DIY Halloween Decorations

Halloween is just a day away and it can get costly to buy already made decorations. Here are a few things that I made this year for our Halloween party that only cost $15. 

I bought some Halloween masks at the dollar store, put them in glass jars and let a tea bag soak overnight to give a murky look to the water. I had to cut the elastics off and trim the masks to make them sit right in the jars but they look pretty good.

                                        

Where would Halloween be without the poisonous concoctions! I bought glass bottles and Halloween labels at the dollar store. I filled them all with water and added food colouring based on the label names. Vampire Blood I made red, Spider Venom was orange, Witch's Brew was a really dark purple etc... 

                                           

                  

I wanted to make simple table decorations so I bought styrofoam balls and Halloween themed flowers from the dollar store. I already had a can of black paint so I painted the styrofoam black and let dry. I cut the down the flower stems and pierced the ends through the styrofoam balls and replaced the spiders on the flowers. You could also turn these styrofoam balls into spiders with pipe cleaner and some eye balls. There are so many DIY projects that you can do to decorate for Halloween and stay within your budget. Happy Halloween!

How to unclog your drain without using draino

Remember when you were back in grade school and you did the volcano experiment. Who knew that would come back to you and be of use later on in life. That's right. If you have a drain in your kitchen or bathroom that is not draining right, all you need is baking soda and vinegar. Make sure that the stopper is out of the way before you pour your baking soda, I would say about a 1/2 cup. Then pour about 1 cup of vinegar down right after and let the magic happen. Let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then pour some boiling water down the drain to rinse it down. If you have a really stubborn clog you might need to repeat this step 1 or 2 more times. It's inexpensive and these are ingredients you normally have in your household. :)

2 Coconut Oil Soap Recipes

I've been making my own soap for almost a year now. I'm not even close to being an expert but have a pretty good understanding of the process. I keep my soap extremely basic and colour free because this is for my personal use and colour is just so that your bars look nice. I can close my eyes and pretend they're pretty. Haha So the easiest and best cleansing soap I've made to date is from straight coconut oil. I make 2 different coconut oil recipes. One is for laundry which is superfatted at 1% and the other is to wash hair and body which is superfatted at 20%.

Recipe #1 for laundry

33 oz coconut oil

5.9 oz lye

12 oz water

0.5-1 oz essential oil (optional, I don't use any scent)

Recipe #2 for hair and body

33 oz coconut oil

4.8 oz lye

9.6 oz water

1.5 oz essential oil (my favourite is lemon or peppermint bars)

Both of these recipes are made the same way. If you have never made your own soap before I would do some research on it first. The reaction between lye and water can be extremely dangerous if not done correctly. Always add the lye to the water to avoid this type of reaction and always wear protective gear such as goggles, gloves, long sleeves and mask. Safety first!

1) Measure out all of your ingredients. Make sure that the containers that you are using are for your soap making only. You don't want to cross contaminate with food.

2) Pour your lye into your water. I normally do this outside as the initial gases created can be quite strong. Once mixed I bring it back in the house. The reaction between the lye and water will make the liquid extremely hot so be careful.

3) Melt your coconut oil on your stove. Place a thermometer in the container to keep track of the temperature. You don't need the coconut oil so hot as coconut will melt quickly but you want the lye mixture and coconut oil to be about the same temperature when mixing. I heat my coconut oil to about 130-140° and then remove from the stove to cool.

4) Place a thermometer in the lye mixture and wait til the temperatures of both cool down to about 110°-120°. Some soap makers mix at different temperatures but this works just fine for me.

5) When the desired temperature has been reached mix the coconut oil and lye water together.

6) With a stick blender you will mix them together until you reach something called trace. You will know it has been reached when you mixture looks like pudding. This is the point where I add my essential oil. Do some research as every essential oil reacts different and might need to be added at a different step or temperature. Now back to tracing. It can take 5-10 minutes to reach but you will know when you get there. A blending stick is about $12 so please invest in one. I tried doing this with a mixer and it took about 45 minutes. Go buy the stick blender! lol

7) Pour in soap mold.  If you don't have a soap mold you can place parchment paper inside a loaf pan. 
8) Place in the oven at 165° for about an hour.This step will speed up the curing process. Normally you would let your bars cure for about 4-6 weeks to let the lye cure out of your bars before use. This oven hot process will speed up the curing process and could be used the next day or within a few days as long as the pH levels test normal.

8) Let your bars cool overnight and then take them out of the molds.

9) Test your bars with pH papers, the zap test or red cabbage test that I mentioned in my previous post 100% coconut oil soap recipe.

