better late, than never

Stu's Valentine's. 

As easy as--

{1} 

 {2}

{3}

Hope you all had a wonderful Vday spending time with those you LOVE!! We sure did!

Homemade Laundry Soap-- my version

My Mom and Mother-in-law have been using homemade laundry soap for a while and got me to love it! I hate, hate, DOUBLE HATE how much laundry soap costs. So I was happy to try it. After a few tries and changes here is my version, that I LOVE!

Homemade Tide

 Ingredients 

Borax (~$2.99)

Arm and Hammer Super washing Soda(~$2.99)

Fels-Naptha Soap bar (~$1.60)

50 oz. bottle of your favorite scent of Tide (~$7.99)

(all can be found at Walmart)

You will also need: a cheese grater and a 3.5 gallon bucket (or similar size)

Grand Total =  ~$15.53 for 112 loads!! That is about 14 cents per load! And, the savings will be even greater the next time (8 cents per load) because you will only have to buy the soap and the Tide. 

*Compare to Tide at 26 cents per load.

WAHOO!!!

1st-- Grate the bar of soap

**Make sure that you let everyone know that you are grating SOAP and not CHEESE! No samples needed!!! (0:

2nd-- add grated soap to 4 cups of water and stir over medium-low heat until melted and there are NO lumps. (about 10 mins.)

3rd-- Fill your bucket 1/2 full of warm water and add 1 c. of washing soda and 1/2 c. of Borax. Stir.

4th-- Add entire bottle of Tide.

5th-- Add melted soap mixture.

 6th-- Fill your bucket the rest of the way with warm water and let it sit over night. It will thicken up a little. (You will need to stir it before each use. A lot of the soap settles to the bottom.)

7th-- Wash all of your clothes and smell how clean and amazing they smell! Don't you just LOVE the smell of tide??!!!

** You can transfer your soap into cute bottles or milk jugs or like me just keep it in the huge bucket. I keep the lid from the Tide bottle and use that to scoop out the amount that I want. I use about 1/4-1/2 cup per load. (Depends on what Stu has been playing in that day!)

I hope you love this laundry soap like I do! And, if you don't change it up until you do. 

This years Christmas Tree

 I decided that I wanted to try some of my MANY pins on pinterest. And here they are ~~~

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

We all ate A LOT of food yesterday!! Even this guy--

Since he eats big kid food now I have been experimenting with homemade baby food.
For it to work and be worth my time I decided it needed to be quick and easy and cheap! I tried squash first since right now is squash season.

I baked a whole bunch of squash--

 Blended it up until it is very smooth--

 And bottle it in old baby food jars--

WA-LA!!

I baked 3 squash ( .78 cents each) and that made 18 jars of baby food. Buying baby food at the store costs 50 cents each so I saved  $6!! Definitely easy and worth my time!

 -- KID TESTED, MOTHER APPROVED! --

"Lets paint a rug!" -- said nobody ever

  One friday I decided that I did not like this rug anymore..

Being so smart and frugal I found a tutorial on pinterest on painting rugs. I thought we could just paint over the rug we had instead of buying a new one... AND a gallon of paint later we had this...

In the words of my little brother Jake, "No Danka!"

Have you ever heard of pinstrosity.blogspot.com?? It is funny website that posts things like this. Well I am definitely submitting this pinstrosity of my own. (0:

After a trip to the dumpster we decided to do it the right way---

With lots of help from Stu and his "lawn mower" of course.

 

 

It turned out really good!! I would recommend that you paint a rug. --Just follow the directions!--

This is what it usually looks like. Cute, even covered with legos!

Someday I will post a picture of our clean perfect family room. Like when my pillows aren't stacked up on the couch because Stu isn't allowed to throw them on the floor but he NEEDS room to drive his cars. (wishful thinking) (: