DIY Stain Pretreater & Other Laundry Tips

Funny story, a couple years ago our women's group at church was having a Saturday meeting and I was asked to teach a class on making your own cleaning products.  I'm not sure why I was asked as I had never done any of this before.  My mother-in-law was in charge of the meeting and I'm not sure if she thought I made my own stuff or what. lol  I had always wanted to make my own cleaners; I'd bookmarked (back in the days before Pinterest) several sites and recipes I wanted to try but had never gotten around to it.  So I did a bunch of research, tested out a few things, and ended up with a several page handout of awesome cleaning recipes. :)

Anyway, today I'll share my laundry tips and recipes.  Here is one of my very favorites:

Stain Pretreater

• ½ c. vinegar
• ½ c. ammonia
• ½ c. Wisk
• ½ c. water

Mix all ingredients and store in a spray bottle. Spray on anything with grease or food spots and wash as usual.  This is super cheap and will get out about anything.  It'll get out most food grease spots even after being washed and dried - you know, when the kids don't tell you or the kids themselves are doing wash and just shove everything in.  It's also really good at removing ring-around-the-collar.

I also found this recipe for laundry soap - it's all over the internet.  However, I've never tried it myself.  I already ruined a washing machine because I used too much soap and I'm not sure how "soapy" this is.  Plus, when we bought our same washing machine 4 years later, the sales lady told us to only use 1 tbsp. of soap at the most per load.  This has worked great for us, getting all our clothes clean.  I bought a HUGE box (I can't remember how many pounds) of laundry soap when our triplets were born and almost 7 years later I still haven't finished it yet, getting very close though. 

Liquid Laundry Soap- Front or top load machine- best value

• 4  Cups - hot tap water
• 1  Fels-Naptha soap bar
• 1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda*
• ½ Cup Borax

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.
-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)
-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
-For Top Load Machine - use 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-For Front Load Machines – use ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)
* Baking Soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent

TIPS FOR LAUNDRY SOAP: We use Fels-Naptha  bar soap in the homemade soap recipes, but you can use Ivory, Sunlight, Kirk's Hardwater Castile or Zote bars. Don't use heavily perfumed soaps. We buy Fels-Naptha by the case from our local grocer or online. Washing Soda and Borax can often be found on the laundry or cleaning aisle. Recipe cost approx. $2 per batch.

Fabric Softener for Dryer

• 1 Sponge cut in quarters
• 1 Cup Downy or other liquid fabric softener
• 4 Cups Water

Cut sponge into 4 sections. Mix Downy and water. Store sponge in mixture; drain one sponge for each load of laundry. Put sponge in dryer with clothes. When load is done put sponge back into the mixture to use again.

If you don't like using fabric softener because it leaves a coating on your clothes i.e. your skin; because of allergies/sensitivities; or because like all of my husband's wrinkle-free dress pants say not to use fabric softener; I use vinegar.  I add 1/2 to 1 c. to the rinse cycle, just pour it in the fabric softener dispenser.  You can smell the vinegar when the clothes are wet, but when they're dry they have no smell.  Believe me, my husband with his "super-smeller" can't even smell the vinegar after the clothes are dry. I use dryer balls, like these, to cut down on the static electricity in the dryer.

 Here are a few more uses for vinegar in the laundry room:

• Before washing a mustard, ketchup, spaghetti, or barbecue stain, dab with white distilled vinegar.
• Remove perspiration odor and stains on clothing, as well as those left by deodorants, by spraying full-strength white distilled vinegar on underarm and collar areas before tossing them into the washing machine.
• Get cleaner laundry! Add about 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar to the last rinse. The acid in white distilled vinegar is too mild to harm fabrics, yet strong enough to dissolve the alkalies in soaps and detergents. Besides removing soap, white distilled vinegar prevents yellowing, acts as a fabric softener and static cling reducer, and attacks mold and mildew.  It helps keep colors from running, and helps keep hair (pet or human) and lint from clinging to clothes.
• Keep the steam iron clean and in good working order by getting rid of mineral deposits in steam vents and spray nozzles. Fill the water chamber with a solution of equal parts white distilled vinegar and distilled water. Set it in an upright position and let it steam for about 5 minutes. When the iron is cool, rinse the tank with water, refill and shake water through the vents onto an old cloth. Test before using.

Do you have any more great tips for laundry?  Please share them in the comments.  We can all benefit from being thrifty and a little more "green" health wise in the laundry room.


