F is for Frugal (and fragrant!)

The past month has felt like a holy hurricane.  Between teaching Bible study, other speaking engagements, moving (fast!), getting sick, and  flurry of church functions, it has been a wonderful mess of activity. I love it, but needed to discover a way to ensure my soul didn’t get trampled along the way. Yes, times up early with the Lord, yes stopping to pray and remember His grace, yes, practicing gratitude along the way. But you want to know something else that’s been helping?

Mixing beauty in with my household chores. 

Unpacking boxes, scrubbing floors, stocking shelves, cooking meals, sometimes my list of daily to-dos is void of much creativity or inspiration. But I keep finding that if I take 5 minutes, in the midst of a task, and create some beauty in my midst, I find myself refreshed, energized, able to continue in the sacred mundane routine.

Today my beautiful creation? Making frugal, fragrant, and beautiful laundry soap.

So, in all my frugal frenzy I’ve tried almost all of Tsh’s homemade cleaning supplies and toiletry products. I’m not a fan of the homemade dishwasher determent (my dishes were so cloudy it was embarrassing to give someone a glass of water) but the one homemade household item I LOVE is the home-made laundry detergent. Here’s how I make it and why I love it:

• Take some random bars of soap (Confession: here’s what I do with all those little bars of soap you use in hotels. You know how you usually use them once and then leave them in the shower? I keep them in a baggy, bring them home, then keep them all in a big ziplock and make laundry detergent!) So take some plain, mild (DRY) soap bars and toss them in the blender. Pulse until it’s a grated/powdery.  You’ll want about a cup of grated/blended soap.
• 1/2 cup Borax (very cheap at Winco)
• 1/2 cup Washing Soda (very cheap at Winco)
• 1 drop essential oil (optional).  I used Rosemary oil and then I use Mrs. Meyer’s Basil-scented dryer sheets (they were a gift). The laundry scent is heavenly and the cost even better!

So what’s the part that’s beautiful? Well if lovely-scented laundry soap for pennies isn’t beautiful enough … here’s where I had fun today. I covered my hot chocolate tin with beautiful paper from an Anthropologie catalog. Now my little tin of laundry soap looks beautiful sitting on my shelf, and makes me smile every time I toss in a load.