Homemade Laundry detergent - with photos!

There are a million reasons to DIY, and the one that makes the most sense is that it saves money. I hate buying the following:
- toilet paper
- laundry soap
- cleaning supplies/household cleaners
- underwear
- pants
- bottled water
- kitty litter

I've not yet figured out a way to make my own toilet paper or kitty litter (and I don't think I want to). And I could make my own pants and underwear, but I'm not that talented of a seamstress (also: don't think I want to). And as ridiculous as bottled water is, having a stash in the fridge gets me to drink approximately 300x more water than I normally do, so it's a ridiculous, frivolous purchase that I feel is justified. But cleaning supplies and laundry soap...that's something I can handle.

So last weekend I set out to make my first ever batch of homemade liquid laundry detergent. The recipe came from a certain incredibly fertile television family whom I don't care to link to and assume you could easily google to find the source yourself. But they have a nice, simple recipe that I modified ever so slightly. Here are the ingredients:

4 cups water, 1 bar of Fels-Naptha soap, 1 Cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, 1/2 Cup Borax. You will also need a clean 5-gallon bucket with a lid, and some old laundry soap containers, rinsed out kitty litter containers, or anything smaller and more manageable than a 5-gallon bucket. Unless you like pouring your laundry soap from a giant hulking 5-gallon bucket. Then by all means, go ahead.

Here is how to make the magic happen:

First, grate the bar of soap into a medium-sized saucepan. Use a cheese grater. And don't whine that it will ruin your cheese grater, because it's SOAP for cryin' out loud and your grater will end up cleaner than when you started.


If you are like me and have zero upper body strength, get a bodybuilder/hyperactive teenager/special helper to grate it for you. It will take approximately 2 minutes instead of 37. You will end up with a mighty pile of shavings that looks like delicious, delicious cheese.

Mmmm....cheese.
Add 4 cups of warmish water to the saucepan full of cheese soap.

Heat on medium until it all dissolves into a lovely smooth soap soup. Stir it lots, and be patient. This part takes time. Maybe ten minutes. Or less, if you get impatient and crank the heat because you are bored. But I would never do such a thing.

When it's ready, it will look like this:

Now if you're thinking ahead, have that bodybuilder/hyperactive teenager/special helper mix the rest of the ingredients together while you are watching soap melt. In the five-gallon bucket, add 1 cup of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda and 1/2 Cup of Borax. Fill the bucket halfway with hot water, and stir everything up until completely dissolved. Then, by the time your soap is done melting, everything else will be ready for the next step. Look at you...savin' time. Makin' soap. You're awesome.

So let's see...your washing soda and borax are dissolved, and your soap is melted. Add the melted soap to the mixture in the five gallon bucket. Give it a stir and then fill the rest of the bucket almost to the top with water. We left a few good inches at the top to make it easier to stir/pour later on.

Stir it all up, put on the lid, and go do something for 24 hours. Really, wait a whooooole day. The magic is happening. Magic takes time. It is worth it. Because 24 hours later....

What the?

OH GOD.

OH GOD NO.

You have just made a 5-gallon bucket of mucus.

Just kidding.

It did exactly what it was supposed to do. Yay!!! Now stir it up! Mush it with your hands (very satisfying). Notice how clean and fresh it smells. Mmmmm! Now fill your smaller soap container half-full of the lovely gel soap. Fill the container the rest of the way with water. And you're done! Remember to give your container a good shake before using, because it will all gel up again.

For a top load machine, you'll need about 5/8 Cup per load (OMG 5/8? For serious? It can't be 3/4 of a cup or 1/2 cup? Get an old measuring cup and mark it with a sharpie. it is now your official laundry measuring cup)

For front load machines, just use 1/4 Cup per load

Don't ask me about those fancy HE machines, because I don't have one.

If you don't like the laundry-fresh scent of fels-naptha and washing soda, you can add several drops of essential oil to your soap. (Add after it cools).