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iPad Apps

It's been one of those days.  It's now 3:30 and I'm finally eating lunch and getting around to getting a post up today.  I had my nice little day all planned and NOTHING went according to plan. :)  We have a several dvd machines (like red box) around the area, and I always load the new movies in the two in town.  This usually takes maybe 5 min. at each store.  Today it took almost an hour between the two!  I should have just bought the heart wreath form I found yesterday, although it was smaller than I wanted. Instead, I spent a great deal of time trying to configure in my mind how to make my own while staring at styrofoam and wandering around my local craft store when they didn't have any heart wreaths at all.  I spent an insane amount of time standing in a return line at Walmart, just to return a hanger (okay, it was a $5 hanger and I really had no use for it. I'm not sure it was worth it.)  I bought a box.  Exciting, I know.  I always feel pretty lame when I have to pay money for a box, but just I didn't have one the right size.  I did get 32 certificates ready and delivered to my youngest childrens' school as part of the student achievement awards I'm in charge of.  Even those didn't go as quickly as I wanted either.  I've had 1 glass of water today, I think, and I broke down and bought a pop while I was in town starving and trying to ward off a headache.  :(  At least I got to come home to these cuties:

Pictures from 2010

They make me smile.  They're pretty goofy.  I sure love them all!

Anyhoo, the real reason for the post today, my sister, Leslie, and I both got iPads for Christmas.  So we want to know your favorite apps.  Leslie wondered if anyone had any recommendations for good educational (kids) apps.  I just want to know anything fun, helpful, whatever, that you use.  I'm pretty much a novice to all apps.  I don't even have a smart phone! Gasp!! I know, heck, I barely started texting a few months ago.  So any recommendations would be awesome.  What apps can you not live without?  Which ones do you use daily?  Which ones do your kids play/use when they steal your iPad?  Leave a comment and let us know your favorites.

Where the Wild Things Are Birthday Party

Do you have any "wild things" in your home?  My sister, Leslie, is back today with another great birthday party idea.


We did this party when my youngest turned 2.  He has always been a bit of a "wild thing" so this was a fitting theme, plus our family loves this book.

The decorations were really fun to make.

The cupcake idea came from here.

To make these personalized illustrations, I found images from the book online and printed them (you could also scan pages from the book).  Then, I copy and pasted pictures of the birthday boy into Microsoft Word.  I sized them down to fit the illustrations, and then printed and cut out his picture.  Then, I glued them on to the illustration print outs.

I still laugh when I see these.  We still have some hanging in his room.  

For the party guests, I made these fancy crowns (with help from the B.K. employee who said we could have six : ), using the same method listed above.  The kids loved to see their pictures in place of "Max."  They also received their own copy of the book.

The wild guests, looking quite docile at the moment.

After my husband read the book to the kids, we gave them sixty seconds to "Let the wild rumpus start." They yelled, screamed, and ran around like crazy...actually, now that I think of it, it seems like it was only my boys running around like crazy, and their cousins staring at them in panic. Thank goodness it was only sixty seconds!

  A few days after the party, when the fun of tearing through the house in their "Max" crowns wore off, I cut out the pictures from the crowns and glued them inside our copy of Where the Wild Things Are, so I can always remember my three wild things at this age. 

(OK, let's be honest, there are plenty of days when I'd like to forget their daily wild antics, but again, they love to see the pictures and relive their day as "Max")

Thanks Leslie!  Isn't that such a cute idea?!  I love her kids' pictures in the illustrations.

Drinking Water Tips!

Fantastic Friday Tips is where I'm going to start sharing the best tips I find throughout the week.  This week, since my focus has been on drinking more water, I'll share my best water drinking tips.  Who knew there would have to be tips for drinking water. ha ha

Thanks to Pinterest, I found this little tid bit of info. And how awesome are my friends, I didn't even search for these, my friend just pinned this one and the one at the bottom this week.

We know it's good to drink, water that is, so how to remember and make it taste, well, not like water?  Here are some great ideas:

• Set your watch or phone to beep at the top of each hour, or set a periodic computer reminder, so that you don't forget to drink water.
•  Freeze little bits of peeled lemons, limes, and oranges and use them in place of ice cubes - it's refreshing and helps get in a serving or two of fruit.
• When you have a junk-food craving, down a glass of water immediately. You feel full quickly and avoid the calories, and it lets time pass till the craving fades.
• Drink a glass of hot water with 1 tbsp. lemon juice mixed in first thing in the morning.  This helps flush out your system.
• If you use my Organize Your Day printable, you can check off a water bottle for each one you drink.
• Or here's another great way to remember:

(Source: iwontstopuntilimtiny)

I didn't have nice rubber bands like this, mine were a mishmash of bands from the produce department, from the mailbox, or other assorted places, so mine looked pretty dumb. :)  We used to umm . . . secretly laugh at my BIL behind his back because always wore rubber bands as a fashion statement, maybe all this time he was counting his water intake.  Cheyenne didn't want me looking like him, so she nicely let me use her jelly bracelets today, so I'm much more fashionable.  Now I think I should start wearing them like I did in grade school, you know 2 looped together, or the one around your wrist with others stretched up and over your fingers, then I'd be totally rad and remember to drink all my water!! lol

So do you have any more great tips on how you drink your water?  Please share!

