Princess, Princess Book Week Costume

The second Book Week costume I made last week was for Miss 6, who decided to be the princess from Princess, Princess.

Of course, she didn't have any dress that fit her anymore, so I this one I made out of broderie anglaise fabric, and drafted an empire line dress with long sleeves. I threaded a number of beads I found at a dollar store onto hat elastic for the necklace, and made the crown with some dollar store jewels, metallic pipe cleaners and my hot glue gun.

EJ 12 belt

It was Book Week again last week so I was making costumes once again. Miss 8 enjoys reading a fairly new book series called EJ-12 about a girl-spy who solves mysteries. I was very excited when Miss 8 told me she would be wearing black pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, and black shoes & socks [all of which she owns]. Then she requested a belt, which holds a pouch for a torch.

It came together very quickly, so to finish off I found an extra large black button and hot-glued the letters E and J to the front, then I attached it as a buckle.

I think it was my favourite costume ever... taking me less than an hour!!

UPDATE ON HOMEMADE LAUNDRY POWDER

I made more laundry powder today. I had enough for one more load. That means that my first batch lasted for 40 days.

Someone asked me how economical it really was to make my own powder so I went through the maths just now to check. As I've had the ingredients in my cupboard for a while [thinking I'd need to make more weeks ago] I couldn't remember what it all cost so I just went on to the Coles Online website to get approximate prices. I'm pretty sure my ingredients cost me less at my local IGA so this is probably an overestimate:

Sard wondersoap $2.50
Homebrand Laundry soap $2.17/pack of 4 so $0.55 each
Borax $4.30/500g pack [I use 1 cup = half of this per batch] $2.15
Washing Soda $4.90/1kg pack [1 cup = 1/4 of this] $1.25

So the batch of washing powder cost me at most $6.45 [remember I paid less for these ingredients, online prices are often inflated].

I wash 1-2 loads every day. Sometimes more than that. My last batch of homemade powder cost me at most 16 cents per day.

I'm impressed with that. I've made another batch today, and I still have plenty of ingredients for another 2 lots in my laundry cupboard [I stocked up on Sard wonder soap when it was on special a while back]. Our clothes are clean and we aren't being exposed to unnecessary perfumes and irritating chemicals, all while saving some money. I suspect Mr E thinks I've become a bit of a hippie, but I can live with that :)

A "quiet" couple of weeks

It has been quiet here on my blog for a little while again, I'm sorry about that. It's not been very quiet at home, hence the lack of computer time. Let's see, what have I been up to?
- baked 6 batches of brownies for a school fundraiser
- sewed 8 potato bags for raising potatoes
- continued to tidy, unpack and organise the sewing room
- baked cakes, muffins and slices for the family and bible study guests to consume
- helped Mr E build a papaya/banana garden out of the old trampoline frame
- sewed 2 eco shopping bags
- planted out my silverbeet seedlings, and sowed peas, spinach and sugar snap peas in the same garden
- collected, dried and planted an enormous number of paw paw seeds in the new papaya/banana garden
- planted out the new front hedge
- dealt with sick children... a lot...
Needless to say I sleep well at night!! Must try to post more often... keeps me accountable as I try not to blog a project until it's completed.