Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

I've made laundry detergent and fabric softener, so I decided it was time to make dishwasher detergent. 

It's something else that's really easy to make. Only 3 ingredients!

2 cups borax, 2 cups baking soda, 4 packets unsweetened lemon kool-aid

Mix it all together well. Use 2 tbsp. per load.
I put 1 tbsp. in the closed section of the dishwasher and the other 1 tbsp. spread on the door.

My dishwasher detergent has 25% less sugar! lol.
My endless collection of empty containers has really come in handy lately.

I only made a half batch, because I wasn't sure how I'd like it, but it turned out really well, and I'll definitely make a regular sized batch next time. 

Nearly everything in the dishwasher came out completely clean. A couple of things still had some stuck on food, but that happens even with the expensive store bought detergent. I'm pretty sure my dishwasher just sucks. All the clean dishes were great though.
I also put vinegar in the rinse aid compartment, and I think that's what's worked better than anything. Vinegar seems to work better than any rinse aids I've ever bought.


I used the recipe I found from this pin:

Source: Light & Spoon via Victoria on Pinterest

I'm also interested in the DIY Dishwasher Soap Packets that Stephanie from Lady with the Red Rocker made:

Source: Lady with the Red Rocker via Victoria on Pinterest

SOCS: NaBloPoMo

So I've decided that Fridays and Saturdays just aren't good blogging days for me. 

I'm going to try to blog the rest of the week from now on, but until I can get better at having blogs prepared ahead of time I'll definitely not be trying to blog every day.

It's not quite over yet, but I figured I'll use today's Stream of Consciousness to talk about my first experience with NaBloPoMo. 

I think it was really good for getting me into the swing of blogging. I liked having a goal for my first real month of this blog. I missed a few days here and there, but I don't mind it. I still feel like I accomplished quite a bit, and it will help me from this point forward. 

I want to slow down a bit in the near future and give myself a chance to get posts built up and written ahead of time, because for right now I've been writing every day about a project I also did that day. I want to get to a better point, so if something comes up I don't feel stressed to get something up since I'll have something ready to get put up anyway. 

I enjoyed having a place to go everyday after posting and seeing what others had written that day. I found quite a few blogs that I really enjoy through the NaBloPoMo page. I have a feeling I'll still follow it a bit so I can find more interesting people, but I don't like the pressure that it put on me for most of the month. 

Overall I feel a lot more comfortable with blogging than I did at the beginning of the month. I still have a long way to go, but I've now got 28 (this makes 29) posts under my belt, and feel like I've got many, many more to come.

 —

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes
• Write and intro to the post if you want, but don't edit the post. No proofreading or spellchecking. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Add the Stream of Consciousness Sunday badge to your post.
• Link up your post at all things fadra.
• Visit your fellow bloggers and show some love.

Avocado Bacon Swiss Grilled Cheese

I've been wanting something with avocado for a while lately, and had the idea to put it on a grilled cheese. Well, I decided that a normal grilled cheese wasn't gonna do it for me, and started thinking of things to add to it. I really enjoyed what I ended up with.

An avocado, bacon, and swiss grilled cheese.
It also had a bit of cheddar and some grilled onions.

I grilled the onions with some butter on the griddle and cooked the bacon (In the oven. I burn it on the stove every time.)

When the bacon finished cooking I started the grilled cheese. I just split the toppings between the two pieces of bread and put the sandwich together when the outside was done. It ended up being so good. I love the taste of the bacon with the avocado. So delicious! This is my new favorite version of grilled cheese. Can't wait to make it again.

And has anyone ever grown an avocado tree from the pit? My mom always did this when she had avocados, but I don't remember it ever actually getting past the root stage. I decided to try it on my own. 

 This e-how page has good information about how to do it. I know it won't ever make fruit, but I'm excited to try and start my own house plant.


I'm linking up to:

[Almost] Wordless Wednesday | The artiste's masterpiece

We were working on Garrett's 100 Day Project today, and he was having fun with the paint.
He kept saying, "I'm an artiste!"

