The Best DIY Dishwasher Detergant

Like many families, we are on a tight budget. When we first came to this life style, we had to look at what we could keep doing, and what had to go. In attempts to save as much money as possible, I began looking up DYIs. I tried many different DIY laundry detergents, some worked, some didn't. To be honest brand name laundry detergents have worked the best for us. We live in a VERY hard water area and don't have a water softener, so unless I used a ton of the homemade detergent, it didn't really clean our kids clothes.

Laundry detergent wasn't the only thing I tried doing myself. I tried making a couple dishwasher detergents too. The one that I found and liked the best can be found on the Eco-Friendly Family blog. I used this recipe for years. However, it wasn't quit perfect. Being the hard water area we live in, I had to do a vinegar rinse after every wash to rid the calcium clouds left behind. A vinegar rinse takes a while to dry. So, I had a clean and safe wash, but not perfect.

About two years ago I was in the grocery buying more Lemi Shine for my dishwasher detergent; I saw that Oxi Clean made a dish detergent too. I liked what Oxi Clean had done for my laundry, so I wanted to see what it could do for my dishes. Wow! What a difference! I no longer need to do a rinse after every load. I might need to do a rinse once a week, or every other week. The Oxi Clean detergent is made to be a detergent on its own, but with my recipe the number of washes you get TRIPLES and cleans just as well. (hooray for tight budgets!)

I like to keep my Super Washing Soda in an air tight zip lock
to keep it from clumping and hardening.

Dishwasher Detergent Recipe

1 12.7 oz container Oxi Clean Dishwasher Detergent

1 1/2  Cups Super Washing Soda

1/2  Cup Pure Baking Soda (cleaning, not baking kind)

1/2  Cup Sea Salt (any brand should do)

Toddler Leggings

So, we're still in the potty training process. That means Babycake is still wearing the little leggings I made for her a while ago. In order to ensure no accidents when we're home, Babycake goes pant-less. Since it's still below freezing out I don't want her to get cold, so she wears socks/slippers and leggings for easy access to the potty while staying warm.

Since Babycake is not yet 2, she really loves these leggings because she can "dress" herself. She likes to pick out which pair she will wear that day and proceeds to tell me "no" when I attempt to help her put them on.

Babycake looks awesome in the leggings. My husband says she looks like she's ready for Flash Dance. At the moment they are slightly too wide for her skinny legs and stay on best with slippers. They are also a bit long for her right now; they start above her knees and end below the ankle. One way to fix the width and length "problems" would be to roll the leggings. I've tried, but being a toddler means constantly running, rolling, and moving in general. The rolls/folds usually come undone. I don't see the extra length and width as a problem though because she will be able to wear the leggings for a couple years.

The pattern for the leggings is super easy. That's what made them appealing to me. I think that even though there isn't any fancy pattern or add-ons, they look good and can be matched with multiple tops. I got the pattern from Corina Gray's website Stitch.

Babycake's Baby Blankets

As I stated in my last post about my love for crochet, I'm relatively new at it. I only learned after having my daughter just under two years ago. The first crochet project I attempted and completed, was a baby hat with a little brim. Too cute! Soon after I finished that venture I decided to take on a very personal project. Babycake's great grandma had a tradition of crocheting blankets for every baby in the family. Grandma had the pattern picked and the yarn ready for the blanket, she even started the blanket. However, by the time Babycake was born Grandma had been battling Parkinson's disease for 20 years and was unable to crochet.

"Made Especially For You" tag
and picture on blanket.

Because Grandma could not crochet, she made Babycake a fleece tie blanket. It is beautiful, soft, and warm. The blanket is perfect, it is large and will be able to transfer to a "big kid" bed, but has Pooh Bear and friends on it so is still young. This blanket was by far my favorite baby shower gift.

 After sharing my new found love of crochet, I was given the baby blanket pattern and yarn. The yarn was girly, but it wasn't really what I considered "baby blanket" material. So I went and got new babyish yarn and began. 

Even though the concept of making a blanket seems easier than a hat, the baby blanket was much more difficult. This would be because the pattern in the hat was simply double crochet stitches. For the blanket I had to learn how to do a shell stitch and figure out how to make the blanket's edges straight while doing that stitch. I think it took me a month and a half to finish the blanket. Like the baby hat, I did a lot of starting, undoing, and starting over. Here is the finished product:

This pattern is called Innocence. It is in Baby Wraps: 8 Crochet Blankets. The design was created by Ginger Thomas.

A little closer view of the pattern.

Babycake loves both her blankets. She sleeps with them every night (unless they are in the wash). It warms my heart when she notices one is missing (due to needing a cleaning) and searches for it. I'm sure once summer rolls around we'll have to put the fleece blanket in the closet, but it'll come right back out in the fall!

I would love to share this pattern with you, however, I don't want to break any copy right laws. This is why I shared the title of the book in which it can be found, and the designer of the pattern. 

My Relatively Newfound Love of Crochet

I learned to knit in college when some of my girlfriends were doing it and I realized the cost of making a scarf for a Christmas present was MUCH cheaper than buying one. I made lots of scarves for lots of people over the course of several years. I had heard of crocheting, I knew a good number of people who could do it, but the thought of learning to crochet was daunting to me. How could it be easier, or faster, using one crochet hook instead of two knitting needles?

It wasn't until after Babycake was born that I decided to learn to crochet. I became a Stay-At-Home-Momma when I had her. So for the first few months we were at home- a lot. I got bored and wanted do something. My cousin had made an adorable sweater for Babycake and I wanted to be able to do that too. However, she had crocheted the sweater... I couldn't do that. Actually, what I really wanted to make was a hat for Babycake. She had out grown the hospital caps and other newborn size hats, but didn't fit the other hats we had waiting for her.

So I googled patterns for knitting hats. Did you know how much more work there is to knit a hat than to crochet one?! Well, I'm not really sure if it's a lot more work, but when you don't know how to knit or crochet in a circle, the step by step picture instructions for crochet looked a lot easier.

My mom came up to visit a lot those first few months and she attempted to teach me to crochet. Needless to say it wasn't very successful. She hadn't crocheted in over a decade and I am a bit of a perfectionist who likes to get it right right away.

So again I turned to Google. How did we function before the search engine?! I found a ton of adorable baby crochet hat patterns. However, I still didn't know how to crochet. Now I turned to YouTube. Voila! Step by step videos! Tons of free patterns! This was the place I needed to be. YouTube became my crochet instructor. By browsing YouTube I was able to learn multiple crochet stitches and begin my hat for Babycake. Here is the picture of the hat I was going for:

The Cheri Hat. Pattern can be found on the Happy Baby Crochet blog site:
http://www.happybabycrochet.com/2010/12/baby-crochet-hats-free-patterns.html

As a newbie to crocheting, this simple hat was a bit difficult. Mainly the brim was the hard part. The pattern is honestly an easy one. The instructions are simple and clear. Since it took me long enough to make the hat, I didn't go for making the flower too. I think over all it took about 1-2 weeks to make this hat. I did a lot of starting over. This is the finished product on Babycake at about 1-2 months of age:

The brim is not as long as the original picture, but what does a one month old really need a brim for? I'd say that for choosing to learn to make a hat as the first thing in crochet instead of a straight lined scarf or blanket, I did pretty well.

Since making this hat for Babycake just under two years ago, I've gone on to make blankets, scarves, mug cozies, ear warmers, and more hats. I enjoy making things for people and as a SAHM, crocheting has become a quick and easy way for me to do that.