Where have I been??

So, I haven't posted in quite a long time. I've been tired and lazy and . . . pregnant. Yup, pregnant. The good news, though is that the first trimester is almost over and I'm not sick all day anymore. That means that I will be posting here more often, adding new items to my etsy shop, perhaps getting the mountain of laundry in the laundry room under control . . . and a million other things that have been neglected recently.

This wonderful streak of productivity will inevitably come to an end in several months, when my feet are swollen, I'm peeing every five minutes and I can barely waddle around the house. I'll try to enjoy it while it lasts.

It's almost September 13. You know what that means right? Sales! Search "etsyluckyday" on etsy to find lots of great sales on the 13th of every month. Check out a few of the items here http://luckythirteenclub.blogspot.com/

The miracle that is washing soda

So, before I started this homemade laundry detergent project, I had never heard of washing soda. Apprently, it will clean anything. Even, as it happens, silk screens. Yup, it cleans the screen filler right out of them. Who knew? I'll keep you posted when I find even more uses for it.

Mmmooooooo

I've had some requests for black clogs, and I finally got some in last week. I had lots of orders for my flame shoes, glass artists seem to love them. I also got a really interesting custom order for these, with cow faces. It was quite a challenge to work with the holes in the shoes, but I think they came out well all things considered.

Don't you love a good mustache?

Do you have a great mustache story? Or a great mustache picture, worthy of the mustache hall of fame? Well, this guy wants to hear it!

I just sold him. I'll miss him. . . *sigh*

Laundry detergent update

So, I've been using the homemade laundry detergent for about a week now. My clothes are nice and clean, I'm pretty happy with it. The only issue is that it seems to re-solidify in the bottle. I have to shake it really hard before I try to pour it out, and then it sill comes out in big lumps. For the next batch, I think I'll try to get my hands on some fels naptha soap and make powdered detergent.

So much laundry . . .

I decided to try making my own laundry detergent after finding this article http://natural-products.suite101.com/article.cfm/washing_clothes_for_pennies . For less than $1, I made enough detergent to do over 100 loads of laundry. Woohoo! It was really easy to do, and seems to work pretty well. I added a little sweet orange essential oil, but there's really not much of a scent to it. The only drawback is that after the mixture cooled it resembled a thick layer of soap Jell-o, which then had to be mixed in with the water underneath it. Kind of like the texture of cold gravy. On the upside, I filled all the empty detergent bottles in my house with my homemade detergent and won't have to make more for 2 or 3 months.

I also made some homemade dish detergent (the kind for the dishwasher) which is just equal amounts of washing soda and borax.