A woman of her word!

So, here I am, 9 months pregnant with Baby number 3. 38 weeks to be exact! It's a girl!! Margaux Alexandria. We had some complications (hence my absenteeism), but things have been smooth sailing for the last 8 weeks or so and I'm ready to jump back into the Humble Homemaker!

So, if I remember correctly, I owe you all some pictures! Laundry detergent making process pictures! My last batch lasted 6 months (wow!). Since then we've moved into a new home with our own washer & dryer and in light of that, we've started cloth diapering. So detergent isn't lasting quite as long these days since I'm doing diaper laundry as well...but it costs .87 cents per batch of detergent, so who cares?!

First, a review of the Recipe:

1/3 bar of Soap grated or finely chopped. I've used Fels Naptha and Kirk's Castile soap, both work great!

1/2 cup Washing (NOT BAKING!) Soday

1/2 cup Borax

A whole lotta water

Big bucket (I use a 5 g

allon bucket)

Similar sized storage container (I use a few old laundry detergent containers)

Directions!

1. Combine grated soap and 6 cups of water in a medium saucepan. Heat until soap melts.

2. Stir in 1/2 cup Washing Soda and 1/2 cup Borax. Stir until dissolved.

After the soap, washing soda, and borax have dissolved, your mixture should look like this:

3. Add 4 cups HOT water to your bucket.

4. Pour in 1 gallon + 6 cups water (doesn't have to be hot) and your soap mixture. Let this sit in the bucket overnight and you're done! Use 1/2 cup detergent for top load washing machines and 1/4 cup detergent for front loaders.

A word on texture: A few friends & family have tried this recipe. Almost every single one of them called me saying that they must of done something wrong because their detergent looked like coagulated animal fat. Yes, this detergent has a weird texture...it gets chunky. Usually if you just shake it up a bit, it'll be fine. This doesn't have any impact on the functionality of the detergent, don't worry! If you're like my borderline OCD husband and REALLY can't stand the chunks, an emersion blender works fine to smooth it all out :).

Looking forward to many more posts!

Another Disposable Fix

Since I started making my Homemade Disposable Baby Wipes ...I've started thinking about other possibilities for homemade disposable items around my house. The first thing that came to got me oh so excited. Meet my best friend:

Isn't she a beaut? Having 2 toddlers around the house (boys, nonetheless) makes for a lots of messes. After every single meal, no matter how unmessy I try to make it, my dining room floor is blotched and sprinkled with whatever was supposed to go in the boy's tummies. I found myself sweeping and mopping multiple times a day. Some people would suggest just doing a quick spot sweep/mop after meals and doing a good job of it after the day is over. This works for some people but I needed to find an alternative. And so the heavens opened up and out came this baby. The Swiffer Vac. She mops AND vacuums!!!!!!!!! Can you sense my excitement?? My floors have never been so clean :)

So the only problem with SwifferVac is the wet cloths that you use for the mop part. They work great...don't get me wrong. But Geesh! They're expensive! Even the store brand was $8.64 for 24 cloths! Since I use this thing 2-3 times a day, that was only going to last me a little over a week. I felt like it was worth it though, so I indulged.

Not anymore! By using the same concept as the Baby Wipes I'm now making my OWN refills. I've been using these for about a week now and barely notice a difference. Here's the Recipe!

Homemade SwifferVac Refills:

- 1 roll Bounty Papertowel (Bounty is the only brand strong enough for the job! Oh and make sure you don't get the kind that are perferated into thirds...you'll need 1 full sheet and the perferations will just make it tear easier while you're mopping)

-3 Cups Water

-1/2 Cup your favorite floor cleaner (I'm a Pine Sol gal)

Combine the water and cleaner. Place the WHOLE roll of paper towel into a large bowl & pour water mixture over it. Wait about 30 minutes and the cardboard center should be soft enough to pull right out. Use 1 paper towel the same as you would a typical refil cloth. I went to the dollar store and bought a storage container for these...just make sure it's long enough, about 13 inches.

As always, the price breakdown:

Store brand refills: $8.64 for 24= .36 each

Miller Brand Refills:

Bounty Papertowel: $1.41 for 54 sheets= .03

PineSol: $1 for 28oz= .03 (using 4oz for cleaning solution)= .12

Total: .15 each!

Happy Savings!

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!