It’s been a while since I’ve posted.  I spent 3 wonderful weeks in Indiana visiting my family. It was full of birthdays.  It was my grandma’s 80th birthday, my mom’s birthday and my twin nephews turned one!  For their gifts, I used a couple of things that I had pinned on pinterest.  The first was felt blocks that used this pin as inspiration.  I used different colored felt and cut out basic shapes for each side.  I also made one for my friend’s daughter who was also turning one in August.  I made hers in more girly colors.

I also put their initials on one side of their blocks.

They were tested and approved by the boys!

Their other gift was inspired by this tutorial.  This tutorial is awesome and provides all the patterns needed for these Old MacDonald Puppets.

It took a while to cut out all the little pieces, but was well worth it.  They turned out so cute! I designed a carrying bag in the shape of a barn to store them in.

No farm would be complete without a tractor, so I added one to the back of the bag.

I added a little board book featuring farm animals.  I think it turned out really well and hope that the boys will enjoy playing with them.

They also got a sweet swing set that my dad built for them.  Owen is pretty excited about it, but Grant is still trying to decide if he likes it!

I was very happy to be able to be home to help them celebrate.  Happy Birthday to the two cutest boys I know!

OK.  So it’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted a pinterest post.  I never said I was going to do 52 consecutive weeks!  I have pinned several homemade cleaning products and wanted to try them out.  So I headed out to Wal-Mart this afternoon to get my supplies.  (I HATE going to Wal-Mart)  Not including my container costs, I spent $26.77.  From these supplies, I made dish washing detergent, laundry detergent, fabric softener, and homemade dryer sheets.  All of these products should last us for a long time, so I think that I saved a considerable amount of money already.  Here is what I got:

The first thing I made was dish washing detergent.  Mainly because our dishwasher and sink were both full of dirty dishes!  Here is what I used to make it:

I got the recipe here.  As suggested, I am using white vinegar as a rinsing agent.  We ran the first load through the dishwasher, and I didn’t notice much of a difference than with store bought detergent.  I am very happy with how it turned out.  It made a huge container and with only using 1 TBS at a time, it’s going to last for a long time!

The next thing I made was the laundry detergent.  I researched several different recipes before deciding on one.  I knew that I did’t want to use a recipe that involved cooking the soap.  I decided on using this recipe.  I didn’t get a picture of all the ingredients before I used them!  It was a very easy recipe and even easier when you get your husband to grate your soap for you!

It sort of looks like cheese.

But I don’t recommend eating it!

We poured all the ingredients into a bucket lined with a trash bag.  I layered all the ingredients as I poured them in to make it easier to mix together.

We ended up cutting a hole in the corner of the trash bag to make it easier to pour into containers.

My husband is going to try it out tonight on his laundry.  I hope it works out well because he is very doubtful about all of this homemade stuff.  I told him that I was going to make our laundry detergent and he said I was a hippie!  Oh well!  I guess I will use all the extra money that I save to go buy some tie-dyed shirts!

Next I made some fabric softener.  It’s very easy and you can choose any scent that you like.  I used this recipe.

You can use this fabric softener in your washing machine, but I used mine to make some reusable dryer sheets.  I just soaked plain white washcloths that I got at Wal-Mart in my homemade fabric softener.  I wrung out all the excess and put them out to dry.

Each one can be used about 10-12 times in the dryer.  I have enough fabric softener left over to soak them again.

Including the trip to Wal-Mart, the whole process only took me about 3 hours.  I’m very pleased with my results and will be very happy when I can by-pass the detergent aisle in the grocery store!

Alison

I think by now almost everyone has heard of pinterest.   Have you joined yet?  You should, it’s awesome!  It’s like a huge, on-line filing cabinet.  Instead of having a million bookmarks saved to things you want to go back to, you can easily find them on your pinterest boards.  I currently have 880 pins on 18 different boards.  I have a ton of quilts, sewing tutorials, craft projects and recipes.  There are so many great projects and ideas, I have decided to try a new pin every week for a year and share my experiences here on my blog!

The first thing I decided to do is an upcycled sewing case made from an old train case.  This is the original pin (sorry, source wasn’t available)

This one was cute, but I didn’t want to completely cover the case.  So I started scouring the local antique stores to find a case that didn’t smell too bad inside!  I finally found a blue Samsonite train case for $12!  I didn’t take a before picture, but this is basically what it looked like.

I had some old patterns that belonged to my husband’s aunt.  Most of them were from the 70s and had great primary colors on them.  I picked out the ones I wanted to use and went to Michael’s to get a few other stickers to fill in.  This is how it turned out.

I used a combination of mod podge, craft glue and hot glue to get everything to stick.  I hot glued the buttons on the latches and the measuring tape around the top.  I added the tiny rick rack around the top with fast drying craft glue.

Here’s a view of the top.  I used pieces I cut out from the pattern sleeve and stickers I found at Michael’s.  The sit, sew, swear saying on the top is my sewing version of live, laugh, love.

Side view.

Other side view.

This is a view of the back.  I used more of the stickers and added some buttons.  I also added my name on the back so no one would try and steal my awesome case! (and because I had A LOT of letter stickers left)

I used some of the actual pattern pieces on the inside.  My case didn’t come with the tray that goes on the top, so I am looking for one of those. I LOVE how my sewing case turned out.  It is the perfect size to put all of my sewing accessories in.  If I pack carefully, I can fit my iron and a small project in it too!  It’s a great size to tote everything to sewing days, guild meetings and retreats.  For $12, I think I got a bargain!  Stay tuned for next week’s pinterest post!

Alison