DIY Powder Laundry Detergent

After reading countless Laundry Soap recipes online I found a mix that works for us.  I'm posting this mainly for my own reference because I cant seem to find my original recipe... Plus this makes a smaller amount (avg 1/3 of other bulk recipes) than many of the online recipes so it fits in my storage container. I have a long, narrow laundry room leaving little room for a 5 gallon pail. 

1 bar Ivory Soap
25 oz Borax
20 oz Washing Soda
20 oz Baking Soda
16 oz Oxy Clean (generic is fine)
1/2 bottle Purex Crystals (optional)

Put Ivory bar in microwave for 2 mins.  It will puff up like a marshmallow.

 Allow to cool completely. Soap will easily crumble into a fine powder (kids love this part).  You can put powder in a food processor (I use my Ninja) to blend finer if needed.



Add & mix all ingredients in a large bucket, transfer into a storage container.  I use the Mainstays 1 Gal Canister from Walmart to store all of this in our laundry room.  I like the fact that the lid screws on so there less chance of a spill should it drop or fall (plus it is super cheap).

 Add 1 heaping Tbsp to your wash & viola! Super soft, clean clothes at a fraction of the cost.  You can use Fels-Naptha if you like, I dont really care for the smell.  Zote is always an option too.  One batch usually lasts us about 4-5 months with five people living in our home.  We use vinegar for a fabric softener or deodorizer when needed.  Will never go back to expensive detergent. 

This mix will not create suds.  We have an HE machine and have not had any problems yet. 

10 days to go before the big bash!

I just wanted to say thank you to the small group of friends and family that made the trip to South Dakota for our private wedding ceremony. It was a great weekend, the weather was perfect, and everyone enjoyed the awesome dinner that followed at Roma's Italian Restaurant. We had a party into the night with friends in Deadwood, that was fun! Nicole, the boys, and I bounced around the Black Hills for a few days after the wedding, and had some fun family time, as you can see by some of the more recent posts and pics that my wife added to our blog. We all had a really great time!

Now that the ceremony is out of the way, its time to prepare for the big wedding celebration. It's been a work in progress, as you can imagine, a lot more DIY stuff, like the cupcake stand and the candy bar decor. We have some really good ideas for our table setups, it's going to look awesome! With only 10 days to go we still have a fair amount of things to get done, but like always we will knock it out of the park like rock stars!

Candy Buffet Sign...

Time to start working on all those DIY projects.  We have two weeks & I'm super busy.  Here's the sign I made for our candy table.  I started with a 12x12 piece of MDF.  The people at Lowes are nice & cut it down for me.  Also need a plate holder. I stole this one from my parents house.

I bought a can of black spray paint that I am also using on the cupcake stand (still in progress, post to come later).  I painted the MDF with some black acrylic paint I had on hand.  The plastic plate holder was painted black with spray paint.

I used my Cricut to cut out the letters & Mod Podge to glue them to the MDF.  The final result looks like this:

Invitation Invasion

The invitation invasion is in full swing.  The assembly process has taken over our dining room.  The address collection has taken over the office.  It's a mess but once we are done putting things together it will go very quickly.  I would start addressing the first 240 envelopes if my return address labels from Vista Print would arrive...  So here we wait, staring at paper, slowly working on things.  The tricky part is keeping the 3 yr old fingers off all this pretty paper...

Shoes!

Lovin' these pretty red shoes! Found them at David's Bridal yesterday & now they are on my feet. (Also got black shoes for the boys)

The cupcake stand was built yesterday too!  Next step is paint, fabric & misc. decor, pics will be posted when it's finished.  For a peek at our inspiration look here.

We were very busy with wedding things yesterday. The photographer is paid in full.  We secured a projector for the reception so the ceremony can be viewed by those not attending.  Now we are off to the fair for an evening with Buckcherry!

DIY Thank You Parasol

My latest project is a photo prop.  This is the parasol that I saw on Bride on a Budget

I used Microsoft Publisher to print Thank You in 750pt Edwardian Font. (Kristin, I still think it's because you are team Edward, just sayin').  Then I cut out the letters & lightly taped them to the back of the parasol.

No lie people.  This was not an easy task.  I traced very gently with a pencil so I didn't punch through the parasol.  Next was tracing with a black sharpie.  If I ever make another one of these I would skip that step.  The marker bleeds through the paper very easily.

Next step was paint, just simple, black, acrylic paint.  I used one of the boy's art paint brushes with a fine tip.  Again this was a tedious project...  The end result looks like this.  View our photos with parasol here.