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Word of the Year and Accountability

Here goes, I'm going more personal here today.  I need your help.  I need YOU to keep me accountable.  Yes, I'm talking weight-loss.  I'm 175 pounds (yikes! and I just shared that with the world!!) and I don't want to be.  My kids wanted to go swimming last Friday and I seriously was not going to go/take them because I didn't want to put a swimming suit on.  Now that is just lame, limiting my activities because of my weight.  It's time to do something,more than just my usual wishful thinking resolution this time.  So I'm changing things up a little this year.  First of all, I've written my goal down (see my post here).

I'm also working on one mini-goal each week, and then I'll add on.  This week, I'm focusing on my water intake.  Good grief, I think I spent half the day in the bathroom yesterday, however, on the up side, I wasn't ever hungry.

As I was reading through my blog reader on Sunday, I came across a couple other blogs talking about having a "word of the year".  Interesting idea, I thought, but what would my word be.  "Simplify" - but that's nothing new, it's been my focus for a couple years now, and I've done more to un-simplify my life so that wouldn't work.  So as I was surfing the net/watching tv/reading a magazine (I'm a multi-tasker) a commercial caught my eye - the new Weight Watchers commercial.  Well, what I really noticed was the "Believe" popping up all over.  I like it!  Then the next day as I was reading a magazine on weight-loss goals/resolutions, part of it that jumped off the page at me was believing in yourself.  I found myself reading more about the same thing some place else and finally decided maybe it's something I need to work on.  Believing in myself.  Hmm, I guess it's been a while since I really thought about it, but yah, I don't really have a lot of confidence in myself anymore.  I'm not sure when that happened.  I remember being confident in high school, college even.  Is it something that oozes away along with memory and body shape with each new child we bring into this world? lol  I'm not sure, but I'm resolving to believe in myself this year, that's going to be my focus.  If I can believe in myself, then anything is possible.  I just found this quote recently on Pinterest:

Quote from imgspark.com

AWESOME!! This is my new motto.  I will acheive my goals this year and become the person I know I can be.  So I will be reporting my progress here throughout the year.  If I know I have to be accountable to you, maybe that'll make it a little easier to get up in the morning and get exercising.  And if anyone else wants to report their progress here, too, we'll all keep each other on the right track.

So what about you?  Have you ever thought of having a word for the year, what's your motto, what motivates you?  How do you build your self-confidence?  I'd love to hear what works for you.

Goal Setting and Resolutions Printable

It's that time of year, time to set those New Year's Resolutions.  Time for a fresh start, a new beginning, time to commit to making your life better.  Sounds like an overwhelming feet, right, a nice tradition, but really who keeps their resolutions for more than a week or two?  I challenge you to do something different this year.  Figure out why you don't keep your resolutions.  Is your goal too overwhelming to begin?  Is it something YOU really want to change or others want you to change or it's what everyone else is doing?  Is your goal so vague you don't know where/how to begin?  Do you need to learn knew skills in order to accomplish your goal?  Do you have so many things you vow to change you're burned out and frustrated after the first week? Hey, I'm there with you.  I've done all those things before or even worse, I just forget about my good intentions after a month or so.

So this year I've decided to do some things different this year.  I'm starting with 4 main goals at most.  Plus I'll break them down into smaller "weekly" goals.  I'll be more specific, instead of the always elusive "I want to lose weight," I'm stating, "I want to lose 25 lbs."  Finally, the number one thing experts always say to help accomplish your goal is WRITE IT DOWN!  After all, a goal is only a wish if it's not written down.  Because I always want a cute reminder, too, I made this printable that you're welcome to use, too.  Build a Better YOU in 2012!

Build a better YOU!

As I was contemplating what I wanted to improve this year, I thought back to my younger years of goal setting for my "Personal Progress" in our Young Women program at church.  I pulled out my very first book and found this great reminder of setting and reaching goals with 5 steps.
1 - Evaluate.  What do I want to be?  What do I want to learn?  What do I want to have happen in my life, now and in the future?
2 - Plan.  What do I need to do?  Write down EXACTLY what I want to accomplish.  Write down what I will DO to reach the goal.  Write down the name of the person to whom I will REPORT - be accountable.  Set a DATE by which I want to complete my goal.  I may need to reset the date occasionally while I continue to work on my goal.
3 - Act.  I will follow my plan of action.  If I need help, I will ask someone (spouse, friend, parents, leaders, experts) to help me accomplish my goal.
4 - Report.  Talk with the person (friend, spouse, especially Heavenly Father) I selected to discuss my progress with.  Get some support, some accountability.
5 - What will I do next?  Begin the process again, deciding what I want to do next and continuing my person progress.

I hope this will help you become the best YOU possible.  Let's do it together!  I'd be happy to be your "report" person if you want.  And I'll be reporting to you for some of my goals, too.

Let's make 2012 our best year yet!

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Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Well, one thing I'm crossing off my list is trying to get Christmas cards out this year.  Yah, it's not going to happen, and I'm okay with that. (at least I have to be c: )  So I'll share it with you all here and call it good enough.  I'm also going to be taking a break for the next week so I can have more fun playing with my family.  I hope you all have a very merry Christmas filled with family and fun and wish you all the best in 2012.