How to make plarn - Plastic Yarn.

Do you have a ton of these?  

There are all different thicknesses of plastic bags.  Get the ones that are a bit
more sturdy than most but not too thick. You can separate your colors or mix. 
If you need a lot of bags, I got mine by raiding the recycle bins at the grocery stores.


Here's how you fold and cut.

Straighten your bag out.  Try to flatten the bag to is original
form before it was used.  This will help with folding and cutting.

Fold in half long-ways.  Make sure all the edges and flat and meet
the other sides same edges.

Fold the bag in half again long-ways. 

Cut the end of your bag off.  Make sure the whole seam is cut
so that if you placed anything in the bag it would fall through.

Cut the top handles off so that all you have left is the middle
part of the bag that usually contains your items.

Cut your bag in 1-2" pieces.  The thinner the pieces the more
delicate your crocheted item.  I gut them in varying sizes just
for example.  I am using an N hook and have been cutting 2"
pieces for the sleeping mat project I am using plarn for.  Also
The thinner your piece the easier it will be for them to break
when linking the loops. 

 I like combining all my colors.  Makes for an interesting pattern
when crocheted.  20 bags will give you a nice size project
though for the mat I am making I will need a considerable
amount.


Now, getting linky with it.

Take two pieces of cut bag.  They will be loops after you cut
them.  You will be making a slip knot to link the loops. 

Like so.

Pull the link tight so that the knot is as flat as you can get it. 
Keep repeating the linking steps to get the length of plarn you
need. 

 
TAH-DAH!  YOU MADE PLARN!

Don't forget to save your scraps in a bag and take them back
to the store for recycling.  Keep all bags out the landfill, even
scraps.


Have a ball!

I have a yarn baller which has come in handy.  Be mindful though, the
knots in the links may get caught as you ball so be careful.  If you get
snagged on a knot you could stand the change of breaking your plarn 
or breaking your yarn baller. 

You can also ball up your plarn by hand if you don't have a yarn baller.



LET'S GET KNOTTY!

I am using a size N crochet hook crocheting in single-crochet. 

With the 2" strips I am cutting the plarn, it seems to be working well. 

Making this mat bigger than I originally planned.  This mat will be 3'W x 6'L. 
On average I will be making 2'-3'W x 6'L.




Have fun gettin' Knotty!
 

DIY Review

Hello all!  It had been awhile but tis' the season and I've been a little busy with doing all my DIY things and don't have much time to report about them.  Here we are though, holiday season is in full swing.  For the past three months now I've been slowly transforming our home to be more earth and rather people friendly place to live.  So much of my time has been on Pinterest which has been a pretty nice tool to find what others do all over the nation and the world.  If you're not a member, if your artsy, DIY savvy, even like fashion, makeup, animals... Pinterest has MANY things to offer a wide array of interests.  DO IT!  If you need an invite, just comment on this blog and I'll help ya out. 

I'll admit, cancer scares me.  My father and uncle died of cancer, grandmother was a survivor of lung cancer and my sister just had her thyroid removed to cure her of malignant tumors.  So you can say, I'm very aware of our family history.  I hope the steps I'm taking to make our home green also helps fight cancer my family could potential have or hopefully will never have. 

I started buying Seventh Generation laundry detergent and softener.  Seventh Generation products are awesome but at a price.  So after I finished my last laundry soap bottle I shaved 3 bars Fels Naptha, measured 3c Borax & 3c Arm & Hammer Super Wash Soda and mixed it all up in a paint tub.  Works like a charm.  Fels Naptha has a very strong scent but doesn't leave any odor in the clothes.  If anyone is empowered now to make this stuff, just a little suggestion I'm going to follow, wear a dust mask.  My nose got a little irritated while making the mixture.  It was nothing horrible but a dust mask would alleviate any unpleasantness next time.  Oh and a food processor with the grater wheel works like a charm.  Save on the hands and takes a fraction of the time hand grating takes.  Just ran out of softener and vinegar has been working really well.  Did just find a blog that has DIY softener recipes and which has vinegar as a main ingredient.  I'll give that try in a bit.  *FYI, this is a recipe for a front loader and works right in the detergent drawer if I took the liquid cup out.  The vinegar softner I filled all the way to the max line.  Have to play around for smaller loads but clothes come out clean and not smelling like vinegar.

DIY Laundry Soap Powder

• 3c Borax
• 3c Arm & Hammer Super Wash Soda
• 3 bars Fels Naptha
• grater, food processor (I highly reccomend food processor with the grating wheel.  Took seconds)
• dust mask
• something to put your soap in

Put on your dust mask.  First measure your Borax & Wash Soda.  As long as you keep it 1:1:1 ratio with all the ingredients you can make as much or as little as you want.  So you can just make 1 bar soap to 1c. Borax & Wash Soap to make a smaller batch.  Grate your Fels Naptha.  I use a food processor with the grate wheel.  Then I dump the grated soap into the other ingretients and add it back into the processor with the chopper blades to finely process the grated bar soap.  Walla, you have it, laundry soap!  I use a heft 1/4c with every load.  I add vinegar for softener and like I said, clothes come out smelling clean & are clean.