This recipe makes 10 gallons. TEN GALLONS of laundry soap. The ingredients cost about $7.00 total, and I have enough washing soda and borax left over to make a zillion more batches.

TIPS:
- Do not eat grated Fels-Naptha even if it looks like delicious delicious cheese.
- FIND THE WASHING SODA. Do not substitute baking soda or anything else. Washing soda. It will be hard to find, but be patient. I finally found mine at Fred Meyer out in the sticks. City folk apparently don't need washing soda.
- Look by the laundry detergent at the grocery store for the ingredients. I found most everything along the top shelves.
- Google lots of other recipes and figure out which one you like best. This is not the only one. Others call for different soaps, different ratios, etc.
- Experiment. This is my first batch, and I'm guessing we'll want to tweak the recipe for strength/smell in the future. Although right now I'm really digging how it smells...

Stay tuned for the results post, where I tell you if it actually works!

paint.

This is my paintin' rag for watercolors:

It is disgusting.
And also beautiful.

I've been digging into my old watercolors again lately, and found my favorite soft strip of cotton t-shirt in my blue lunch tin, heavy with a history of paint all the way back to college. I can't bear to wash it - it's perfect just the way it is.

So anyways. Makin' stuff:

I love how water moves pigment. I love watching it collect in pools and in corners, and then the paper takes it all up in an instant and all that's left is subtle shadow. Watercolor is a life force all its own.


Ah. paint.

Rust

My worst traits/habits as an artist:

procrastination
fear of what others are thinking
self criticism
constantly worrying about "who will buy it" or "how to make this my livelihood"
over-thinking
inability to complete projects (see above: "fear....")

So I signed up for Pikaland's Artist Bootcamp, a month-long online session of creating, sharing, and critiques.

All those sick churning "art school feelings" have come flooding back (and if you have ever been to an arts college, then you probably know...) But now that we are halfway through, it has become easier. I am learning.

My work in this class might not be brilliant, but it is work. IT IS WORK and that feels pretty fantastic.

In a super-condensed nutshell, we were asked to photograph some nature-y type things and create a piece inspired by the photo.

I saw this:


And in it, I saw this:


Next up was a three-part assignment. Create a piece about something you love, with a medium you know well. Then do a version in straight black ink. Then do a version in collage.




It's been a creaky process, stretching out and loosening a few years of good rust. The machine has been running, but not at 100%. I like this class. I like seeing how everyone interprets the assignments differently. I like having something to focus on. It is work.
It is work.
It is work.

More sharing at the end of the session...

Featured on Apartment Therapy

My spoon herb markers were featured on the Apartment Therapy blog the other day. Yay! I love a good shout out. If you missed it the first time around, check out my tips on how to make 'em here.

HOME and Pin it Foward

Today is my day to share inspiration for pin it forward, another blogger mashup of sorts brought to you by sfgirlbybay.

The coolest thing about this mashup is getting to try out an awesome new tool called Pinterest - a very and fun way of keeping track of images and inspiration on the web. It seriously beats printing out images I find an pasting them into an idea book.

You can use Pinterest for just about any kind of image collection you can think of - I'm using it to create a wish list for my house, and collect favorite works of art and old-timey photos. For pin it forward, we were all invited to try out Pinterest and create a collection of images that embody the idea of HOME. Here is what a portion of my board looks like:

And below is a sampling of images I collected that start to define what home means to me. Some photos are mine. Others are from all over internetland.

I was born and raised in Wisconsin, and that place will always have a piece of my heart. It is my first home.


But home is also Washington, starting with Seattle and branching out to my new house in the valley.


In my home, you will find:
Lots of blank books. Moleskines being my favorite. I loved moleskines before it was cool to love moleskines. Just saying.


Cups filled with pencils and pens and important things.


Buttons and snapshots from long ago.


A cat.


And a dog.


And the bestest friend I could ask for.


Home is where you make it. It might not be perfect, but it's yours.

You can see my complete board here. Full list of participants here - over 300! Phew! Up next in my group is fuzzygreenlights.

Enjoy.