Sunday, July 3, 2011

Domesticity


I've been an absent blogger lately.
Fleur was home with a tummy bug & Ash all week with tonsillitis
Imogen has had a very sore thrushy bottom & thrushy mouth...which became sad thrushy boobs!
Boo hoo! And now she has decided that her maximum sleep during the day will be 15 min & waking 3-4 times a night...Bliss....NOT
And to top it all off, the house my lovely thought he'd be building in 2 weeks time, which was going to be our saving grace, has fallen through...Grrrrr
So now there are all sorts of crazy ideas being thrown back & forth. A friend of ours has suggested he try out for work with him, great money but away 10 days & home for 4! Whilst myself at home with the 5 babes. I'm not too keen.....super woman I am not!
On a brighter note, I have actually been doing a little bit of 'stuff''.
In the name of thrifty-ness I have made some rather styley dish cloths out of some old towels and over locked some nice cotton fabric onto one side. They work great, were FREE & look fab hanging over my taps!
Inspired by old towels I made Imogen some super styley bibs using the same principles.
Ta daa
I have also made a merino blanket for bubs which looks rather crap in the pic, but is cool I assure you (blowing my own horn she says) Its green on the other side with a green birdie. We are lucky to have a very neat factory shop down the Kapiti coast way,about 45 min drive, which is a merino knitwear shop. End of line & factory seconds, you get top quality merino for between $5 & $15 a metre. I have just got some neat mustard, sage, charcoal & black to make the kids some leggings...which leads me to another exciting thing...I have just discovered PDF patterns on Etsy. I know..I can hear the words slow & retarded being thrown at me, but this was rather exciting for me, I'm looking forward to making some winter coats for the girls.
One last thing before I become domestic goddess again & return to my mountain of washing,
I wanted to share with you a very cool & extremely cheap recipe I found here for making your own laundry liquid, & with Rhonda's permission I am sharing it with you:

Laundry liquid:
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax
1 cup grated soap (i used a cake of sard wonder soap but you can use anything really)
1.5 Litres of water
Essential oils ( I used 1 Tbsp of Lavender & 1 Tbsp of eucalyptus)
you don't need to add these if you're after an unscented product.
8 litres of cold water

Put the first 4 ingredients into a pot and bring to the boil, then gently simmer until the soap is dissolved.
Put this into a plastic 10 litre bucket and add cold water making the total up to approx 9.5 litres. Add your essential oils & give a good stir. Then pop into containers leaving enough room for it to be shaken as it will turn to a gel consistency. I kept mine in a lidded bucket, & refill an old eco store laundry liquid bottle as the cap measure is around 1/4 cup, what I use for each load.
This stuff is fantastic, very cheap to make. Safe for front loader machines. Smells fab & lasts our house of 7 for 3 months.
Happy brewing.





3 comments:

Notchka said...

All your makings look fab to me. Your so lucky to live close to Levana. My turn for a stupid question...where do you get borax and washing soda?

Widge said...

cool thanks for the recipe, that looks easy enough even for me to handle. and yeah I'm with Nin on, where does one find borax????

I actually had no idea that you had 5 kiddos! man I'm slow. Woah totally feeling your pain at the 10 days away thing :(

Anonymous said...

You have been quite productive with your makings...love them all :)
I make my own soap powder but must try the liquid version.
For those who asked, you can find borax at the supermarket in the cleaning isle or at bunnings :)

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