Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe

As my family has moved toward more natural living and chemical free products, I have looked into so many products. We have used at least unscented/free and clear type laundry detergents since my oldest was a baby because she had such sensitive skin, but even those have stuff I don't want on my family's clothes now that I've gained more knowledge about chemical exposure. I toyed with the idea of making my own, but some of the recipes I found were so complicated, and a lot of them still had ingredients I didn't really like!  I finally decided to just go for it. I had seen this recipe on Bren Did, but thought I would simplify it a little here for those who are interested in making their own! I first made this recipe in December of 2015 and JUST used up the last of my batch this week! How crazy is that?! For a family of 6 who does around 5-7 loads of laundry per week and used cloth diapers for part of that time, I cannot believe it lasted us so long!

 

On the flip side I was nervous I wouldn't like it and be stuck with a huge batch. No worries though. This detergent is awesome! It packs tons of power in a small scoop and is so gentle on our clothes and skin! Here is the recipe if you are interested in making a batch for your family! 

1 box super washing soda (3 lbs. 7 oz.) 4 lbs. baking soda 4 bars fragrance free castile soap 3 lbs oxiclean FREE or BABY (regular oxiclean does not rate well on the EWG scale!) 

To make:  Grab a large container and start mixing everything together. I like to put a little of each ingredient in, then stir it up, then repeat until I've used it all up. For the castile soap bars, I use a hand cheese grater and grate into small shreds, then mix in with the rest of the ingredients! Overall, it takes less than an hour to make-a small price to pay for laundry detergent that will last for over a year! 

DIY Letter Wreath

I have had the supplies to make this letter C wreath for over a year! It was finally time to get it done! Besides figuring out how to hang it (a letter C is heavier on one side so it was awkward), it was really quick and easy! 

Here's how I did it! 
What you'll need:  Large wooden letter (I used the 18" wooden letter from Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon) Acrylic Paint Painters Tape Paint brush Decor-flowers, ribbon, etc. Hot glue Burlap to hang with 

First, paint the whole thing one color. If you want to do stripes, measure and tape off the stripes!

Paint the other color to add stripes. Pull tape off right away before it dries.

Hot glue on your decor and hang! 

I tried to do it in an upside down V shape but it was too lop sided so my husband screwed the burlap into the back and we just hung it straight down. Something like an M would work perfectly to do the other way! 

DIY Children's Reading Corner

I have always loved little reading corners and nooks. I always made sure that I had them in my classrooms when I was teaching. Who doesn't want to curl up with a good book?!  In our old playroom, we had this perfect little spot where the roof of the house slanted down. Before we re-did the room, it was filled with built in shelves, but we took them out, put a covered crib mattress and tons of pillows in and made it into a reading nook and I loved it so much!  In this house, I knew I wanted to do a reading corner in our playroom because my girls had loved the nook so much. This unintentionally became an Ikea reading corner along the way as we collected things! We didn't mean to but we had just randomly picked things up there over the years that worked!  So here it is! Our bright and cozy children's reading corner! 

I had seen this on Pinterest which inspired me to do the curtains in the corner.

 But let me tell you--it is a Pinterest FAIL! A curved shower rod WILL NOT WORK in a corner! It needs to go against parallel walls because of the way it is curved. I have no idea what they did in this room to make it work. My handy hubby said he could craft something up as we returned the shower rod to the store, so we picked up some PVC pipe and a hook. At home, we cut and spray painted the PVC pipe, and my husband cut 2 blocks out of a 2x4 to hang them on. He used a hole saw to make holes the size of the pipe in the blocks, then drilled the blocks into the wall, and put the pipe in either side. Now it looked perfect, but once we hung the curtains, it drooped a bit, so he got the hook, and hung it upside down from the ceiling and that helps hold up the center of the pipe! It was really quick and easy and it hasn't even budged since last summer or fall when we made it! 

I love this little area because if you let the curtains hang it can be a private little area, or even could be used for plays or puppet shows in a few years! 

The book shelves are the famous Ikea spice racks spray painted. I just used whatever colors I had on hand, spray painted all the parts, let them dry and then put them together and my husband hung them. $16 for 4 of them beats the price on any book shelf I have seen, and way cuter! 

Pillows are just a mish mash of ones I had at the old house that we had collected for the playroom over the year, and covers I made. 

The curtains are Ikea Murgrona panels. I had picked them up intending to use them for the playroom closet and loved how bright and colorful they were...not to mention affordable! 

