Homemade Laundry Soap

To go along with my Homemade Deodorant and my Homemade Lip Balm here is a recipe for Homemade Laundry Detergent.

Grate and dissolve a 3 oz bar of ivory soap in 5 cups of water on the stove.

Pour 3 gallons of hot water in a 5 gallon bucket.
Add ivory water and stir.
Stir in 1/2 cup of washing soda (not baking soda - can be found in many stores' laundry...... aisle.) stir well,
then add 1 cup Borax and stir well.
Put on lid and let sit overnight.

Pickle bucket optional

It will look like gelatin in the morning.
Just stir it well or mix with your hands to blend well and make it "dippable". use 1/2 cup per load.

Cost to make one batch: $.79
One cent per load. The cost to wash 110.5 loads is $1.11.

This recipe is from my friend Steph. I'm not sure where she saw it, otherwise I'd link to it. I've been using this for more than a week now and I like it. It leaves my clothes bright and clean and fresh with no perfume scent. It does not suds up during the wash cycle; this is weird to me, but I'm dealing with it, because I like the results. I had two Tide bottles that were empty, so I filled them up with my homemade stuff. I have to shake it before I use it each time. I have a standard washing machine (not front load) and I use about a cup per load and I use vinegar as my softener.

I link to these parties on Mondays:

On Tuesdays:

On Wednesdays:

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On Fridays:

Another Homemade Cleaner: Soft Scrub

Homemade cleaning products are the latest craZe, aren't they? I have my favorites....I'm loyal to my homemade laundry detergent, my homemade deodorant, my vinegar in a spray bottle for windows and most surfaces, my baking soda to clean baked on grime and ovens. This one caught my eye for some reason and I have to say I am so glad I gave it a try. It is

fabulous!!

I saw it here on Make it Give it. I mixed it up, substituting the lavender oil with lemon oil since it's the only one I had.

Here's my grimy sink I know you would just love to see. I cleaned it when we moved in, but not very thoroughly....just enough to be comfortable that I wasn't washing dishes in someone else's funk. And then it kind of got neglected as we settled in and unpacked.

But then I put this fabulous smelling cleanser to work and it shined up in a jiffy and smelled oh....so good!!

Give it a try! You'll love it, I know it. And as a funny little side note, after I mixed it up, one of my kids took a big whiff of it. She loved the way it smelled and said...." I smell mint"....yup, there's mint. Then she said, "I also smell Tea Tree Oil" LOL! My six year old not only knows what Tea Tree Oil is, but can pick it out of a line-up!! Love it!

Collecting Bottle Caps

I re-publish this post every time I package up my bottle caps and send them off to Aveda as a reminder to everyone else who may have started doing the same thing and also to let the new followers of my blog know about this program.

In light of this recent article on NPR, I find it especially important to do our part in recycling as much plastic as possible.

So, please...read on and consider saving and recycling your bottle caps.

It was probably a year ago that I started saving bottle caps for a fundraiser. A friend was collecting them to fund a child's chemo treatment. The fundraiser finished, but I was unable to start throwing bottle caps away again. So, I continued to save them knowing I'd eventually come across another fundraiser or something.

Somewhere along the way I heard that Aveda (the beauty company) collects and recycles these bottle caps and turns them into their own shampoo/conditioner/beauty product bottles. I did an internet search and only came up with information about taking them to an Aveda store. I don't have an Aveda store, so I e-mailed them.

I was happy to get a prompt response telling me I can, in fact, send a box or bag full through the mail. Here's the response and the address:

Thank you for your interest in the “Recycle Caps with Aveda” Program. You may bring your caps in small amounts (1 shopping bag or 1 paper box) to any participating Aveda Experience Center (store) or send them in by mail to:

ACA Waste Services
40 Eads Street
West Babylon, NY 11704

Caps included in this collection are any plastic “twist on” caps. Some examples are; water bottles, soda bottles, laundry detergent bottles, ketchup bottles, and shampoo/ conditioner bottles. Caps that are NOT included are any metal caps and any “snap fit” plastic caps. Some examples of snap fit caps are; margarine and cottage cheese caps. Thank you for your help with the “Recycle Caps with Aveda” Program.

Have a great day!

Kendra Fleischer
Aveda Cap Collection Program
capcollection@aveda.com
1.877.AVEDA09

Isn't this GREAT? Won't you get yourself a cute little container and collect these bottle caps? I'm telling you I've collected at least 5 paper lunch bags full over the past year. It makes me feel good that they're not in a landfill. It's not that hard to keep a little collection and mail them in maybe twice a year.

CPS #117 Sweet Pea

Ahhhh, back from a fun-filled Memorial Day Weekend of camping! Now that laundry is caught up, I had time to make this card for this week's CPS Challenge.


I just love having inspiration for a lay-out and applying it to a card I actually need!

Have a nice week, everyone!

Edited to add: Does anyone have photography tips? I have a good camera with good lenses, but my images always look so dark when I upload them to this blog. The flash even fired when I took this photo and it's still so lack-luster when uploaded. It seems everyone else has nice, bright, large images of their cards and mine look horrible. Thanks in advance if you can help!

A Couple of Things....Revisited

I'm doing two things today that I love and have blogged about before, so I thought I'd share the ideas again real quick.

First, I'm going to the post office to ship out my collection of bottle caps for recycling. You can read about the Aveda recycling program here.

Then, I'm making a batch of my homemade laundry detergent. The recipe can be found here.

Have a great day!!