How to Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

My family jokingly refers to me as Betty Crocker or Suzie Homemaker. (At least I think they are joking.) It's true! I love to bake and garden and sew and knit and, well, do stuff around my home. My friends and family know this and will often pass on a recipe they think I'd be interested in.

However, making my own laundry detergent was never something I thought I'd make. People sent me directions for it and it just seemed too messy and time consuming. Why should I when I can buy a bucket like this for $14 at Sam's Club?

Finally I was just bombarded with laundry detergent recipes and I surrendered. YOU WIN! I'll try it!

Now I am kicking myself....why hadn't I done this before? You know that bucket above? The one I bought for $14? Well, I just filled it with homemade laundry detergent for less than $3!!

It took me 15 minutes (not counting watching water boil).....15 minutes!!!! Five minutes to grate a bar of soap and an additional ten minutes to melt it in boiling water, add Borax, washing soda and baking soda. Then add more water. That's it!!

The first batch I made, I admit, I didn't expect it to clean the clothes well enough. After all, I'm washing cloth diapers here folks! But I was wrong. This detergent is wonderful and it doesn't smell! No heavy perfumes, just the smell of clean! I've found many store detergents cause diaper rash in Yahoo but I haven't had any baby bum problems with this one.  

I used the laundry detergent recipe from Suzanne at Chickens in The Road(I did cut back the Washing Soda to about 75% of what the directions called for). My Betty Crockerness pales in comparison to Suzanne! She can and does do it all! I want to grow up to be like her someday.

What are you waiting for?? Go to the hardware store, buy a bucket with a lid and get going! You won't be sorry. There are tons of recipes on the web. I suggest you experiment and find one that works for you! Good luck!

How to Make a Toddler's Dress from a Fleece Sweatshirt

A while back my very thoughtful husband found some size large adult fleece sweatshirts at a consignment shop. Since he knew I was making diapers he bought them thinking I could put them to use. Sadly, I tore the sweatshirts all apart just to find out they weren't really big enough to use for the size large diapers I was making.

Here I was with all this perfectly good cut up fleece. I couldn't throw it away!! A pile of fleece sat on my craft table for a few weeks until one day when I was moving things around I picked up one of the sleeves I had cut from the sweatshirt and Light Bulb!! I designed some warm fleece dresses for my 11 month old daughter.



Silly me..I didn't have a blog when I made these dresses so of course I didn't take step by step photos. I have tried to draw up some diagrams to show exactly what to do. This is a very easy project with very little finishing to do since you utilize the finished edges of the sweatshirt for the finished edges of the baby's dress.

The first step is to draw up a pattern for the toddler's sleeve that looks similar to the diagram below.

The first dress I made, the red and grey one, I only used rectangle shape for the sleeve and it just didn't fit quite right so I used a sleeve like the diagram above for the blue and grey dress.

Next, cut the sleeves off the adult sweatshirt right along the shoulder seam and then cut along the underarm seam from armpit to wrist on each sleeve. When laid out flat it should look like this. The adult sleeves will be the front and back of the dress.



If you have any scrap fabric you can applique a design on the front. I simply zigzagged around the hearts using scrap fleece. My son Yip actually designed the layout for the blue dress. I'm raising a little Calvin Klein!


Next lay the sleeve pattern along the bottom finished edge of the sweatshirt and cut out two. As the drawing shows you'll be using the white parts of the sweatshirt for the dress.



With the wrong sides of the front and back together sew shoulder seams using a 1/4" seam. This edge is already finished. Using any wider than 1/4" will result in a very bulky shoulder seam and neckline but this way you won't have to worry about finishing the neckline. Leave about a 7 inch opening for the neck hole.




Now find the center top of the sleeves and match to the shoulder seams. Sew sleeves on to dress so when laid out flat the dress looks like this.



Turn right sides together and sew underarm seams and side seams with 1/4" seam. You don't have to finish the sleeve hem because it is uses the finished edge of the sweatshirt. Now finish the hem. For the grey dress I simply turned the edge under 1/2" but I added some scrap fleece to the bottom of the blue dress.




