Homemade Laundry Soap and Old Rusty Bed Springs....

By chance I happened upon a really neat recipe for making your own laundry soap from Heather's blog at Fall Creek Primitives. She makes the neatest prim stove and sink covers, you should go check her out. So I saw the recipe and apparently everyone is raving about how wonderful it is, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm glad I did cuz it's so easy and quick to make. Best of all, its super cheap! The soap ingredients only cost about $6, plus you will have leftover to make many more batches. Here's what you need:

Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap

*16 cups water (appx. 1 gallon)
*1 bar of laundry soap ( I used Fels-Naptha)
*1 cup of Arm & Hammer washing soda
*1 1/2 cups Borax

First, finely grate your bar of soap.
Boil the 16 cups of water in a large pot. While boiling, add your grated soap and whisk continuously until it completely dissolves, then remove it from heat.

Next add borax and the baking soda wash and whisk it up real good. Be sure you keep whisking it throughout the day as it cools, or it will separate on you (this is experience talking...LOL). It will start to gel up, but you can start using it right away.

Use ½ cup soap per load. (I use 3/4-1 c. on dirty loads)

*Keep in mind it will not be a runny liquid like the detergents we buy at the store, it is really pretty thick when it finally cools. Once mine was room temp I whisked it again really good and bought one of those big, 2 gallon glass jars at Wal-Mart (the ones that look like giant clear cookie jars with a metal lid) to store it in because its easier to scoop the soap out than try and pour it out of something. I bet I've washed 10 loads of laundry with it and it really works great! I remember the first load I did- I peeked into the washer while it was agitating and the water was so dirty...I couldn't remember the water being like that with my store bought stuff. It was getting all the built up soap residue and dirt out better. It was proof for me that it was a better soap, so I'm hooked! If you use it to wash a pretty soiled load, you might opt for a second rinse.


Now about the bed springs...I happened upon another mattress to salvage springs from. Once I started taking it apart, I was surprised to see there was no wire holding the springs & everything all together, but old strips of pillow ticking and heavy jute cording. Isn't that something? Of all the old throw away mattresses I've salvaged, this was the first I've seen like that. It was a big mattress, too. I think I got somewhere around 70 springs from it. I'll probably list them next week sometime on ebay...I haven't started any new dollies yet- I wanted to see how my witch was going to do first...and I see I have some bids *yipee!*, so I'm motivated now.. LOL. It's my turn to list something with PFATT now.....I got some ideas rolling around in my brain, but it'll have to wait till next week cuz I'll be gone until Sunday for a wedding in Nebraska....so I suppose I should quit flapping my gums and get packed and everything........Jody