Liquid Hand Soap

So  it seems like today is the first day of school in most towns.  Somehow I found myself on a FB page for BYUI class of 2015. I gotta say, I want to go to school!  I love school shopping! I love pencils and paper and scissors and pens and paper clips and pretty much every school supply. So does Jake.  Which means sometimes we spend a lot of time on the pen aisle at Staples. Good times!

Okay, on to my current project!  In my efforts to be frugal and self sufficient and to earn my keep around here, I made hand soap. It was an interesting process.  My first batch didn't turn out. Even a little bit. But my second batch is great! So here's my process (Oh yeah, this is where I got the recipe):

First I started with a regular ol' bar of soap.

I used a vegetable peeler to peel and shred it down to bits.

Then add lots of water.

Then you add some Glycerin. This bottle was about $9. I got it at the Nature Store (?) in Rexburg. I'm betting any nature or whole food store wood have it. I only used a tablespoon of it, so it should last til just about forever. See my thumb in the picture to give it scale?  It's a good size bottle.

Then you heat it on the stove until your soap is dissolved in the water.  

Easy Shmeazy!

 And here is a picture of Porkchop. Somehow he was in the middle of all of these pictures on the camera. Isn't he cute?

Okay, so this batch didn't work. After reading through the comments on her original post, I determined it was because the Olay Body Bar is a moisturizing bar with very little actual soap in it. And lots of moisture. Er, something. Anyway. It turned out just like water. Or skim milk. Which to some people is water.  So I chucked it. I was  a little sad I had failed. But I tarried on to round two!

 Enter Dial. 

I got two of these bars at Kings in Afton. Did you know there still were Kings? I love that store. They have awesome toys. And clothes.  

Instead of using my vegetable peeler on this guy, I just attacked it with a knife.  Towards the end, I got really impatient, so there's lots of bigger chunks. They took a while longer to dissolve. So I would suggest taking your time to make sure they're small. So here's my cup of soap flakes.

I was worried about the smell of soap being too strong. So I threw in the remaining 1/4-1/2 cup of the Olay Body Bar flakes, which smelled really good.  I figured they didn't do anything helpful in the last batch, so they probably wouldn't do anything harmful in this batch. And  it was fine.   After adding the glycerin and water (I only used 9 Cups the second time), I cooked it forever til the soap dissolved.   It was still pretty thin. Some of the commenters on the original post said they let theirs sit overnight and it thickened. So I left it on the stove in the pot overnight to cool and thicken.  When I came out this morning, it was the consistency of snot. Bigger chunks and runny and gross. Seriously. So I got the hand mixer out  and mixed until it was a consistent texture.  I added about 10 drops of orange essential oil, but the orange still wasn't strong enough for me. I was a little worried because the oil is kind of expensive. So I ended up zesting an entire orange into the pot.  It smelled quite nice!

So then I funneled it into containers til I need it. I underestimated how much it would make.  About 130 ounces. Eek! That's a lot!  But I did use it, and I can seriously and honestly say that my hands are so soft and smooth, it's crazy. Usually soap dries them out so quick. But I think that glycerin is awesome!

My next project? Homemade laundry detergent!

Here's the recipe copied directly from Savvy Housekeeper.

Ingredients:

1 c soap flakes 10 c water 1 Tbs glycerin

Equipment:

Cheese grater A large pot Measuring cup and spoons A spatula for stirring A soap container with a hand pump A container to hold excess soap Funnel

Directions:
First, grate the soap. Get out your cheese grater, grab the soap, and get grating. I found this to be surprisingly easy, although the soap particles tend to float in the air as you grate. You can wear a mask to avoid breathing it in. When you’re done, the soap flakes look like grated Parmesan.

One bar of soap yielded a little over 1.5 cups of flakes. The recipe only uses one cup of soap flakes, so I put the remaining soap in a jar for later use.
In a large pot, combine 1 cup soap flakes, 10 cups water, and 1 Tbs glycerin. Turn on medium-low heat and stir until the soap dissolves. This happens fast, about a minute or two.
Let the soap cool completely, then pour into the containers using the funnel. That’s all there is to it!

Gift Cards

Sometimes giving gifts is so hard. Especially for parents. Like they really need anything, right??

So we resort to gift cards. 

Gift cards are great, and can be great to give and get. But it's so sad and boring to just hand somebody an envelope. I love getting something I can open.

Enter Pinterest and The Creative Mama.  

I love Pinterest. I've found some awesome ideas (stay tuned for my homemade soap) and check daily to see what else people have come up with!

So here's how to package your gift cards.

They're like little snow globes! Love it!

Here's how it goes.

Get a glass jar. She used a mason jar, I used a different jar. I can't tell you that they may or may not have been from fudge. Then you would judge me. So I won't tell you that.

Start by hot gluing the card to the bottom of the lid.

This picture kinda makes my hand look like a claw. 

Then take a pack of confetti. Creative Mama used glitter. The confetti was cheaper, so it won.

 Put the amount you want into the jar.

Fill it all the way to the brim of the jar with water. 

It was like... magic!

(name that movie!)

Some of the stars gobbed together with little air bubbles, but it still looked cool.

I think they turned out really cute. Jake's mom laughed, but I think she liked it. I'm not sure Jake is convinced that it was a good idea. 

I think they're awesome!

A word of caution. We still have a little while before giving the Olive Garden one away.  The confetti may have colored the water purpley/pink. So if you don't want colored water, don't do it til you plan on giving it.

Weird??

I rode my bike to the grocery store today, and it was kinda toasty out. So I stopped at the gas station for some refreshing something. I was feeling fruity, and this was the only thing they had.

 

I like jolly ranchers, and it was hot.

Here's my popsicle.

I couldn't taste the lemon or apple that much, and the watermelon was yummy. It had kind of a funny texture and was pretty soft. But it was tasty. I highly recommend it!

And the cat took the plastic stick from me. I don't want it back.

Wall Flowers

 For my birthday, I got these great wallflowers that you put on your wall. We got them at Bed Bath & Beyond.  I finally got around to putting them up. And they're great! Mostly.

Here's the box they come in, 25 of each size. 

They come with these handy dandy little pushpins that you hook them to the wall with.

The back with the connector thingy.  

I hope your wall is softer than mine. I had to use a knife to push them in. 

First I laid out my plan in little push pins.

 Then I stuck the flowers on.

Then I rearranged them about forty times.

 I thought they'd look better in the dark.

 I'm just not sure. What do you think? Here are the googled pictures I found. Would that somehow look better? I'm just not sure.

Is it weird to have them in a big lump like that?

A Painted House

 We jumped in with one of our big summer projects, staining our house. It needed it something fierce. I don't think it had been done since it was built, many years ago. 

We had this weird rectangle over the garage. We aren't entirely sure what it was from. I think it was too big to be a basketball hoop. I think it was the first house in our subdivision, so they put up a banner of some sort. But we don't know. Either way, it was there and annoyed us.

See the weird rectangle?

It was just kind of sad and faded.

But look how the lawn's starting to come in!

So here are the afters. I think it turned out really well.

You can still sort of see the rectangle, turns out the textures were different from weathering different.

There it is, so pretty!  Now we just need some bushes and some more trees.

And we're staring to get our dirt. After the sprinklers get put it, we'll put it down and perhaps actually get a yard!

Four little piles of dirt.