How I Did It: Homemade Laundry Detergent (Lavender Fresh)

I've been making my own laundry detergent for a couple of years now. I don't remember exactly how or why I started - it was back in 2012. But I know I started with this recipe from the White Silk Purse. I've made a few tweaks here and there. Some people think I'm crazy, but some of you were actually interested in how I go about it. So here's my recipe:

You'll need:

• 1 box of 20 Mule Team Borax
• 1 box of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
• 6 bars of Fels Naptha.
• Lavender Essential Oil if desired (not pictured)
• Bucket or tub to mix items together

You can usually find all three ingredients in the laundry detergent aisle at most big box stores, but I had a really hard time finding washing soda this month. And yes, this is washing soda, which is not the same thing as baking soda. 

So once you have all the ingredients, grate the Fels Naptha bars. Yes, you can use a regular cheese grater - it is just soap, after all! After I grate one bar, I run it through the food processor until it is smooth, or at least as close to powder as you can get. Do this process with all 6 bars.

Now that the the Fels Naptha is a powder, mix with the entire box of Borax and the entire box of Washing Soda. It helps if you have a strong guy to help ;)

After the main ingredients have been mixed, add your essential oil. I used 15-20 drops in this batch initially because I didn't want to over do it. Decide how scented you want it and go from there. You can always add more - you can't take it out! Mix it up a little more to get the oil mixed in thoroughly.

Once you've done that, pour it into your storage of choice. I used mason jars. Once each mason jar was almost full, I put two more drops of lavender oil before putting the lid on and shaking it up. Again, this part is optional. I never needed this step before, but my husband's clothes tend to need some sort of additional fragrance to them! 

This batch made 5 quarts and 2 pints of detergent and took me about an hour to make. To use the detergent, simply put 2 teaspoons of the detergent into the washing machine. It's best to start the machine so water is flowing when you dump in the detergent. I also just use an average spoon instead of an exact measuring spoon - just find what works for you! This detergent is safe for high efficiency washing machines, for those of you wondering. The amount needed is the same as well. 

And that's pretty much it! This batch will probably last me the whole year, and I think it cost about $20. I also use wool dryer balls in the dryer now (DIY tutorial coming soon), so I don't have to spend money on dryer sheets either. That means that my laundry costs for 2014 will be $20 plus electricity and water. Not too shabby. Of course, there are other reasons for making my own. I'll be guest posting on another blog soon with details on why we should avoid conventional laundry detergents, so stay tuned for that!

Have you ever tried to make your own laundry detergent? What's your favorite recipe?

How I Did It: Shotgun Shell Boutonnières

I have to say, I think this was one of my favorite DIY projects from the wedding! I came across this pin on Pinterest a couple years ago, and when we started actually planning our wedding I knew they would be perfect. But I wasn't really sure how to make it happen. I found some pre-made ones on Etsy, but they were super pricey. So I decided to try it myself. How hard could it be? 

First, I had to find shotgun shells. Both my husband and my father made fun of me, because I ordered used shotgun shells from an Etsy seller when they could easily have given me some of theirs. But neither of them had lavender shells, and the Etsy seller did! So it was worth $15 or so to have the color I wanted. And I'm so glad I did because the color matched perfectly.

The shells sat on a shelf for several months before I did anything with them. I had to decide if I wanted to try real flowers with the shotgun shells or take the easy way out and use fake flowers. I decided to go fake. These were going on the groom and groomsmen, and Lord knows they would be rough on them. Fake flowers could be hot glued in place, wouldn't wilt, and could be reshaped if smooshed. And the fake flowers held up great in the 30 mph winds we had on our wedding day - I'm afraid real flowers would've blown out of the shells. So after a quick trip to Michael's and I had my fake white flowers and greenery.

I played with the flowers and greenery for a little while, trying to decide how the leaves should fan out around the flower. Once I decided what looked best, I wrapped the greenery and flowers together with floral tape. I totally failed to take pictures of this part - this was back in January when I was being a blogging failure. I then placed the flower/greenery combination in the shotgun shell. The flower stems were pretty pliable, so they stayed put in the shell for the most part. But again, these boutonnières are going on the groom and groomsmen, so I decided it would be best to hot glue those bad boys in place. A couple of burned fingers, a few choice words, et voila. Shotgun shell boutonnières.

I would like to add that my husband would be quick to add that I did not glue the pins on the boutonnieres when I did the project originally. He and one of our friends did that on the Thursday night before the wedding.  Here are some photos of what the boutonnières looked like on our actual wedding day.

Pretty perfect, right?