Next I made dishwasher detergent.  I grabbed this recipe from another blogger mainly to give the detergent a try and make a smaller batch.  Sofar I'm still getting use to how much to put in, and I substituted Epsom salt for Kosher and so I'll follow this recipe to the T next time around and give it another try.  Here's the recipe I followed.

Homemade dishwasher detergent (soap) recipe

• 1 cup borax
• 1 cup washing soda
• 1/2 cup citric acid
• 1/2 cup kosher salt

Combine all the ingrediants together and add 1 TBSP per load.  Fill rinse agent compartment with white vinegar.  Make sure you mix well and add a tsp of rice to help caking.  You can also just shake the container daily too.  I haven't had much of a problem.  I used a coffee can but I don't know how that would effect the caking of the soap.  What ever works for you is fine.

Last but not least I have made my first bars of soap.  Looking around at how to's I was looking up how to make bubble bath.  Well the recipe called for castille soap.  I'd heard of castille soap but didn't really know what it was outside it was soap.  Low and behold I'm now immersed in the world of soap making.  So many things to look at and a lot of good links on how to do it.  There are 4 types of soap making methods; cold process, melt & pour, hot process & rebatching.  The process I chose was cold process.

Not the easiest but took less time and I can control the whole process and know what's in my soap.  I watch a series of video's on ehow.com:  How to make lye soap.  There are 15 videos in the series and recommend watching all of them if your interested in making soap.  It's an exact process and take good preparation for you to do it safely and correctly.  Cold process lye soap making uses weight measurements and if they are off your soap will not turn out right.  Temperature between the lye solution and the oil mixture is pivotal as well. 

I chose a rosemary lavendar recipe.  I added 1/2 an ounce of eucalyptus to give it an extra umph.  Good soap to have this time of year with stuffy noses.

How to make Rosemary Lavender Soap

• Kitchen scale
• 2 oz. beeswax
• 5 oz. palm oil
• 7 oz. coconut oil
• 7 oz. olive oil
• 5 oz. hemp oil
• 4 oz. sweet almond oil
• 1 tablespoon castor oil (optional)
• 11.5 oz. cold water
• 4 oz. lye (pure sodium hydroxide)
• 13-by-9-inch brownie pan lined with parchment
• 1 oz. lavender essential oil
• 1 oz. rosemary essential oil

Read more: How to Make Rosemary Lavender Soap | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_5060671_make-rosemary-lavender-soap.html#ixzz1gdjDQnEJ

It was a learning curve to get everything well prepared and happening smoothly.  Also, I chose too difficult of a recipe and mold.  I used a 4" PVC pipe and the soap recipe stuck inside the tube.  So yesterday I scooped all the soap, melted it down in a double boiler and used a 9" silicone baking pan I had purchased from Amazon two days ago.  The soap came out kind rough looking on top which was a nice accident.  I like the look of the soap.  looks a little like butterscotch fudge.  ;)

Rainbow brand Colloidal Oatmeal

On top of those little gem projects I'm trying to figure our my facial cleanser.  Since I suffer from rosacea, I have to treat my face like my skin thin brittle as skin on an onion.  Reading a few rosacea blogs helped a bit.  Someone recommended Colloidal Oatmeal.  The Nutritional Store had packets of 100% Colloidal Oatmeal used for a bath soak.

Now brand Almond Oil

Dr. Bronner's Tea Tree Soap

I use a nickel to quarter size amount of colloidal oatmeal with one squirt of Dr. Bronners liquid soap and a light squeeze of Now Brand Almond Oil and a bit of water all in my hand then mix it together by lathering it in my hands.  I add more water as needed for the right consistency and lightly massage my face.  Feels great and soothes any irritated areas.  Use a wash cloth to wipe clear as it takes a lot of splashes to get the mixture off and it will mildly help you exfoliate.  You shouldn't need much to no moisturizer after as the almond oil helps with that.  Hope this helps.  I do this in the wintertime as it seems my face needs completely different treatment in the summer.

Tips n' such - Uno (Homemade glass cleaner)

Going to separate my regular blog from this DIY blog.  What the hell, I've got lots of time on my hands.  :) 

Tip #1: Homemade glass cleaner

I started making my own cleaner mainly to save a buck.  Everything costs more and more these days and the only way to combat that is to just make it yourself.

There are other recipes out there, some using all more natural ingredients, which I may try sometime but for now, these stuff cuts all the crap off your mirror which is mainly why we use it right?

• 1 gal Distilled water ~$.84
• 32 oz bottle Alcohol ~$1.97 (The kind for first aid.  The "Ahhh, my arm was just severed from my body" kind.  Not the "Dude, lets get wasted" kind.)
• 1c. Ammonia ~$.14
• 2tsp Dish Soap ~$.06

(Cost total ~$3.01 for 168oz of cleaner.)
Mix the ingredients in two-1 gallon jugs.  Empty half the distilled water in another clean gallon jug.  Then add 1tsp of dish soup to each using a funnel.  Add 16oz of alcohol to each and use the alcohol to rinse the dish soup off the spoon & funnel.  Add 1/2c of ammonia to each jug.  Then gently swish your ingredients around... WALLA!  Now get your clean on!  

I reuse old spray bottles since they are like $5 at the store.  Screw that!