If at First You Don't Succeed...

Well, I finally gave in and opened a Pinterest account.  I know, I know... it took me long enough, but I knew once I had the teeniest taste of the beautiful photos and ingenious ideas I would be hooked right along with the rest of you.  Of course it was true, and I have been happily drooling and pinning for a few weeks now, neglecting a few responsibilities and loving every minute of it. 

I love to pin DIY's, but I feel bad for passing them along before trying them.  Is that bracelet really super easy to make?  Is that homemade laundry soap really better than store bought? 

I've tried a few tutorials now and I thought I'd let you know how they worked for me.  First I tried making liquid hand soap from bar soap.  I used a recipe posted on a beautiful blog called The Farmer's Nest.  (Click here for the full recipe and lots of helpful photos.)  I decided to use a bar of soap I had on hand and that is precisely when the trouble started. 

This lovely olive oil soap is one of my favorites, but I really should have read the recipe all the way through before using it to make liquid soap.  It seems that it really matters what type of soap you use.  Soaps with extra moisturizers do not always set firm after being combined with water.  This is clearly stated in the post on The Farmer's Nest, I just didn't quite read that far!  Ooops.  I ended up with a very large amount of dark soapy liquid.  Harumph. 

I am stubborn, though, so I tried the recipe again using the same recipe and basic Jergen's bar soap (which is very economical) and it worked like a charm!  In fact, the second batch of soap was really firm, so I had to whip it and add water as suggested in the recipe (which, by this time, I had reread all the way through...twice)  In truth, my final product is a little frothy and still a little thick, but I don't mind.  I'm just excited that I made a gallon of liquid soap for little more than a dollar and avoided bringing a whole lot of excess packaging into the house.  I won't post a picture, because liquid soap in a plastic milk jug just isn't that attractive.

I gave myself another shot at the DIY thing by making a Mason jar soap dispenser like the ones I've seen on Pinterest.  I decided to wing it on this one, though, since I'm obviously not all that great at following instructions anyway.  I have seen DIY's that call for heavy duty glues and describe ingenious methods of cutting off the tops of soap bottles to make fittings to hold the pump tighty to the jar lid.  I appreciate the craftsmanship involved in these detailed processes but honestly, I just wanted to get the job done.  I just broke the ceramic liner out of the lid with a nail punch and drilled a hole just barely big enough to shove a used pump top through it. It fits as snug as a bug and I completed the whole project in about five minutes.  

If the pump loosens over time I could probably just hit it with a little hot glue. Right now it looks and works great. 

I have to smile as I look back over my description of this project.  I wasn't much in the mood for detail today.  If you'd like to see a great post about how to make a really spiffy Mason Jar Soap Dispenser, check out a great post by Heather Bullard here.   Now there's a girl who knows how to write a helpful tutorial.

I hope you find something wonderful and creative to do today.  Until next time...

***Disclamer: no olive oil soap was wasted in the testing of this DIY. I saved it to use the next time I do some wet felting!***

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