Laundry Soap

A few months ago, I experimented in making my own laundry soap. I've been using it for a couple of months and decided I really like it.  I finally ran out of the batch I made, so while making a new batch, I documented the process for you.

You will need: 

* 1/2 cup Washing soda (not the same thing as baking soda)

* 1/2 cup Borax

* 1 bar of Ivory soap (or 1/3 bar of Fels Naptha)

* essential oil (optional)

* container that can hold at least 1.5 gallons (I use one with a spout for easy pouring)

* grater, pot, spoon and stove (not pictured)

Step one: Grate the soap

Step two: put soap flakes in pot with 6 cups of water and heat until soap dissolves

(Before the soap dissolves, it kind of looks like thick potato flakes.)

Step three: add 1/2 cup washing soda

and 1/2 cup Borax

and stir until it's dissolved and remove from heat.

Step 4: pour 4 cups of hot water into your container

Step 5: Add soap mixture and stir.

Step 6: Add one gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir (note: one gallon is 16 cups.) If you choose to add essential oil, now is the time to do it.

Step 7: Let soap sit for 24 hours to gel up.  Use 1/2 cup per load.

A couple of things to know:

* The soap sort of a watery gel. I keep it in the basement (where my laundry facilities are) and found that it had a tendency to harden.  A good shake of the container before trying to pour the soap loosened things up a bit.

* This soap doesn't suds up, so don't get worried when it doesn't. You can still use your usual pretreater or bleach if you feel like you need to.

Fake Steak

For the last show, we needed three steak dinners every show.  There's now way our poor little theatre company could afford three steaks for eight performances, so I made fake steaks to go along with the real food.  Here's a little step-by-step explination of my process in case you ever need to make fake steak (or for the next time I need to make it, so I remember how I did it.)

Ingredients: floral foam, white glue (of the Elmer's variety), paint

Step one: cut the foam to the desired shape and coat with glue; let dry

Step two: base coat with red paint; let dry

Step three: dry brush with brown paint; let dry

Step four: add grill lines with dark brown and highlight with cream; let dry

I didn't get a good picture of it onstage, but believe me when I tell you that on a plate with potatoes and green beans under stage lights, it looks close enough to real steak that the audience will believe it.