I'm linking up to:

Comic Book Light Switch Covers

I have no clue where I first got the idea of covering a light switch cover. I know when I was in middle school I covered a couple of different switches in the house with pretty pictures out of flower catalogs. I got the urge to do it again, and this time I wanted something other than flowers. One of the local Dollar Trees gets old comic books occasionally, and I always buy a few. I usually give them to Garrett, but for some reason had a stack of them around that hadn't made it into his hands yet. I flipped through one of them and found a couple of things I liked, and cut them out.

This is something that's not very easy to take pictures for a step-by-step tutorial, because it's pretty self-explanatory.  

Basically, you just cut a piece of whatever you want a little bigger than the light switch cover. Then flip it over and use some mod podge to attach the paper to the switch plate. Since mine had a separate alien guy I also affixed him at this point. After it was stuck on I took my Xacto knife and cut in the rectangle hole in the center. I just needed the paper split enough to fold it back and add some mod podge to hold it down.
Once everything is stuck on good I do a layer of mod podge over the top to really keep it on. Make sure all the edges are folded around to the back and very secure. 

Then, just let it dry really well and do another layer of mod podge to seal it. 

For this Superman one I put on some tissue paper first then added the picture of him. As you can see, the screws stand out, because they're still the boring off white color, but you can paint them in a similar color and they'll look a lot better.

I think these would be great in a little boy's room, but I'm just using them in my living room for now. It's full of other geekery, so this fits in perfectly.

I've got plans to make lots more of these. I love the ability to use any images or pretty paper I can find. I'm imagining all sorts of possibilities.

I'm linking up to:

Homemade Fabric Softener

So a couple of weeks ago I made some laundry detergent (you can see that post here), and I wanted to make fabric softener at the same time, but needed vinegar. I finally remembered to pick some up at the store, and immediately had to make the fabric softener.

I found this pin:

Source: A "REAL" Housewife and Mommy via Victoria on Pinterest

Her post actually also has a liquid laundry detergent and an OxiClean recipe in it. I may try the OxiClean at some point too, but for this I was just interested in the fabric softener. 

I've mentioned it before, but anything with just a few ingredients automatically is great in my book. This only takes white vinegar, conditioner, and water. 

I used Pantene, but that's just because it's what I had on hand. Most others I've seen making this have just used whatever scent of Suave they prefer.

 All you do to make this is stir 1 part vinegar and 1 part conditioner into 2 parts hot water. 

EASY PEASY! 

I couldn't get my conditioner to dissolve completely, so my mixture looks lumpy, but it looks pretty uniform, so I'm not too worried about it.

I was excited to try it out, so I immediately gathered a load of laundry and put it in. I used 2 tbsp in my washer's liquid fabric softener section.

Results: My clothes were soft. There wasn't really any scent left on them, which I'm still okay with. They smelled even cleaner than when I used only the homemade detergent, so I'm happy with that. They were fluffy when I pulled them out of the dryer, and felt like I'd used a commercial softener. I do use dryer sheets as well, but I got better results with this than with dryer sheets alone.

Speaking of dryer sheets, I recently saw a pin that recommended cutting dryer sheets in half to make the box last twice as long.

Source: TheFrugalGirls.com via Victoria on Pinterest

Let me tell you, this works great! I feel like I've just been throwing money away for so long. I've seen where people have dipped a rag in fabric softener to make a reusable dryer sheet, but honestly, I'm not even going to go to all that trouble now that dryer sheets essentially cost me half as much as before.

Overall I'm very satisfied with my homemade laundry pursuits. I may get some Unstopables at some point, because I love the smell of those, but I'm really not worried about adding extra scents to my stuff for now. I love the fresh, clean scent my clothes have without all the extra chemicals.


I'm linking up to:

Preview of the Week

I feel like today has flown by. I looked at the clock and it was 11:00, and I was shocked. I'm not sure where all the time went, but I feel like I was completely unproductive. 

So today's post is going to be extremely short, but you have lots to look forward to in the next few days.

I'm not sure what days everything will go up, but here are the posts I've got almost ready to go:
(I'll add links as the posts go up)

• Homemade Fabric Softener
• Comic Book  light switch covers
• Embroidery Hoop Screen-printing/stenciling
• Nail Marbling
• 100 Day Project 

I'd love it if you'll follow me, so you'll be the first to see when these posts go up. Thanks. :)