BOO BOO PACK TUTORIAL

Boo Boo Packs are a great way to ease the pain from your little one's bumps and bruises. They are very easy to make. Basically it's a rice filled pillow. You can use them as cold or warm packs. Below are sewing directions.

Materials Needed
-Cotton fabric (at least a 11.5" x 11.5" square)
-1 cup long grain white rice
-Matching thread

Directions
1. Cut 2 rectangles of fabric 4.5" X 5.5"

2. Sew the 2 pieces of fabric together with the "right" sides facing inside toward each other. Leave about a 1 to 2 inch hole at one end. Make your seams 1/4"

3. Pull fabric through hole to turn right side out.

4. Using a funnel, pour 1 cup of rice in boo boo pack.

5. Sew up hole. And you're finished!

Store in freezer in freezer bag to store. Just pull out to use as a cold pack. To use as a warm pack heat in microwave for about 30 seconds.

As always if you have questions on any of my tutorials just ask. Thanks:)

Homemade Laundry Detergent
Is it really worth it?

I read a great article a while back on The Simple Dollar on how much money you save by making your own laundry detergent. I decided to put it to the test. Here are the differences in my experiment:

I make a powder laundry detergent which is even simpler than his liquid detergent. I also used the retail prices of the ingredients in my recipe. I think he used sale prices, but I wanted to show the very least amount of money you'll save. So I save even more money by buying the ingredients on sale. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
2.5 oz bath soap (I use Ivory. Any unscented or light scented soap works fine)
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda

Directions
1. Grate soap (I use a food processor. It takes a few seconds)
2. Mix soap, borax, and washing soda in a container with a lid
3. Use 2 tbs per load of laundry. (Many people only use 1 tbs, but I find 2tbs works best for me)

Boy , that's simple. It takes only a few minutes to make. I usually double or triple the recipe. You should be able to find the borax and washing soda in the laundry aisle of your grocery store. They are usually on the top shelf beside each other. I have had great results using this recipe. In my opinions its equal in quality to the more expensive detergents. Now onto the savings:

The recipe makes enough detergent for 25 loads if you use 2 tbs per load. Here's the cost breakdown:
$.38 One cup borax
.37 One cup washing soda
.30 2.5 oz Ivory soap
------------------------------
$1.05 for 25 loads.


Divide $1.05 by 25 and you get about $.04 a load. Now compared to other brands:

Homemade detergent- $.04 per load
Inexpensive detergent (I used Xtra)- $.07 per load
Expensive detergent (I used Tide)- $.20 per load

Next I'll use the average that The Simple Dollar uses of 1 load of laundry a day. This is on the low end for me. So per year your average cost would be:

Homemade detergent- $15/year
Inexpensive detergent- $26/year
Expensive detergent- $73/year

So you could save anywhere from $11 to $58 a year. So is it worth it? I'll leave that up to you. For me, definitely. Its super easy to make and I buy all my ingredients on sale so I save even more money.