Category: Stuff I’ve taught myself

When I’ve dared myself to try something new!

Posted on

Soap sud success from Lynne’s Lab

“Anyone’s life truly lived consists of work, sunshine, exercise, soap, plenty of fresh air, and a happy contented spirit.”

Last week I had a blast in my kitchen. I blogged about making my own deodorant, and how that led me to try making more household items. (Here’s the link in case you missed the first Lynne’s Lab.)

My first experiment was to make liquid soap to refill my dispensers. I stumbled upon instructions on About.com’s Frugal Living. I had all the ingredients, so, why not try it! Using that basic recipe, I grated a four-ounce bar of my favorite bath soap, Trader Joe’s Oatmeal and Honey. I brought four cups of water to a boil and took the pan off the burner, then slowly added the soap shavings, and stirred until the soap was dissolved. Once it dissolved, I let the soap rest 15 minutes and stirred it again.

The mix sat for a couple of hours and cooled (almost completely). It was a thick, gloppy mess, and I thought I had ruined it and wasted my time. But, not to be defeated, and taking a tip from the instructions, I modified things a bit. I took the soap, dumped into my blender and added a 1/4 cup of hot water. Then I blended it – it looked like a super-yummy milkshake! With the help of a funnel, I poured the warm mixture into the dispensers and it worked beautifully. It has a light fragrance and rinses well. No globs, either.

I made about 1.5 quarts of liquid soap for about a dollar. To store it, I placed the leftovers in a canning jar. The next batch I make, I plan to add a little essential oil of lavender. Not only do I love the fragrance, lavender has a calming effect and has antiseptic properties. I’ll let you know how that turns out.

After I made the liquid soap, my next project was to make liquid laundry detergent. The formula I followed made three gallons, and my cost estimate is probably about $2. The are three ingredients: one bar of Fels Naptha soap, grated; 1 cup of washing soda and 1 cup of Borax. Oh, and water 🙂

Put the soap shavings into a four-quart pan, add water about half-way up and cook on medium-low, stirring until shavings melt. Bring to a slight boil then add the dry ingredients, and stir until dissolved. It can boil over easily, so be careful!

Using a glass measuring cup as a scoop, pour equal amounts of the detergent base into the gallon containers. (I used rinsed-out milk containers.) Add hot water to the halfway mark and shake each container well. Lay containers on their side overnight. Solution will gel, like a big yellow glob! Using the handle of a long spoon, break up the gel and add hot water to the container – a little at a time – and shake until well blended. (Don’t fill completely to the top.) Because Jillee, the blogger who posted this detergent has excellent instructions, just click on this link for the complete process and follow her photo guide. Trust me when I tell you she did a great job in making this venture simple and easy to follow.

For ease of use, I poured some of the detergent into a well-rinsed liquid laundry detergent bottle. I use less than half of the measuring lid for a full laundry load. I gave a gallon of detergent to my daughter to try, and the consensus between our two households was that clothing seemed cleaner, brighter and softer. My daughter remarked that a grease stain that she thought was permanently set in a shirt actually came out using the homemade detergent.

Between the two soap making ventures, I spent less than two hours in the kitchen, and that includes hand-grating the bars of soap. Would I do it again? You betcha. Not only is this economical, but there is a tremendous feeling of satisfaction by saying “I made it myself.” And I’d like to believe that both soaps are better for my family’s skin and better for the environment, too.

Stay tuned for my next experiment…

Do you play mad scientist in your kitchen? If so, what do you make?

© 2012 – Lynne Cobb

Posted on

Straight out of Lynne’s Lab

I’ve been creating stuff in my kitchen again…

There really is a method to my madness. When my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, I did what many others do when a loved when gets handed a dreaded diagnosis – I researched. Lots of reading and weeding through pages and pages of info; endless discussions with doctors, social workers and friends about dementia.

Then, I started making changes in my own life, as I’m sure others have done, too, if there is even a remote chance that genetics play a role in your loved one’s disease. I was trying to reduce the amount of household chemicals we used, and also trying to eat organic foods.

In my hours of reading, a saw more than once that there may be a link between aluminum and Alzheimer’s. Aluminum can be found in cookware, baking powder and antiperspirants/deodorants, too. Needless to say, I started reading labels and purchasing items that were aluminum-free… which didn’t work so well with deodorants. I tried several different brands, salts, etc. No luck.