Voilà! Ready to use soap bars for laundry or for the shower. There are many on-line tools for soap making. I use the website The Sage to help with my lye, water and fragrance calculations when making a new recipe. Create your own recipes and have fun with it! :)

Make Your Own Washing Soda

Washing Soda is available in the laundry aisle at most grocery stores but every time I need some they are always out. That's when I did some research and found that you can make your own washing soda out of baking soda. All you need to do is pour a thick layer of baking soda on a cookie sheet and put in the over at 400° for about an hour. 

Baking Soda is something that you can find at every grocery and most often fully stocked.

                                                       

I got rid of my non stick cookware so I use my glass pyrex set. Doesn't stick and works fine.

I tried to take some pictures of before and after but you can't really tell the difference but before putting into the oven the baking soda looks like shiny flour and is fluffy. After when it has turned into washing soda it turns grainy and matt. If you still see some shiny parts it just means that your layer was too thick.  Just stir and put in the over for a few more minutes. That's it. When done let it cool.  Then your washing soda is ready to use on any of your DIY recipes. I use this in my laundry soap recipes. :)

DIY Fruit Fly Deterrent

With the unusually warm weather that has extended into October I noticed that I have an unusual amount of fruit flies around my house. There is a simple and easy method you can use to get rid of them. There are a few DIY methods but this is the one that I use because I always have the ingredients on hand. 

Items needed:

-Small dish

-Apple cider vinegar

-dish soap

Pour about 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar in the small dish. Then add a few drops of dish soap into the apple cider vinegar and stir. The dish soap breaks the water tension and as soon as the fruits flies touch the surface, they get sucked in and drown. Doesn't sound very nice and I do like nature but nothing made me happier yesterday then looking at the bottom of my small dish and seeing those little suckers. LOL 

                                      

I made 3 of these, 1 for my kitchen counter, 1 for my stove top and the last for my dining room table. It does not smell the best but trust me when left over night, it is worth it. You might have to leave this out a few days if you have a lot like we did. Hope this works for you! :)

New Soap Recipe - 100% Coconut Oil

So I'm fairly new to the cold soap process. I've made about 1/2 a dozen batches of soap and have a pretty good understanding now of the reaction between lye and water as well as tracing. The only thing that I was looking for was a soap recipe that wouldn't make my soap bars turn to mush after halfway used up and was probably my lack of understanding on the recipes I was choosing on-line. I experimented with a few different ratios and the last batch I made wasn't too bad which was equal parts of coconut oil, olive oil and lard (Crisco). I try to keep my recipes simple as these are just for my own personal use and want to make sure that the ingredients are easy to find locally. I did some research and found that some people use 100% coconut oil and superfatted at 20% which pretty much goes against the rules of soap making but people swear by the results. I tried a batch this weekend and even after the first day it was just as hard as the soap that you would find at the store.  There was a really good lather and felt good on my skin. Success!!  

These are the soap bars removed from their mold the next morning.

Typically you have to wait 4-6 weeks with the cold process method to wait for the lye to cure out of the soap. I use the hot oven process where you keep the temperature of the soap above 160° for about an hour. This speeds up the curing process. There are a few DIY ways to check if the pH is too high before using if you don't want to buy ph papers or like me didn't even know where to look for them. The old method from way back in the day is to do the ZAP test where you stick you tongue on the soap.  If it zaps like when you put your tongue on a battery, there is still too much lye in your soap and is not yet safe for use.  Another way is to puree red cabbage into distilled water, then filter the solids out. It is important to use distilled water as there are no contaminates it it. Put a few drops of the filtered liquid directly on the soap and if the liquid is still lye heavy it will turn green. If the soap is balanced it will turn blue. I've tried both methods and work, only depends if you have red cabbage on hand. Here are some pics below but please don't judge as I took these pictures when I did my first batch so the soap is not so pretty. LOL

               

The first picture is my filtered liquid.  I used a dropper to place a few drops right on the soap. In the last picture you see that the colour of the drops have turned from purple to blue showing that the soap pH is balanced and safe for use. 

DIY Laundry Soap

I've been using soap nuts for about a year now but am finding it harder to buy locally.  I've done some research and have made a batch of laundry soap with coconut oil soap bars that I made superfatted at 1%.  I grated the bars and added baking soda and citric acid. Use just like any laundry detergent and use vinegar as a rinse aid. This works in an HE machine as that is what I have at home. Worked very well. This is my new laundry detergent recipe. :)

The white bars on the right are the coconut oil bars superfatted at 1%

Final product with mixture of grated soap, baking soda and citric acid.