Ok, I kinda suck at this blogging thing...

But, in my defense, it is kind of hard to keep up with when you're watching an 8 month old who does nothing but scream and cry all day. Unless you happen to be holding/carrying him around 100% of the time. Which means that, in addition to the other energetic little ones running around my house, I'm mentally exhausted at the end of the day and have no energy to even attempt anything creative. I'm serious. I feel like my brain is leaking out of my ears some days.

However, on the upside, my latest DIY project was quick, easy and pretty stinking cheap.

I made my own laundry soap. Yep, laundry soap! I'm feeling pretty awesome. The first load of clothes is in the washer right now, so we'll see how it goes. :)

For those interested, I've listed the items & prices below. You can find them in the detergent aisle at Walmart.

And yes, I found this on Pinterest. Which is kind of like crack for DIY, crafty females. I find myself browsing it all. the. time. How did I ever live without it?!

Ok, ok, enough drooling for Pinterest. Onto the laundry soap!

The Ingredients:

1 4lb box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda @ $3.24
1 4lb box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda @ $2.12
1 4lb 12oz box of Borax @ $2.98
3 bars of Fels-Naptha soap @ $.97 per bar
2 containers of (or 3.5lbs) of store brand Oxyclean @ $1.98 per container

So, before taxes the cost was barely over $15. And this is supposed to last 9 months or more! Considering our laundry detergent, even with coupons, is close to $10 per bottle this is an amazing way to save.

The Process:

After grating the bars of Fels-Naptha (I used my food processor, which worked extremely well) you dump all the ingredients into a garbage bag that's stuffed inside of a 5 gallon bucket. Or in my case, a storage container since we didn't have any buckets handy.

Final Product:

This gallon jar cost me $4.97. Now, it didn't hold all of the laundry detergent, so I'm keeping the extra in a rarely used Tupperware container until we need to use it. It's currently sitting on my laundry shelf in the laundry room underneath this little guy.

Yay for saving $$!! Since both Lily and B tend to be rough on clothes, I'll be using 2 scoops per load of laundry. But there's so much that it really should last us a good long time before we run out.

Hope you all found this useful! :)