Homemade Laundry Detergent {the powder kind}

We have been making our own laundry detergent for years, now! It has really, really saved us a lot of money. It is really easy to do and the girls enjoy helping me make it. We usually make the liquid kind, but I have been wanting to try to the powder kind and found a really nice recipe for it!

It is super easy!

A SIMPLE RECIPE

Each batch yields approximately 32 ounces (between 32-64 loads based on how many Tbsp used per load).

• 1 bar of shaved bar soap (Ivory, ZOTE, Fels-Naptha)
• 1 cup of borax
• 1 cup of washing soda

**I personally prefer to use the Fels-Naptha bar soap**

 Simply grate the bar of soap and add it to the rest of the ingredients. Stir really well for 5 minutes or so. That's it:) I promised you it was simple.

Just pour in 1 Tablespoon per load and you are set to go! I have tried it and it works really, really well!

Here is a link to the liquid version recipe as well as some money-saving info from a Yahoo personal finance article. We typically add lavender essential oil to our liquid mix to make our clothes smell really good!

I have also heard you can make your own detergent for the dishwasher but haven't tried it since we hand-wash our dishes.I know, we are weird, lol.

Have you tried it? Please let me know!!

Blessings,

Aria:)

"S is for....Soap" {Bath and Laundry}

 This week, our letter of the week is S, so I thought it would

be perfect to incorporate soap-making into our lesson plans!

I have been making my own laundry soap for 2 years now! {And, trust me, I was a VERY loyal fan of a certain high-priced name brand detergent AND fabric softener}!

But, at an average cost of 1 penny per load, it 

has truly saved us a lot of money over the years!

Here is the recipe that I use for my laundry soap.

It really is simple and very fun and very, very inexpensive!

And, it WORKS great!

With a little baby and 2 pre-schoolers, I have to do some 

spot pre-treatments, but I just throw all the clothes in on cold and 

most stains come right out. I also use lavender oil in the laundry soap 

to leave our clothes smelling great!

The girls always have a lot of fun stirring the huge

tub of laundry soap. It will usually last me several months!

I have always wanted to try to make my own bath soap as well!

I have spent tons of money on all-natural soaps that are super-moisturizing and smell 

really good-but they are EXPENSIVE!

So, we started off small and just tried a simple

soap-making kit to just learn the basics.

It was a lot of fun and the soap turned out fine, but I

still want to learn to make some using goat milk and other

fun ingredients:)

Here are our books for this week:

We simply microwaved the soap blocks to melt them and added

in the fragrance, exfoliant and coloring.

 Poured it into the molds and let it sit for an hour or so.

Easy peezey!

 We wrapped them up to maintain their scent and also to 

give them away as gifts.

Do any of you all make your own soaps or cleaning products?

As always, we LOVE reading your comments:)

Please feel free to have a seat, and stick around a while and join the discussion. 

We can inspire each other!

Blessings,

Aria:)

Homemade Christ-mas Handprint Ornaments!

I am always looking for new ways to create memories for our family and especially for our children. We really want Christ-mas and Thanksgiving to be remembered as very special times in our household. One of the crafts we are doing for Christ-mas is making some of our own ornaments for our tree! We simply used our salt dough recipe to make these easy hand print ornaments. I thought they would be "cute" 

but did NOT anticipate what a hit they would be with the girls!!!

 We baked them in a low temp (@200 degrees) oven for 3-4 hours to ensure they were set!

 Em is in LOVE with her hand print ornament!! Seriously, she finds it on the tree and just kisses it and looks at it and puts her hand up to it. It is the cutest thing ever!! She is so, so proud of it! I know these are keepsakes we will keep forever!

Here M is happily posing with her letter M ornament, her hand print ornament and one of the Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments that we made last year. If you are interested in making them, they are really simple and smell DIVINE!!

What fun things are you all doing in preparation for Christ-mas or Hanukkah?
We'd love to hear all about them!

Homemade Christ-mas Wrapping Paper!

I STILL cannot believe that Christ-mas is almost here! I guess I had better hurry up and get all of my well planned out, heartfelt and thoughtful,   

last minute and mostly online shopping done;)

 I really have been eyeing the custom printed gift wrap you can purchase, but just could not justify the hefty expense, so we decided to make our own wrapping paper for Christmas!

I got some huge rolls of paper in white and brown and the girls are having a wonderful time wrapping and decorating presents for Daddy! {now, if they could only help wrap and decorate their own gifts, I would be in business, lol.}

We simply purchased some Christ-mas themed stamps and stickers from the local Dollar store and let the girls use their imaginations!

You see the massive roll of white paper I bought? We are going to put it to really good use;)

The girls REALLY enjoyed personalizing the gift wrap! I am thinking of letting them decorate their gifts in their own custom print or handprint or something so they will easily recognize their gifts (besides reading their names) on Christ-mas morning! Any suggestions??

Our homemade Butter and Mom's life lesson...

We got inspired to make our own butter from here. It was perfect timing since we just studied cows all week! Ireally liked how much the kids enjoyed making their own butter in the photos from this Montessori school!

Now, in our family, we are VERY anti-butter for the most part. We NEVER put butter on any of our vegetables, pancakes or potatoes. And, when we do use a "butter" we use one of those spreads that have no trans-fats, so it isn't even butter per se. So, this was one big treat for all of us! I plan to save it and use it for Thanksgiving. I hope it doesn't spoil before then.

 Even the baby, Ce Ce enjoyed shaking the cream!

 Ok, so the girls' arms got tired, so I decided to to use the mixer to finish it off.

Here, you can see how the butter has separated from the buttermilk. So cool! I wish I would've saved the buttermilk to make some biscuits with---didn't think of it at the time.

We were so proud of our butter!! My husband kept saying, "it's like REAL butter!" LMBO!!

We also got to talk about the difference between solids and liquids and learn about buttermilk as well. 

Now, on to the "Mommy's Life Lesson" in all of this. There are 2 morals to this story. 1st, I was planning to put the fixings for some whole wheat bread into our bread machine before we left for church, but we ran out of time and so that didn't happen. I was really disappointed (the kids could not have cared any less;) and really wanted to pass on making the butter until we had the "perfect" bread to go with it. Well, I am a bit slow on learning that it is about the "process" and not the final result. So, the Lord put it on my heart to be flexible and learn to go with the flow and use what we have to STILL have a great lesson with our family. So, we used crescent rolls---and had a great time!

The 2nd part of the story is how the cream can be used just as it is. It can then be shaken and blended and be turned into whipped cream. But, it has to be REALLY shaken and REALLY beaten in order to become butter--that sweet, fattening, delightful spread that so many people love to slather on everything and melt on popcorn, too. Have you ever been shaken by life? Have you ever had to go through some changes? Have you resulted in something or someone you never saw yourself becoming? I know I have....and I can praise God for holding my hand, and even carrying me through my often very turbulent life and showing me that I can come out the other side of the storm as a sweet condiment instead of a bitter root!!

Praise God!

Blessings,

Aria;)