Latest Creations...

Well before we started working on garage sale stuff (which is going rather well, almost all big furniture is gone) I was working on dressers for the master bedroom.  The boys have my dressers & Jamie doesn't have any.  I have way too many clothes, so a dresser is a must. 

Jamie found this Kent Coffey dresser on clean up week.  It was going to be sent to the local land fill.  I wish I had taken pictures of it before I painted because the dresser was awful looking.  There was peeling reddish brown paint that had to be sanded/scraped off.  After priming & painting it looks like this (still needs knobs):

Then a good friend gave us another small dress so I did the same thing... Sand-Prime-Paint for this end result:

Not bad for two free dressers... While I was busy painting the boys were working on their own creations.  For Mother's Day each boy decorated a cake for me at a local grocery store.  They were so proud!  The boy's figured it must be my birthday cake so they sang "Happy Birthday" many, many, many times that day.  It was very cute!

Toys & Books...

Playroom is done with the exception of wall hangings...  Here's the before book case. Found it on a local classifieds for $20. 

This is the finished product after a few coats of paint & some scrapbook paper.

The boys had to 'help' me line up their books on the shelf.

Red Rose Petals...

So we needed more rose petals for table centerpieces.  If you price petals out you will find that they are quite expensive.  I found a seller on Ebay with a steal.  I got 1000 petals for a few dollars.  The petals would have to ship from China, but reviews were good so I figured I could give it a go.  

Well the petals finally arrived in a small 4x6 envelope.  I opened it to find this...

It's 1000 petals all compressed together.  Each petal had to be separated.  It took three of us about 45 minutes to complete this project.  They were full of static so the petals were literally leaping out of the box even though we were using dryer sheets.  We now have a large shoe box full of petals.

Boy Room Decor DIY

So the boys need some wall stuff for their rooms.  I asked what they wanted on their walls & the response was 'I want a robot'.  Well, because it's two little boys I really don't want to spend much $$ on something that will probably get destroyed.  Instead I went to Lowes & had them cut a piece of MDF into 11x11" pieces.  Once I got home I painted the edges a lime color.

We selected 12x12 scrapbook paper & cut the paper to fit.  I coated the boards in Mod Podge & attached the paper.  Once this is dry you can sand down the excess paper on the edges.  The finished product looks like this... (apologies for the lil boy foot, he thought these were stepping stones)

These will hang on their walls & I plan to display their artwork above it.  The best thing about it is this was under $10 start to finish.

DIY Bird Cage Part 2

I finally finished the bird cage (as you already know if you read the previous post).  It was a fairly simple chore.  Jamie was lucky enough to get to help me.  First we measured out all the ribbons to the correct length.  Each ribbon was layered one on top of the other so it had this look:

Next step was to glue all the ribbons together.  We used hot glue & careful centered each ribbon.  When that was done I added the sign to the ribbon & glued it to the bird cage (again the lucky groom was my assistant).  Once the sign was secure I wrapped a red feather boa around the bottom of the cage & added two red feather hair clips to the top.  It's all done & looks like this...

DIY Bird Cage Decor Part 1

Well I could finish this project tonight, but the bird cage isn't here... So instead this turns into a two part deal.

I started by printing one of our monograms on white card stock & cutting out the monogram.  I sized it to be 5x5".  Then I cut a 6x6" piece of black card stock.  Next I used my exacto knife to cut two 2.5" slits in the black card stock.  The slits are for the three different ribbons I'll be wrapping around the bird cage & use them to support the monogram sign.  So far it looks something like this:

Well I wasn't completely happy with the product & thought it needed a little more.  So I went digging through my crafty lil tote in the closet & found a fine red ribbon.  I grabbed some Mod Podge & added a ribbon accent to the top & bottom.  The final product will look something like this...

I might remove the middle red ribbon & I might not.  I will figure it out when I attach it to the bird cage in a couple days.

Save the Date Photo Booth Style!

I have never used Photoshop in my life.  This DIY project took hours (no joke).  I made the signs with my new BFF, Cricut.  We then had a friend snap many, many, many, photos of us (super thanks Kristin).  The hard part was all the editing for a beginner.  Overall, the outcome is not too bad.  A special thank you to Getbrushed.com for supplying these wonderful Photo Booth brushes so i could quickly add the appropriate shading to the photos. 


Here's a peek, no one has seen these yet, including the groom!  I did the same images, one is just slightly darker than the other...