All in all, I think it took about 2 hours and cost about $35 to make 10 boutonnières. So that's less than $4 a boutonnière - a heck of a lot cheaper than buying regular boutonnières!

A rundown of the cost:

• Shotgun shells - $15.50 (including S&H from etsy seller Shotgun Shelley)
• Faux gardenias - approx. $10 (Faux flowers from Michaels, no longer available)
• Faux greenery - approx. $7 (green leaf picks from Michaels)
• Floral tape - $1 (Dollar Tree)
• Safety Pins - approx. $2
• Hot glue & glue gun - already owned

I absolutely love the way these boutonnières turned out - they matched our color scheme and theme perfectly. But I think they could be done in so many different ways. Succulents would be pretty fun to use instead of the white flowers I went with. And if you didn't like the color of the shotgun shells you had available to you, you could always wrap them in twine! I thought about adding a bit of twine to ours, but decided I liked them as they were :)

*All good photos are by Blue Elephant Photography

Editing Photos with ABM Actions

I've always liked photography. When I was younger I asked for a camera for Christmas. It had a panoramic feature and I loved it. I took it on a field trip to a local state park and took all sorts of pictures! I have boxes of old photos stacked up in my closet somewhere. I always had a camera around, but I never did much with it.

Then I started blogging and realized I needed good photos. I asked for another camera for Christmas, and this time I got a Canon Eos Rebel T3. That was a couple years ago, and I still don't know how to do much more than adjust the white balance of a photo! I've signed up for several online tutorials; I've even paid for an e-course that I ended up not accessing before it expired. So I've only used my camera occasionally the past couple years.

But I'm tired of waiting for the time to take a class. I still plan taking one, but it's silly to wait to use my camera until I know the "proper" way to use it. Besides, I've also learned one of the secrets to great photography: great editing!

I briefly dabbled with Photoshop Elements right after getting my DSLR, but I got fed up very quickly and barely used it. But after doing a little research, I decided to try Photoshop Creative Cloud, which is essentially a subscription to Photoshop. You pay a monthly fee and have access to Photoshop software. Here's the real secret, though. I decided to invest in some Actions.

What are Photoshop Actions? They are a series of recorded steps designed to achieve a certain look without having to manually go through the process. Basically, you click one button and 15 minutes worth of work is done in seconds. So I looked around at some of my favorite blogs to see what kind of photos appealed to me. One of my favorites, A Beautiful Mess, actually offers Actions packages! There is the Signature Collection, the Folk Collection, and the Fresh Collection. Or you can get all three plus bonus actions in the Complete Collection. Since I had a promo code from being a part of their blogging e-course (which I also highly recommend, by the way) I decided to invest in the Complete Collection. After less than 30 minutes of playing around with the actions in Photoshop, I already loved them!

Here are 4 examples of how I used actions to add interesting elements to my original photos.

This photo was taken at a bull-riding event in early 2013.

Not a bad photo necessarily, but I hate all the fluorescent lights.

I applied several different actions to it - this was the first photo I tried and I didn't write down which ones I used. It has a totally different feel than the photo above. (It also kind of looks like an Instagram filter, doesn't it?)

And here's a different one. I think I only used one action on this one. Still not sure the coloring is quite right, but the lights look less obnoxious to me here.

Here's another one from that night. My husband (then boyfriend) looks so happy, doesn't he?

I really liked this photo when I first took it, but now it looks a little white washed to me.

I applied the Georgia action to this photo, and I mostly like it. It added some shadows and a yellow tint. There may be a little too much shadow on his face, but that's because the shadow was already there from his hat, the action just enhanced it.

I applied the Spring and Harlow actions here. It looks a little old West and I like it!

I actually think the next two photos were taken with my iPhone, but I uploaded them to my computer and edited them in Photoshop. These were taken back in 2012 on our first camping trip together. (I don't know why I said first, we haven't been camping since!)

I love this photo as is. The Gloss Mountains (though let's be honest, these aren't really mountains - more like hills) were really pretty on their own!

This photo had the Weird Dreams action applied. I think it made it look like a painting.

I applied a Light Leak action to this one. It's kinda cool looking, but it takes away from the image.

Just a selfie, nothing special.

I applied Color Pop and Sun Flare actions here and I love it!

This was another fail on my part, I didn't write down which actions I used on this one. But it's another one that looks like an Instagram filter to me. Not that Instagram filters are bad, I use them quite often! But if I'm going to take the time to edit a photo in Photoshop, I don't want it to look like I ran it through Instagram.

I only used a handful of the Actions my first time around, but I'm excited to play around with the rest and see how they look! If you edit photos, what do you use? Have you tried Actions before?