I used a size large sweatshirt and it fits my 11 month old. I'm guessing that an x-large may fit a 18 month or 2 year old girl. You might want to just play around with different size sweatshirts to see what works. The average cost of each of these dresses was about three dollars. This dress could easily be made in a day or so. A nice, warm and cuddly dress for winter! This has inspired me to try to use the same idea for a summer dress without the sleeves. I'll keep you posted on my progress!

How to Make Your Own Cloth Diapers.

I love cloth diapers! With my twins I used the old fashioned prefold with pins. I liked them because I wasn't always having to go buy diapers. Washing a load of diapers was a lot easier than hauling two infants to Wal-Mart for diapers, let me tell ya!I also felt good about keeping HUNDREDS of diapers out of a landfill. However, those old prefolds weren't much fun. They leaked on occasion and that wasn't fun when there were two messes to clean up!

When I learned I was pregnant with my daughter, I knew I wanted to use cloth diapers with her but I also knew the old kind wasn't going to work in my busy household. I cruised the internet and found a lot of wonderful patterns to make your own fitted diapers and diaper covers. For the diapers I relied mostly on this pattern. After a bit of trial and error, I made a few adjustments which I will get to in a minute.

I attacked my closet, my husband's closet (sshh, don't tell him), my fabric stash, cheap (and ugly) walmart fabric and the local consignment shop for all the fabric used. The pattern does say that you can use old knit t-shirts but I didn't just because I don't like to use stretchy fabrics but that is just my preference. Overall I used a variety of cotton, flannel, fleece and wool(for the covers). For the inside soaker part of the diaper I actually used the cloth diapers that I had already but you could easily use bath towels. I cut one diaper in half and used it for two diapers. They have worked great! My daughter is 11 months old and has been in cloth diapers since her umbilical cord fell off and I HAVEN'T HAD ONE LEAK with these diapers. Often I can't even SMELL a dirty diaper with these. How amazing is that?


The diaper on the left is size small which I started putting on her after her umbilical cord fell off. I was afraid the diaper would rub it too much so used the fancy disposables with the belly button cut out. She only wore the size small for 2 months because I didn't attach the velcro in a way to extend their wear. It probably didn't help that she was over 9 lbs. when she was born...not exactly a size small kid!

I didn't take a shot of the mediums because I gave them away to another mom but I think you get the idea of the sizes.

The diaper on the right is a large size which she started wearing about the age of 10months. I am anticipating that this size will last her until she is potty trained.


Here they are open...duh, didn't really need to tell you that did I? I did add longer pieces of elastic down the leg openings and across the back. I used 3/8" elastic; 1/2" might work well too. I found 1/4" just wasn't strong enough to gather together all the layers.


This is the major diversion I took from the pattern. The pattern called to place the velcro tab inside the diaper (left) but when you do that the diaper isn't as adjustable. With the large diapers (right) I placed the soft velcro tab so it extends outside the diaper. By doing so the tabs will overlap when closed when the baby is smaller but will grow with the baby and will be able to wear the diaper for much longer. I also make sure I used a larger size velcro since at the age she was wearing the large diapers she is so much more active and the large velcro helps keep everything securely in place.


After much searching I found this great pattern for the diaper covers where I could print off an actual pattern for 5 different sizes. This is by far the best diaper cover pattern/instructions I found anywhere.



Do make sure that you felt any wool sweaters you decide to use a few times before you cut them up to make these covers. I didn't felt mine enough and they shrank a whole size and I was unable to use the first few I made.

If you are thinking about using cloth diapers and entertaining the idea of making your own..don't let these patterns scare you. They aren't that hard and they are SO CHEAP to make! With a little creativity and imagination you can obtain most of your fabric for free. I'd love to see any diapers you make and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me. I'd love to help! Good luck!

How to Make Creative Valentine's with your Kids!

For the last couple of weeks my boys and I have been making Valentine's to send to friends and family. I'm all for experimenting and teaching my kids new art techniques and Valentine's day is a great subject to experiment with. Here are three different Valentine "projects" using three different techniques we have been working on.