About that time, my mom started forwarding information on the benefits of coconut oil with Alzheimer’s patients. The information is amazing, and can be found by doing a simple Google search. So, after doing a lot of reading, I started to incorporate coconut oil into my diet and also use it as part of my skin care routine.

Yet, I was still frustrated that I couldn’t find a decent deodorant. And with my dad’s disease progressing, I became too distracted to care.

A few months after Dad passed away, and I came back to the land of the living, I decided to look online for homemade deodorant, and was successful in my search. And, well, because I am me – a rather impatient person – I tried the one recipe that listed the ingredients I had on hand – baking soda, cornstarch and coconut oil as I wanted to try something…NOW!

It worked!

In the past few months I have had some teenage gals try this potion, and they are liking the results. The ultimate test came when my hubby tried it, did yard work in some seriously high heat, and he was really pleased with the effectiveness. (Note – you will perspire as your body was designed by God to do, but the deodorant will do as it is designed to do – deodorize.)

If you want to try it, here goes:

1/4 cup baking soda + 1/4 cup cornstarch + 5 tablespoons of melted coconut oil. (Your best bet is to use organic ingredients). Mix until ingredients are smooth. It is like a paste, and you just massage it in. Use about a dime size. (You can add essential oils if you like, see link below for details.) Sometimes the coconut oil can solidify, so should that happen, you will need to warm it in your hands so it is spreadable or run the container under warm water. I use small refillable containers for storage.

My success with this venture inspired me to try other items off the same website, www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com (also on my BlogRoll). Today I made three gallons of liquid laundry detergent and a half-gallon liquid hand soap. But here is where “Miss Impatient” (me) will be tested, as I have to wait overnight for the soaps to thicken before I can finish making them. So it will be sometime tomorrow before I can use them!

Please stay tuned, and I will post the results in a day or two.

Have you tried making any personal or household cleaning products? If so, share in the comments section 🙂

© 2012 – Lynne Cobb

Posted on

Wrapped in a prayer

“Pray, and let God worry.”  — Martin Luther

I absolutely love to knit, and though I’m still a beginner, it is something I really enjoy.

I honestly don’t remember where I initially learned. Memory says my great-aunt taught me, but my mom says it was her. All I can tell you is that as a youngster with a set of knitting needles in hand, I was really uncoordinated and rather confused with the process. So I crocheted instead.

As the years progressed, I became quite proficient at crocheting, but I always yearned to knit. Then I was busy raising four kids so the crafts, needles, yarn and such were stuffed in boxes and forgotten about.

It was so enthralling to watch someone just knitting away – witnessing something beautiful being made in brilliant color and a soft, comforting texture. So, about five years ago, I bought a how-to book and re-taught myself.

A simple kitchen dishcloth was my first successful project, and I have a drawer full of them to prove it! From knitting dishcloths I learned to make a baby blanket – which was simple because it was basically the same pattern with more stitches. And from that blanket I started making Prayer Shawls.

When I’d accompany my mom to my dad’s doctor appointments, I usually brought my knitting. It helped soothe me, because anyone dealing with an Alzheimer’s patient knows that with each doctor appointment or test, the family will most likely hear that the is patient getting worse, not better. And so one of the first prayer shawls I made, I gave to my mom.

The beauty of a prayer shawl is that you can choose to make it for someone in particular (which I have) or make one and donate it to total stranger (which I have done, too). I made a soft-pink shawl for a neighbor with breast cancer, a few shawls for relatives, and a few for several for people that I never met.

Beginning each shawl, I’d thank God for the ability to use my hands for His work, and then to ask Him bless the person who would receive the shawl. I’d pray for the recipient to feel God’s comfort, seek His grace, and that when they needed a big hug from God, they’d put the shawl around them and feel His touch.

Last July, my mom and I were getting my dad admitted to a nursing home. I can’t even begin to articulate the sense of loss we felt. I tried so hard to keep my composure, but once I got home, I completely broke down.

I went to visit Dad the next day, and there was a brown throw on the chair at the foot of his bed. I picked it up and handed it to a nurse’s aide, explaining it didn’t belong to my dad.

