Adventures in Becoming Domestic: Part One

In my new addiction love of Pinterest, I've been coming across many DIY recipes for things around the home. I had come across the Duggar laundry soap recipe sometime back, even asking my dad to get me a 5 gallon bucket from his work for me. The bucket then sat around in our garage, taking up space, reminding me that I was slacking on what I wanted to do but.. wasn't doing.

So, Pinterest gave me the kick in the butt I needed. Last week I had come across a recipe for homemade chicken nuggets, so I made them and they were good! Nothing like the McD's chicken nuggets (erm, are they chicken? ew). They were so good, and BONUS, all three of my kids loved them.

I decided yesterday to stop procrastinating for no reason and get on to my soap making adventure. I hit Walmart and picked up everything I needed - the washing soda, borax, and Fels Naptha soap bar. After the kids hit the sack, I got out the bucket, my cheese grater, and went to town. It didn't take long at all, the longest part was the stirring the soap in the 4 cups of hot water on my stove. The smell of soap took over the entire house for a good few hours, making me sneeze, but it smelled good!

Five gallons of liquid soap is now in my garage. I won't know if it's a success until tonight. The soap has to set for 24 hours before you can begin using it. I'll report back later on how well it handles laundry, including the everyday stains my kids get on their clothing.

I then decided to look on Pinterest to find a recipe for dishwashing soap. I quickly found one that called for one cup borax and one cup washing soda mixed together. I mixed it up real quick, dumped it into the only empty container we had (that wasn't for our food), which turned out to be a Mt. Dew bottle (hubby's, NOT MINE! bleah). I could try this one immediately, so I happily did the dishes, filled the soap dispenser with my newly made dish soap and ran the dishwasher. I had even put a container in the dishwasher that once had spaghetti sauce in it. It was very red, needed scrubbed, but I didn't bother - I wanted to see just how well this soap would do, so I popped it in the dishwasher and was sure it'd come out with some red residue on it.

NOPE! Every single dish was clean and spotless. I am shocked and so so happy. I really dislike the amount of products we use in our home that contain toxins. And you know darn well the dishwasher doesn't totally rinse all of the soap off each and every wash! Borax isn't good for us, but it's a lot better in a smaller quantity like I used vs. the other harmful crap that's in the commercially made dish washing soaps (that are overpriced to boot).

I'll have to try another new idea from Pinterest this week sometime!