For this I just wanted my boys to think outside the box and use hearts for something other than Valentine's. We tried making different animals out of hearts. Here is Yip's version of a lion. Pretty creative I thought!


I love to paint and here is an effect that is fun to play with especially with kids. Use watercolor paint or watered down tempera to paint in the heart then sprinkle salt over the paint. We used Kosher salt but table salt would work too. Just experiment with amounts of paint and salt. Allow the salt and paint to dry, or gently use a hair dryer to speed up the process, then brush off the salt for a starburst effect.

Here's a close up of the starburst effect created by the salt. You may need to experiment with amount of paint and salt to use. We found it helped to lay them both on pretty thick.

This last technique we used is my favorite. It is a wax resist. First you color your Valentine's with crayons. It is best to press hard with the crayons and encourage the kids to go over it a couple times to create more contrast. After they are done coloring then use watercolors to paint over the crayons. The wax will resist the paint and create a bright contrast of color with the painted background. White crayons are a great effect to use as well. It's almost like magic when the child applies the paint and the invisible white crayon suddenly appears.


This is Yap's and....


here is Yip's.

Enjoy Valentine's Day and I'd love to hear your ideas for new techniques!

How to Knit Stuffed Toy Bats

A couple years ago my son found a stuffed bat he just loved at a garage sale. Well, he lost it which was just a tragedy for a four year old. So I cruised around the internet, got some ideas and knit one for him as a replacement. Once I was done with the brown one his twin brother, of course, wanted one of his own so I made him the red and blue one. I let them pick out their colors and tell me what kind of details (fangs, eyes) that they wanted. It was a nice little artistic collaboration.








I even made it so the bats could "sleep" upside down with their wings buttoned closed. As you can probably tell by the photos they have been well loved..and stretched out!

A few of my crafty friends asked if I had a pattern for them. By no means am I an expert knitter but I was able to write this pattern up and I think it is something even a beginning knitter could accomplish.

If any of you expert knitters out there find a mistake in this pattern or has a suggestion to make it better, please...let me know!!


I used cheap acrylic worsted that someone gave me a ton of from an auction but I am sure any type would work.
Body
Cast on 5 st. on dpn. i used #5
Increase 5 st. every other round until you have 40 st.
Knit for 5 more inches.
Next row decrease 5 st.
and the next row decrease 5 st.
slide tapestry needle through stitches but do not pull tight.
Embroidery facial features, then stuff and then pull tight stiches and weave in ends.

Feet - Make 2
Cast on 12 st.
Stockinette St. for 6 rows. Bind off. Sew in a loop so cast on and off edges are on the side of feet and sew onto body of bat.

Ears - Make 2
cast on 6 st.
slip first st. of every row
stockinette st. for 6 rows.
Row 1 - slip st, ssk, k2tog, k1
Row 2 - purl
row 3 - slip st, k2tog, k1
row 4 - purl
cast off
sew on to head

Wings - Make 2
cast on 20 st.
knit for 6 rows in garter stitch
Row A - knit to last 3 st., k2tog, k1
Row B - k1, ssk, knit to end
Repeat A
Repeat B
Repeat A
Repeat B
knit two rows
Row C - k1, ssk, knit to last 2, inc. 1 st, k1
Row D - k1, inc 1 st, knit to end
Repeat C
Repeat D
knit two rows
Row E - k1, ssk, knit to last 3, k2tog, k1
Row F - k1, ssk, knit to end
Repeat E
Repeat F
Repeat E
Repeat F
knit 2 rows
Row G - k1, ssk, knit to last 2, inc. 1 st, k1
Row H - k1, inc 1st, knit to end
Repeat G
Repeat H
knit 2 rows
Repeat E
Repeat F
Repeat E

* from this point each wing will be different. The following will go on wing 1, for a buttonhole

Row I - k2, yo, k2
Row J - knit
Row K - k1, ssk, k2
Row L - k1, ssk, k1
Cast off

** For wing 2 knit the same as wing 1 until the *
Row I - k1, ssk, k1
Row J - knit
Row K - knit
Row L - k1, ssk, k1
cast off

Sew wings to body and add button to wing where needed.

I would love to see any that you create!