I made laundry soap today

There is a recipe floating around on Pintrest for making your own laundry detergent. Well of course I had to try it.
I even splurged and bought a 1 gallon clear glass jar for a whole 10 bucks at wally world.

So this detergent is easy enough to make, it's supposedly much stronger then the stuff you buy at the grocery store. 
The ingredients were all found at Wal-Mart (in the laundry detergent isle) and total cost was $22.00 (not including the $10. for the jar).
This is all you need:

1- 4 lb box of Borax
1- 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda

1  box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz (3 lb 7 oz)

3 bars of Fels-naptha soap

1- 3 lb box of oxyclean (this is optional but I did use it for mine)

You mix up all of the ingredients, use a cheese grater to cut up the bars of Fels-naptha soap. Or cut it up in chunks like I did and toss it in the food processor, here's a tip I learned tonight. When you put the bars of soap in the food processor it's kind of sticky like cheese as it chops, BUT if you add some of the baking soda it will dry it out and be a wonderful powder consistency, I totally recommend adding the baking soda for the chopping. I lined a 5 gallon bucket with a garbage bag and dumped all of my ingredients in  that and when I was done adding, I twisted the top of the bag took it out of the bucket and rolled it around and mixed it in my lap, being careful not to puncture the bag and then I dumped it into my new jar and waalaa... 1 tablespoon per load and this looks like it's going to last for a long time.

I must say... it smells pretty good. Also it does not foam like soap and other users say it is safe for High efficiency washers and front loaders.

Guess who broke their finger?

Yup... that would be me, I broke my index finger on my left hand today. Thank god I have all my orders shipped out and I'm taking a break for the holidays because I sure would be in a mess right now. The thing about breaking a bone that I've noticed since this is my 3rd time is that the pain causes me to either feel like I'm going to throw up or pass out. Thankfully I didn't do either one but boy was it close.

Home again

I'm back from Fort Jackson, I picked my son up for Christmas break. He looks great and has a wonderful attitude, that is so refreshing and wonderful to see. He's happy and likes what he's doing, I can't ask for anything more than that.

Interpreting Cat hand writing is tough

As I posted previously, my youngest son Levi joined the Army and is going through hell basic training now. He's been gone for weeks and his letters sound home sick and like he's having a bit of a rough time. So after a few glasses of wine last night I decided that the cats should write him letters. These will surely make him laugh.

from Little Cat

Also from Little Cat

from Spookers

 The good news is he comes home for Christmas break on Dec 16th. I can't wait :)

As promised, the new plate

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pictures

Over fired plate = more work

I did a custom plate for a friend a few days ago and over fired it, which needless to say I ruined it. Today I redid the plate and if this turns out the way I'm hoping it does, this one will be so much better. It needed more color. Since this plate is for a little girl, I wanted the colors to pop and be vibrant and happy. The other colors were more pastel and the whole plate was white... boring! The good thing about making huge mistakes is you can look at it and know what needs to be tweaked. So sometimes screw ups are awesome :)

Here's my screw up... if you look closely you can see blisters in the glaze. 

I also hate that it's all white. 

 And here is the new version, This is before the firing, which I watched like a hawk and it fired perfectly. This looks dull right now, but after it's fired the greens are actually a pretty bright lime green and the same goes for the reds, they will be bright red. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow when I unload my kiln.

Here are some sketch shots, originally I had her holding a leash, but I scrapped that idea and went with her hand on her hip.

She evidently has a favorite stuffed kitty that she carries around so of course I had to put him in there.

  I also rounded the dogs nose and got rid of part that comes down. The more I looked at it, the more it just looked odd to me.

I can't wait until I can open my kiln tomorrow to see the finished  plate :) Just keep your fingers crossed for me that I didn't screw up again!

Roll on!

The sky has been a dreadful grey color for days, I hate that it affects my mood, it feels like the life is sucked out of everything including me! The past few days as I posted previously have been awful. Today I attempted to shake the funky mojo. I failed. I packed up a bunch of orders and went to the post office only to be told they can't take any credit cards or debit cards, their system was down for the entire nation! wow! How does that happen? So here I come back home with my orders pouting the whole way. My business account doesn't have checks, only my debt/credit card, so much for technology. So I bought myself and my wrists a new gift to make myself feel better... ready?

Taa-daaa

That would be my new slab roller *doing my happy dance*  Typically when I roll out a slab of clay I use a large wooden dowel like a giant rolling pin and it kills my wrists and it takes forever. Almost. This new baby will be here next week! Boy oh boy do I have plans for this baby! Together with my slab roller and my new extruder I'll be ready to take on the world or at least my own little world within my studio lol