DIY Laundry Fun :)

I love when it warms up enough to use my clothesline!! I've been hanging everything out to dry for over a month now and it's wonderful. I do have to keep an eye on the weather since we have had a lot more rain than normal. So sometimes the clothes build up and I get behind, but one load a day usually catches us up in no time. I am such a nerd - I hang the clothes up in the order I want to take them off the line. And as I take them down, I fold them up and place them in the basket. It just takes a couple of extra minutes, but then I can unload the laundry as I walk back through the house:

• Towels, sheets, blankets on bottom
• DH's and my clothes on top of towels
• DD's clothes on top of ours
• Dish towels, cloths, cleaning rags, and bibs on top since I walk through the kitchen first

For DH's dress shirts that get too wrinkly on the line, I let them dry completely then toss in the dryer with a damp sponge for 10 minutes. I can do a full load of dress clothes in the dryer and eliminate most ironing. I figure that it's saving us the electric from using the iron every day for 10+ minutes.

I also started making my own detergent. I thought it was too hard and was always turned off by the idea of having to grate a bar of soap into bits and then cooking the concoction on the stove. And with a toddler, there's no way I wanted a 5-gallon bucket of liquid just hanging around!! Last time I used the liquid no-cook recipe but it still was a mess. I needed to find something even easier to mix up and easy to store.

I found some recipes online, looked through reviews, and came up with one that is nearly fool-proof and SO EASY! It took me just a couple of minutes to mix up 32 loads worth. Here it is:

• 1 cup borax - box $3.38 @ WalMart
• 1 cup washing soda - box $3.24 @ WalMart
• 1 bar white Zote - $.97 @ WalMart

I used my food Ninja to mix it up. First pour in one cup of the powder - doesn't matter which one. Then cut the bar of soap into chunks and add it on top. Then pour in the other cup of powder. Blend it until well-mixed. Dump into an air-tight container and you are done! No cooking, no grating. 10 minutes or less. The Ninja can just be rinsed out well since it only had soap in it!

This makes about 4 cups worth of powdered detergent. I used 1/4 cup on the last jumbo load of laundry and it was too much. I think I will stick with 2T per load. But the clothes came out clean, smelling fresh, and most stains were gone. I tested it with DD's play clothes and DH's gym socks that he had just worn while mowing (grass stains, oil, and dirt all over the bottom from walking across the garage). There were some hints of stains left but I had to look close to find them. I was really impressed with the results!

Some reviews said they had trouble with the detergent dissolving in the washer. I added the powder first, and then added in about 1'' of hot water to the washer to dissolve, then switched to cold and added in the clothes. Seemed to do the trick :) If you have a front-loader you could always dissolve in a cup of warm water first if needed.

And for things that I know needed an extra boost, I mixed up some stain remover. Easiest thing ever :) It got out ketchup, deodorant stains from a white shirt, and random messes from DD's shirt.

• 1 8oz bottle peroxide (I got the one with a spray trigger - $1.23 @ WalMart)
• 2oz (2T) Dawn with Bleach Alternative

Add Dawn straight to the peroxide bottle, turn to mix. I spray this on EVERYTHING! Test it first on things you are unsure of for color-fastness, but I've not had anything bleach out yet. I buy the big bottles of peroxide to refill it with which brings the cost down even more.