I love kid art. I love their little hands and their little feet and the fun things you can do with them. In that spirit I highly recommend using those little appendages to create a fabulous 4th of July flag decoration. Need a picture?
Try clicking HERE
I’d also bet if you gave these out as summer gifts to grandparents they’d be delighted to display them!
Well you didn’t think I’d offer you a Homemade magnet board and not offer you a fun homemade magnets craft too, did you?
Try HERE
Important side note: If you’ve got little ones in your house beware of the size of the magnet! You do not want choking hazards!
Tired of spending a fortune on expensive matting just to make your pictures stand out? This clever blog uses fabric and a glue gun and can spice up all your wall art!
Click HERE
Okay I just found this blog where a lovely woman posted about how to make shades out of your old abused mini blinds. It is a great way to recycle and a cheap way to dress up your house!
Check it out HERE
I found this picture the other day. I was in a hurry and neglected to copy the link so if you happen to know where this is from let me know and I’ll link accordingly.
Anyway, how brilliant is this as a gift idea for a mother’s day gift!
It’s totally cute and frugal and it shows effort (moms love that right?). I can just imagine how cute this would be if those cookies were decorated by little kids. Perfect for Grandmas too! You can pick a favorite cookie and find a cutter and you’re good to go.
You can use Square Cookie Cutters, Square Rippled Cookie Cutters, Star Cookie Cutters, Heart Cookie Cutters or if you’re both creative AND talented you can try Making Your OWN cookie cutters.
The pot part is easy Michael’s always has discounts. If you subscribe to the Sunday paper they usually have a circular with a 40% a purchase of $5 or more coupon (love it!). This way you can buy a totally cute gift pot that can be used for seedlings or herbs later. You can also buy cookie cutters from Michaels, the coupon applies to everything.
Add some Green Floral Foam and bamboo skewers or lollipop sticks for the cookies. Wrap the pot in colored tissue and you’re all set!
A great gift idea for under $5 once you have all the materials.
See the post HERE to read the original post first.
I MADE IT! I’ll be honest and say I kind of did this as a joke (what kind of person sits there and grates soap in this day and age? apparently the smart people). I have a lot of laundry fragrance allergies and lived in perpetual fear that Tide is going to discontinue their original scent. I liked the smell of all three ingredients. And yes, I sniffed them at my Albertson’s grocery store before i bought them and they smelled fine.
The big pain is grating the soap. (I should mention that a normal otherwise sane person might have just thrown everything into a food processor to grate. I preferred to remain true to my roots as an frontierswoman…that and I don’t have a food processor). I’m a multi-tasker by nature so I spread out a beat up looking 2 gallon ziplock bag I was getting ready to throw away on my lap as a sort of plastic tray. It took me 20 minutes to grate two bars on an old grater while watching the news. I felt kind of silly but kept at it anyway.
I used 1/2 bar of Fels instead of 2/3 so I got two uses out of one bar. It still worked great even with cold water. I now have enough powder for 128 loads of laundry detergent. And yes, I only use one tablespoon of detergent per load. It worked! of couse I am a relatively clean female adult so if you have little boys who love mud and grass you’ll have to adjust this to your liking.
If I use all the borax/washing soda/fels napatha correctly measured it costs me $0.92 for 32 loads of laundry. That comes out to roughly $0.02 a load. And I didn’t even shop around and price check my ingredients I just bought them from the local store. How crazy is that?
I definitely wouldn’t do this all the time but I certainly don’t have any problem grating soap a couple times a year. At the moment I have a large stockpile of Tide though so it’s going to be a LONG while before I need anything else. Still, it’s good to know!
Any other homemade recipes you have heard of or recommend?
I have a very odd relationship with rosemary. When I look at it I see $$$.
No, I don’t mean $$$ as in profit, I mean $$$ as in expensive. Several years ago, my sister and I tried our hand at making a homemade batch as close to Macaroni Grill bread as possible. The recipe takes several hours to prepare because the bread has to rise a couple times. Since it takes 4 hours or so we decided to go for broke and make several loaves even though it was our first try. We went to the local grocery store, found rosemary in the refrigerated section and were STUNNED to find out how expensive fresh rosemary is! It took two boxes at $3.50 a piece!
So, of course, I planted a rosemary bush. Now the bush is huge and I’m eternally looking for things I can do with the rosemary. You can imagine I was pretty excited to discover the Homemad Rosemary Wood Cleaner. Click the name if you’re interested. I haven’t tried it yet because I’ve been busy but I’m excited!
Okay I’ll admit I’m not a big do it yourselfer. Like many of us I’m a busy person and frankly, there are some things I’d just rather buy. My friend Jen, however, told me about a receipe for homemade laundry detergent that doesn’t require 5 gallon drums for storage and doesn’t smell like a fruit stand or a hospital. I haven’t tried it yet but I thought I’d post it for those of us getting tired of paying for detergent.
The best part is? It’s not a liquid laundry detergent so it doesn’t take much storage space. It makes a nice powder if you grate the soap really fine. Jen washed 5 loads with it (in cold water, no less!) and it worked great! She stores 32 loads worth at a time in a small Folgers jar that I’ve been recycling for years
Here’s the recipe , the original source of which has been unfortuantely lost. (I love the way the cost is broken down):
Powdered Laundry detergent
Ingredients:
Directions:
Grate the Fels Naptha soap with a grater or use a food processor. Approximately 2/3 of a bar of soap will make 1 cup of grated soap.
Add the ½ cup of Borax and ½ cup of washing soda to the grated soap.
Shake and/or mix well
Use:
One tablespoon of detergent is sufficient per load of wash. If you have a high-efficiency machine, you might want to experiment with using a little less detergent for normal loads. If your clothes come out feeling stiff, lower the amount of detergent. For clothes that are heavily soiled, add a teaspoon more of the detergent..
Yield:
The recipe yields 2 cups of laundry detergent. If you use 1 tablespoon per load, you will be able to wash 32 loads of clothes.
Cost:
20 Mule Team Borax: $2.50 for 70 oz. – Cost per batch: .14 (4 oz needed for recipe)
Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda: $2.50 for 55 oz. Cost per batch .18.(4 oz needed for recipe)
Fels Naphtha: $1.24 per bar. Cost per batch: .83 (2/3 bar of soap needed for recipe) *
Total cost to make: $1.15 Yields 2 cups which translates to 3.5 cents per load.
Please note all products can be puchased both on Amazon.com and at Lehmans.com (a site I’d never heard of before but a place full of tips and tools for old fashioned and self-sufficient living). I picked up all three items at my local Albertson’s grocery store so you might want to call your local stores and see if you can save on shipping.
Let me know what you think!
Edited to Add: I made this! To see my results click HERE
