Homemade laundry soap

I started making my own laundry soap about 2 years ago. Then I got on a coupon kick and had enough laundry soap for a year! Well we just ran out so I am back to making my own. I actually prefer making my own because I know EXACTLY what goes in it. A big thank you to my friend Coretta for inviting me over and teaching me this skill! This is literally so easy my littles can almost do it by themselves. You will need 3 ingredients all found in the laundry section of your local grocery store. Borax, washing soda and fels naptha.

Grate 1/2 a bar of fels naptha in a sauce pan. Some people use the whole bar and some use 1/3. I like to use a half. Reanna does this part all by herself :)

Pour 4 cups water and heat on stove, add 1/2c washing soda and 1/2c borax. Stir until dissolved. Reanna helps with this part too.

Previously I used a 5 gallon bucket to mix and store mine in, however I couldnt find one this morning so I used these.

Ok now pour the dissolved soap mix into the bucket and add 1 gallon plus 10 cups and stir. Nicky and Reanna took turns stirring.

I separated it into 2 buckets because I was worried about spilling. Then I added 6-7 drops lavendar doTerra essential oil, stirred and put on my laundry shelf. 

Which means now I am out of excuses and better get my laundry caught up! 

Pallet Garden Box

So one of the things on my honey-do list was to build a garden box. Materials: 3 pallets shanked from behind various businesses, 3 hammers, one box of 5d nails, 3 really tall guys, the sweat box that is the garage, one fan why we dont know, and about a half a case of water. 

Step 1: disassemble pallets

Result: 6 gallons of sweat and about a hundred bent nails later, 6 piles of really crappy wood, but FREE wood. With only 8 cuts to the 4x4's and another 45 minutes of sweat pouring off os us like a waterfall in Yosemite; POOF!

A roughly 6x6 garden box. Now we're ready to get dirty!

We mixed equal parts peat moss, vermiculite, and humus-gro. Have you ever played in the sand as a kid? Well this was exactly like that, except, the sand was black and a little smelly, and stuck to our sweaty arms like molasses on a pancake. The result is a rich, black canvas which will produce a palette of colorful, homegrown vegetables. 

The final touch before planting was a twine checkerboard to separate our veggies.

Voila!