 While that isn't our wedding date, it is the date of our big bash that is sure to be crazy fun!  For those that know us, look forward to these images coming to a Facebook or inbox near you...  Enjoy!

We Made a Monogram!

Not bad for our very first attempt.  I used Powerpoint & we chose the font & clipart together.  The font was free & we downloaded it from dafont.com it's the Chopin Script.  The border was from Microsoft.  We will use this monogram to decorate several items such as the bird cage, invitations, etc.

I was able to find a couple more borders available for free download.  You can grab them here: http://www.eluckyme.com/home/2009/3/3/giveaway-thank-you.html.  After my great download find I quickly created two more monograms...

Glitter & Glue: A DIY Cake (or Cupcake) Topper

After shopping for cake toppers & seeing how ridiculously expensive they are I decided to make my own.  We found some cute, curly, wooden letters at the store I practically live at (Hobby Lobby).  We also found a red, wooden heart.  After some black paint on the letters...

I coated them with glue...  For the first coat I used my fave, Mod Podge!

I coated the letters & heart in red & black glitter... What a mess!  This took a while to dry... Then they looked like this...

 Everything needed two more coats of glitter so I used Elmer's Craft Bond Spray Glue. That stuff is sooo sticky! If you use it be sure to cover your whole work area because you will spray everything in the general area...

When I was all done I used the Mod Podge to glue the 3 pieces together.  I still need to add a dowel, which I will pick up at one of my many future Hobby Lobby trips...  The almost finished project looks like this & the best part is I did it for under $10!!

The Bird Cage

I want a bird cage card box.  Yes, that's right, a bird cage.  Every time I say it someone looks at me like I'm absolutely crazy...  It's not that off topic of an idea, after all, Hobby Lobby sells bird cages in the wedding section.  It is just a lil more mod than some would like, but isn't that why they call it Modern Bride?

I have been looking everywhere for bird cages.  I finally found one on a local classifieds site, however the lady wanted $40 for a used, decorative bird cage that I would have to spray paint black.  Instead of purchasing that one, I went shopping with my dad & the lil toddler boys.  We found a nice, black bird cage at TJ Maxx for $30.  My plan is to decorate this cage with a red feather boa.  I will also make a cute lil sign with my Cricut saying 'letters' or 'cards' or something along those lines... This sign will be attached with some pretty ribbon (which I've been collecting at my thrift store & Hobby Lobby stops). 

Here's a picture of my original inspiration:

DIY Centerpiece

A submerged flower or two is what I would like to do (minus the mirror). Our table colors will alternate black & white, so I may alternate the color of the rocks &/or candles too. The vase will be surrounded by rose petals (got those real cheap after Valentines Day at Hobby Lobby), and white votives...

Now if I can just find a great deal on the vases, I'll need about 25 of them... Any suggestions??

DIY Tissue Paper Pom Poms...

Originally we both wanted some Chinese Lanterns & tulle hanging over our dance floor. Our venue already has the tulle in place, we just need to purchase the lanterns.

Well, because we are on such a tight budget (we are doing this wedding for $5k or less) we are trying to pinch & save anywhere possible. Instead of Chinese lanterns, I'll be making Pom Poms out of tissue paper. They are so inexpensive, you can buy the tissue paper at your local dollar store. The pom poms are also so extremely easy. If you can fan fold paper & have 15 min, you can do these!

From Martha Stewart:
http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/article/pom-poms-and-luminarias

Hanging Pom-Poms
1. Stack eight 20-by-30-inch sheets of tissue. Make 1 1/2-inchwide accordion folds, creasing with each fold.

2. Fold an 18-inch piece of floral wire in half, and slip over center of folded tissue; twist. With scissors, trim ends of tissue into rounded or pointy shapes.

3. Separate layers, pulling away from center one at a time.

4. Tie a length of monofilament to floral wire for hanging.

You can make the pompoms in varying sizes by changing the size of your tissue paper. You can also play with color using one or all of your wedding colors.

DIY Cupcake Wrappers

Another oneprettything.com find. Think I might use the lil flowers, however, the cupcake wrappers will be overkill for our damask cupcake stand.

You can grab the printable here:
http://foodartparty.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-cupcake-wrappers-for-free.html

DIY Cake Topper

 

I saw this on oneprettything.com. This is a monogram cake topper made from foam board & some inexpensive rhinestones from Walmart. It's not the topper I'm going to do, but it might help someone.

You can view the tutorial here:

http://momtasking.blogspot.com/2010/02/diy-wedding-cake-topper.html#links