I’m almost out of laundry soap. I’ve heard a lot recently about people making their own and I’ve found several recipes on Pinterest, my latest addiction. I never thought I’d be granola enough to actually make my own laundry soap, but a few days ago I found a recipe that sounded easy so I figured, what the heck, I’ll give it a try. I used a recipe I found here.

I found all of my ingredients at Walmart. I looked at Target and Ralphs, but Target only had the Borax and Ralphs didn’t have anything I needed. Here’s what I got:

Borax – $2.98

Washing Soda – $3.24

Fels Napthia – $.97

Jar to store my laundry soap in – $0.00 because I already had it at home.

I reduced the size of the recipe I found by 1/3. I mixed together 1 cup of Borax, 1 cup of washing soda, and 1 finely grated bar of Fels Napthia. I used a fine grater that would normally be used to grate Parmesan cheese. Grating the Fels Napthia required a little elbow grease, so I got a workout while making my new concoction!

I mixed it all together, dumped it in a jar, and found an old 2 oz coffee scoop to measure it when I wash my laundry. Since the Fels Napthia smells like lemon, this stuff smells awesome! I can’t wait to see how my laundry smells after using my new soap. I have tons of washing soda and Borax left for future batches of laundry soap.

Since the mouth of the jar I used is on the small side, I ended up dumping it all into a larger jar I got at Ikea a long time ago. Scooping it out of a large jar is more convenient.

The first wash with the new soap is in the washing machine as I write this. The Husband’s shirts are going to smell lemony fresh!

Update: The load I did came out great! It smells fresh and is super clean. Yay for cheap DIY laundry soap!

Update 2: Don’t use this on your cloth diapers. I did and while they came out really soft and it removed all the stains, they won’t absorb anymore so I have to strip them. Darn. I guess I’ll have to keep purchasing detergent for my cloth diaper washing.

Soooo, yeah. I haven’t blogged in a long time. No excuses. I think the main reason is that I think of what I want to write about at inconvenient times…driving, in the shower, pretty much whenever I can’t be in front of my computer.

The Girl has hit quite a few milestones in the last few months. She learned to scoot, then she learned to crawl but preferred to scoot because it’s faster to scoot than to crawl, she pulls herself up now on everything she encounters, and I think she’ll be standing alone and walking very soon. She tries to repeat words I say to her. She’s such a smartie! She can wave bye-bye, and a few days ago she started clapping and can clap on demand if she’s not having a shy moment. She turned 9 months last week and today weighed in at 16 lbs 1 oz, and she’s 28 inches tall. Getting her to eat food has been a slow process, but we’re on the right track. Cheerios are her favorite thing, but she’s learning that summer fruits like peaches, mangoes, and cherries are also pretty awesome.

Okay, so let’s get to the reason I decided to blog this evening. I made something and I wanted to show it off in case you need something similar and want to save a few dollars. We’ve been remodeling our bathroom. I’ll blog about that sometime soon. Wow. That’s a headache. Anyway, The Girl has tons of little bath toys and I’ve been wanting to get something to put them but being the frugal mama I am (let’s just say it like it is – I’m cheap) I didn’t want to spend $10+ on some shower toy bag thingie that I didn’t like very much and wouldn’t be happy with.

Today I went to Target. I was browsing through the dollar section and came across a 2-pack of mesh bags for washing lingerie for just $1. I tossed them in the cart and headed to the shower section where I picked up a 2-pack of shower suction cup hooks for $2.99. At home I found a piece of ribbon that I cut in half, looped over, and sewed onto a corner of each of the lingerie bags. I put the hooks in the shower, filled the bags with Baby Girl’s shower toys, hung the bags on the hooks, and voila! Two shower toy bags for just $4! Here’s a picture of my genius creation:

They’re functional, nice looking, and won’t be in the way when I need to use the shower. And they’re better than anything I’ve seen that was designed for shower toys. Actually I didn’t look very hard for other options, but that’s okay. They probably would have cost more than $4.

I made a baby gym for my girl!

She needed one (or at least something for her toys to hang from) and I didn’t want to spend lots of money on something she won’t be using for long, so I spent a few dollars at Home Depot and made one myself. My super crafty mama sister designed it and made one for my niece. Instructions to make your own baby gym can be found on her blog. Baby Girl loves it and spent lots of time playing with it this afternoon.

Oh, I almost forgot. The cute bunny blanket she is laying on was made by my grandma.