DIY Laundry Detergent

One of my first pins from pinterest was DIY laundry detergent. I finally got around to trying it last week. You can find the original post and tutorial I followed here.

I cut the recipe in half for my first go around, so as to not waste ingredients if I didn't like it.  So I used:

1/2 bar of soap
1/2 cup of washing soda
1/2 cup of Borax
1 gallon of water.

First grate 1/2 bar of soap into 1/2 the water. Stir occasionally until soap is melted. This took quite a bit longer than I expected.

Next add the washing soda and borax. Bring to a boil. Transfer off heat source.

Add the other half of cool water. Once the mixture is cool(ish), transfer to container of you choice. I found the gallon container at the dollar store.

After a day or so, the liquid will thicken up a bit and become more the consistency of liquid detergent. I used it right away because I was out of detergent. It worked great! The original blogger says that it will not create suds, and I found this to be correct. 

I am still looking for the perfect "scoop" get detergent from the container. Looks like another trip to the dollar store!

I absolutely recommend trying this pinteresting money-saver!

Menu Planning

Menu Planning is new to our home routine. I never really considered worrying about menu planning until I started seeing a lot of pins about it on Pinterest. I've tried it for several weeks now and here are some things I've learned....

1) Be patient. I think it takes some time to really get it figured out. Any blog you read or tool you get from the internet is really just going to be a starting place. Any menu plan will have to be adjusted for your eating habits and family size. And honestly, the amount of information out there can be a bit overwhelming. Just pick a spot and jump in and try it!

2) Be consistent. This is a downfall for me. I haven't picked a day in which I really make myself to this. Some of this goes back to tip #1. I planned a bunch of meals and it turned out we had way more meals and leftovers than I had thought we would have. One week of menu planning turned in to two and a half weeks of food!

3) Be creative. I adapted my own menu planner in excel. The inspiration can be found here. Her's is obvious way more cute! It costs a few bucks but I think it is totally worth it.

This image is just a picture of my excel document. If anyone ever actually reads my blog and wants the actual document, I will figure out how to send it. But it was actually fairly simple to figure out. Again see tip #3, be creative.

The good news is we are saving money! And I feel better because we are more conscientious about eating all leftovers.

DIY Pan Spray

This is a simple little idea I found on Pinterest. The original pin was from here. I didn't even look at the website until just now. Someone had written in the pin comment to combine one part olive oil with five parts water, and voila! To be honest, I didn't even measure, I just eyeballed it. I've used it several times now, and it works really well.

Just remember to shake it before each use because the water and oil separate as it sits.

Fun with Toilet Paper Rolls :)

There are tons of pins and tutorials on pinterest about using toilet paper rolls to create your own artwork. The original pin I saw is here. But I mixed it up quite a bit. Sorry no pictures for a tutorial. I wasn't envisioning blogging about this stuff at the time I made this. But it is fairly simple. I bought a 3-pack of shadow boxes at Big Lots. I glued scrapbook paper to the backs of the frames and then glued the toilet paper roll shapes to the lined backs. You can follow the link above to make the toilet paper roll art.

Here are a couple pictures from the whole wall collage. The owls are from Pier One.

Oatmeal Bake

"I don't like to cook." One of the stories I've always told myself.  I am slowly letting go of this story after being inspired by Pinterest. Through Pinterest, I have found some great blogs about eliminating processed foods (such as 100 day of real food). Jarod and I have been working towards the goal of eliminating as much processed foods as possible. We've been trying to make as much from scratch as we can. This means a lot of time in the kitchen, but we are liking the results enough to make the time investment. We'll see how it goes when school starts up for both of us in a month or so.....

In the meantime, this is an oatmeal bake I saw on Pinterest. I've made it twice now. The original link/recipe is here. Funny thing is, I haven't followed this recipe exactly either time. I didn't use the orange zest or Chinese five spice either time. Those aren't ingredients I had on hand either time, so I skipped them. Also, I've substituted the fruits both times. The first time I used fresh peaches from Jarod's parents' garden (super yummy). The pictures below are from this morning's batch with banana and chocolate chips. This recipe will be in our breakfast rotation from now on. I like being able to make my own combinations, and it is fairly quick. It went faster on my 2nd attempt, so I'm sure it will keep getting faster. 

I've been leaving the recipes I find on Pinterest and using my laptop to cook. I find this eliminates a lot of paper. I'll wait until I've made something several times before I print it and put it in my recipe binder. This one is a keeper for sure!

See...

Hope you enjoy! Please comment if you find a yummy combo!