A Busy Little (ok, not so little) Bee

We all know I love to be thrifty. I saw a recipe for making laundry detergent! Normally, when I find a DIY for household cleaning stuff, it's usually really complicated, requires hard to find ingredients and a ton of time + equipment. I'm tired after just reading about making the stuff. The laundry detergent recipe was super simple though. The ingredients weren't super expensive or difficult to find. I was able to purchase everything at my local grocery store. I tried the powered detergent. There was a liquid version, but it required cooking and a 5 gallon bucket. I don't have a 5 gallon bucket, nor do I have storage for 5 gallons worth of detergent...yet.

Here are the ingredients:




1c. Borax
1c. Washing Soda (not baking soda)
4.5 oz bar soap (grated)

*optional - several drops of your favorite scented essential oil!

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and voila! I used Ivory soap. It was super easy to grate. From start to finish, it took about 5-10 minutes to make. How awesome is that? All the ingredients cost about the same as a bottle of liquid detergent, but makes a ton of batches and you use less detergent per load, so it lasts much longer.

The detergent works really well. I also add 1tbsp of baking soda to my wash as a booster. In a load of wash, add about 2tbsp of detergent. I found that it works best in a warm or hot wash, so that the bar soap dissolves.

After making the detergent, I was on a DIY roll!

I saw this creative tutorial for making recycling a man's dress shirt. Then, saw that my brother-in-law put a black & white, long sleeved dress shirt into a bag to deliver to goodwill. I asked if I could have it, in order to give the tutorial a go!

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures throughout the process. That's probably a good thing, though. Not having a pattern to use was harder than I thought. I'm a super novice...the last time I sewed more than a hem or button was in high school home ec. class. That was...well...not yesterday. Also, after screwing up a few times, I found my own, easier way to do certain steps.

Here's the almost finished product! I'd like the shoulder ties to be a little longer, but I messed up the first go round & almost ran out of fabric. Oops. Also, I need to make belt loops and do a couple of touch ups. What do you think?