Sometimes inspiration strikes.

They are rare, but I try to embrace the inspiring moments and hope that more creative ideas will see how welcome they are and come visit me more often.

Here's how it started:
I ran out of laundry soap.

I was rather shocked. I thought I still had a lot before I left (maybe Mike did more laundry than I expected!). Still, I wasn't worried. I was more excited than anything. While I was in Pocatello, I raided my mom's "Homemade" book and copied a bunch of recipes including one for laundry soap. So, this was a perfect opportunity to put off other housework and try out my new recipe!

Then I had a little problem:
I didn't have anything to put my soap in!

Ah, that one was easy. Owyn was playing with a Rubbermaid container earlier. That would be perfect.

Hmm. Now, as I was looking at it, I thought, "It's kind of boring." Laundry shouldn't be boring, right? It should be happy and clean and fun! (Keep telling yourself that, maybe it will help!)

So, I ran up to my little craft room and found some paper and a stencil and, best of all, some Mod Podge.

Here's what happened after that!

Hoo Hoo!

Yes, I cheer for myself. Don't you?

Now, I have a container for my laundry soap that makes me smile and that I can fill myself with homemade soap. Oh, it was a good day.

By the way, do you want that recipe? Here:

Laundry Soap

½ cup soap flakes
½ cup baking soda
¼ cup washing soda (check grocery stores other than Walmart for this. I couldn't find it at Walmart, but I found it at Shop 'N' Save)
¼ cup borax
1 clean 16-oz plastic container with lid

To make the soap flakes, lightly grate a bar of pure soap, such as Ivory (or Dove), on a coarse kitchen grater. (My advice is to use the really fine side of the grater (you know, the scary, pokey side) so you get almost a powder from the soap.)

In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients together. Store in a tightly sealed plastic container.
Use about ½ cup of the mixture instead of detergent in each load of laundry.

I doubled this recipe because I had about 1 cup of soap flakes from one bar of soap. The doubled recipe barely filled the bottom of my fancy container, so you might want to consider quadrupling or even more (what would be the word for multiplying it by five? Septupleting?) the recipe. The ingredients are cheap, so that's a plus too! Have fun!

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