It's the perfect cozy spot to curl up with a book! 

DIY Painted Striped Headboard

I am super excited to share this tutorial for a DIY painted striped headboard with you all today!  I have been wanting to make a headboard for our bed for several years now. We have never had one and it just looks so blah without one. I actually just noticed on Timehop yesterday that we moved into our house one year ago yesterday! I think we are officially past the point where any excuses are acceptable to why we haven't done something, so this was perfect timing. It took me a lot longer to get to it than I wanted, but once I got to it, it went so quickly and turned out so well! 

Here is what you will need to make a similar headboard.  *Painters tape *Roller brush (I prefer a small-ish foam roller) *Paint (I used a quart of paint + primer for the base and a sample size of the color I wanted) *Plywood cut to size

So the first step is going to be to go get your supplies. Some hardware stores will make wood cuts for you for free so I would recommend going to one of those (Home Depot for sure does). They can get it so much straighter with the equipment they have. Measure your bed and have it the exact width of your bed and then decide how tall you want it to be and have them cut at those measurements. We chose just a simple plywood that was about $13 for a sheet. I was hoping to find one that was already white but we had no luck so we just chose one that was sturdy but not too thick. 

I apologize for the shadowy and not the best photos--garage lighting isn't great. 

Go ahead and lay everything out and paint your board the main color, which for me was just the white that came in the can. It took me 3 coats to get it just right and thick enough and by the time I finished one coat it was already dry where I started so this didn't take long at all.

For the next step I did wait until the next day just to make sure it was really dry and solidified on there and the tape wouldn't bring any of the bottom layer up. 

So you need to decide how many stripes you want and how wide you want them to be. I decided on 5 stripes so then I divided the length of my board by 5 to figure out how wide I needed to make each stripe. After you have done that, take a tape measure and go down the board marking at the intervals where you want the stripes to be. I just did a small pencil mark on each side of the board. 

My husband helped me out with this next part and I put the tape down on one side and he held it, then I pulled the tape out and we set it down on either end so it was straight. This worked out really well because we just pulled it taut. 

I'm not going to say too much about taping for stripes because there are probably a lot better tutorials out there for it, but basically you need to decide what color you want to start with and then tape accordingly. The stripes you don't want to paint will have the tape on the "insides" of the stripe so it looks skinnier. That probably doesn't make sense so just search Pinterest for a better tutorial if you need help on taping stripes :) 

Ok after your tape is set, you can paint your stripes! Be careful to pay attention to which stripes you want painted so you don't get some funky looking stripes. You'll want to remove your tape immediately while the paint is still wet so you don't take paint off with it. 

And voila! 

We are finally making some good progress on our bedroom and hopefully will have it completed really soon! Just a few more things to do. 
What do you think of atypical headboards? I personally think they are so fun and so many of them unique! It is amazing to see what people can come up with! 

Gender Reveal Party

One of my dearest friends had the most adorable gender reveal party last weekend and I am so excited to share the pictures from it. She and her mom came up with the cutest ideas and it all turned out just perfectly! 

When you first came in, they had a cute little pink & blue table all set up. A chalkboard where you could place your vote, pictures of them both as newborns, mustaches and lips on a stick, pink and blue candy, ultrasound pictures, and a jar to place name suggestions. Our family was split 50/50 on the gender so that was fun! 

Of course they had adorable gender themed refreshments...

They came up with a cute little game where we split into teams based on our gender vote and had nerf gun wars. 

Obviously we needed a group photo! It was pretty split as far as guesses! I was on team blue, just in case you were wondering ;) 

And for the big reveal! They had their moms come to the ultrasound with them and the tech told their moms who went shopping to get something gender appropriate for the reveal. It was so much fun to watch their faces when they found out! Both of them were guessing a girl! 

Megan's mom handed them both a box and told them they had to open them at the exact same time to find out! Brett was super excited to fling the lid off of his! And it's a.....

"Wait, I'm confused...what's in yours?" 

The moms got everyone pretty good with a bunch of yellow! 

Ok now onto the REAL reveal...

I think the parents-to-be were more than ready to find out! 

Don't you just love those happy smiles?! It was so much fun capturing the progression of Dad's face as he realized he is going to have a SON! I think they were both very surprised which made it even more fun! 

The happy parents and excited cousin!

Aren't they adorable?! Love you guys! 

Have you been to any gender reveals lately?! What were they having?