With a gentle smile, she said it was in fact his.

“Someone makes and donates prayer shawls to our new residents,” she explained.

With tears in my eyes, I covered my dad with this shawl that was made with the love and prayers of a total stranger. Maybe the knitter went through placing a loved one in a nursing home and knew extra prayers were in order. It was in that moment I realized just how comforting a prayer shawl is to the recipient.

I just wish I could personally thank the person who was so generous with their time and talents. I’m guessing the best way to say thanks is to pay it forward.

Have you made or received a Prayer Shawl? Feel free to share your story.

© 2012 – Lynne Cobb

Posted on

Embracing my inner “geek”

Last summer, I remember there was a really, super-hot day towards the end of June. At the time, my dad was in the hospital. I couldn’t focus on much, so I hopped on Facebook and posted something silly like, “It’s hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk”.

And the conversations began.

“I always wanted to try that,” replied someone. “Does it work?” asked another.

Admittedly, I have always liked science experiments. Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes, Mentos in diet soda, watching celery sticks and Queen Anne Lace drink up food coloring, microwaving almost-stale Peeps…the list goes on and on. So when my cousin almost double-dog-dared me to fry an egg on the sidewalk, what was I to do?

Out the door I went, egg in hand. And a camera, too. Then, like a giddy school girl, I’d run back in the house to update my followers on my experiment. And for the record, the egg started cooking. Kind of a soft-scramble due to the way the egg hit the ground. I was laughing and taking pictures. I’m glad the kids weren’t home, because they’d have been mortified to know that people walking their dogs were staring at me. But I digress.

Of course, I shrugged off the incident as therapy for a rough time period in my life. But the other day, while I was cleaning, that summer-time experiment memory came back and hit me like a ton of bricks.

Then it struck me – I might be a geek.

Serious – I think I am! Maybe because I did some techincal writing recently and learned about things like cloud-based applications and gigs of data and cool stuff like that, but I think there really is a geek hiding within!

Here’s why. We live in what designers like to call “mid-century modern” house. Basically, it’s a small ranch a little older than me, that has a old bathtub that refuses to come clean. Each week I’m scrubbing the blasted thing to no avail. Stinky cleaning products in hand, I run in to the bathroom, hold my breath, spray and scrub until I need to breathe, run out of the bathroom, gasp for air, plug my nose and repeat.

Until I decided enough was enough. This week would be different. And, like a semi-mad scientist, I started to experiment with less-stinky, homemade cleaning products.

A sinister smirk appeared when I started to sprinkle baking soda everywhere. Then, with my trusty spray bottle in hand, I doused the baking soda with the vinegar. Bubbles erupted and fizzing hisses greeted me! This was both entertaining and educational – and it worked! Boy, did I have a blast! Who knew cleaning could be so much fun! Plus, I could breathe while scrubbing, which made my job so much easier!

Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier? It’s not like I haven’t played (safely) as a scientist before. I’ve made my own laundry detergent, mixed my own Easter egg dye and made window cleaner. I’ve helped my kids with science fair projects. Where was my head?

Gosh, I wish I hadn’t ignored my inner geek, because when I did embrace it, cleaning the bathroom was, well, it was kind of fun.

© 2012 – Lynne Cobb

Posted on

Random ramblings…

New to blogging, I am trying to add pages while trying to overcome this serious writer’s block! (Why is it that while I am driving around town, great ideas pop into my head. And just as I sit down to share my profound thoughts with the world – poof! – gone!)

But back to the pages I am trying to add…I’m trying to figure out how to add pages so that I can post other topics in addition to my “Random Ramblings.” Useful pages, like dealing with loved one’s facing serious issues. I cite my dad’s Alzheimer’s…a friend’s unemployment that is leading to a financial scare, etc. You get the idea. I’m looking for posts as to how others deal with life curveballs.

I also want to add a “blessings” page, so that we never forget that even when things appear bleak, we’ve been blessed beyond measure.

So, wish me well as I continue to expand my blogging horizons!

Posted on

Finally!

A-ha! I have entered into a new phase of writing! My blog will be a combo of random writings, links and previously published articles. Be patient with me as I navigate around building my blog!

%d bloggers like this: