol.

Directions.

1. Cut the paper towl roll in half. Use an electric knife for best results. Place in large bowl.

2. In a small bowl mix water, rubbing alcohol & baby oil. Pour over paper towels.

3. Let sit for 30 mins. By this time the cardboard center should be soft enough for you to pull out.

4. Cut Paper Towel roll in 1/2 (Cut the roll at 12 0' clock and 6 o'clock...hope that makes sense). I recommend using an electric knife for this part too but mine is currently MIA.

5. Storage: I'm currently using a plastic wipes container from before. The Duggars use an empty 1 gallon ice cream container and cut a slit on the top. I'll try that out once my huggies container breaks and report back!

Enjoy!