Homemade Laundry Detergent

I've been taking a break for canning the past few days (not by choice) as I wait for more tomatoes to come in from the garden and for my half bushel from the farmers market to ripen.  School starts for me on Monday so I'd rather be canning now, but the tomatoes just don't agree apparently.

So instead today tackled some small projects that I've been putting off while canning.  I cleaned up my sewing area (otherwise known as the dining room table) and went through some school resources that needed to be organized.  The girls' dolls have had really gross looking hair lately.  (Actually, it seems to get nappy almost as soon as the doll gets played with, despite the fact that the dolls' hair is silky and luxurious when it first comes out of the box.)  I had seen a tip on Pinterest about taming wild doll hair with a spray made up of fabric softener and water, so I decided to give it a try.

Before

I chose the doll with the longest and nappiest hair, aka Rapunzel.  I sprayed her hair and brushed beginning at the ends and working my way up.  I pulled out a lot of hair, tugged, yanked, etc. for a good 10 minutes or so.  I eventually called it "good enough" and gave up.

After I quit and gave up

It was somewhat better but certainly not tangle-free and silky like when she was new.  The girls have been into braids lately, so I braided it in an attempt to keep it from getting too nappy again.

My more exciting project was making homemade laundry detergent.  The recipe that I used calls for one bar of Fels-Naptha soap, washing soda, and borax.  It makes a large 5-gallon bucket of concentrate that you then mix half-and-half with water to fill your chosen laundry detergent bottle.  Since front-loading machines require only 1/4 cup of the finished detergent, the blogger calculated that each load costs less than a penny.  Can't beat that!  Here are some photos of the process:

Grating the soap

Heating the grated soap with water to melt it

My cute helper stirring the almost finished product

Hannah also helped me mix up some chocolate ice cream mix, which I'm sure tastes much better than laundry detergent.  She's been wanting me to make chocolate ice cream (her favorite) since we bought the ice cream maker for Charles' Fathers Day gift back in June.  We'll have some for dessert this evening to celebrate Kelly and Carter coming to visit.

Dissolving the cocoa for the ice cream mix

Carter's arrival attracted the crowds of paparazzi.  Poor little guy had cameras and little girls all in his space.

Sophie would take videos of Carter and then play them back for him.  He would watch quite attentively.  Watching the videos held his attention more than the scores of people all around him.  Next Grandma arrived to get her Carter time, and she had him laughing in no time.

He grows so much in between the times that I get to see him.  His six-month birthday was yesterday, and he's almost sitting up on his own.  The first year of life is so incredible!  We're happy to have him and Kelly visiting for a few days.