Liquid soap from bar soap - done!

I finally did it! I had several unsuccessful attempts of making liquid soap from bar soap and finally I got the product I like. Why do that? It's more about reducing plastic trash than about saving money. Though yes, it also saves money and space: a 100 gr bar soap costs 0.3+ EUR (yields 2+ l of liquid soap), while 1 l of soap costs 0.7+ EUR. And a bar is much smaller than a bottle of soap, so you also save space in your closet.

My main concern is producing less plastic trash. We use much soap (also due to the fact soap pumps give bigger portions than needed) and hence, we have much plastic packaging. Bar soap is often packed in a paper wrap. So I found some articles on the net about making your own liquid soap from a store-bought soap bar. It's very easy: grate a piece of soap, add hot water, mix, cool - done!

The reality wasn't that easy though :-) I don't remember the exact proportions I used, but I think it was something like 25 gr + 500 ml of hot water. I grated soap (quick and easy), added hot water, mixed with a whisk and got nice soapy solution. But when it cooled... I got a soft piece of soap, it wasn't runny any more. So I added more water, mixed and poured it into soap pumps. In an hour I got a gelled piece of soap! So I added more water... and then I got liquid but it wasn't soapy any more.

Next time I tried another soap. And the same story.

So then I tried Marseille soap. I was sure it's all about the soap you use. I grated 25 gr of soap and added about 500 ml of water. Then I poured it into pumps (half of the bottle). It became gelled but it was enough to shake it well. So then I bought several bars of Provence soap (I plan to felt it) and tried a 20-gr piece of it. And now I see my mistake! No need to add more and more water to make your soap runny. When you get it gelled, just mix it well: with blender or your hand. Then pour it into a pump and you can use it. You may need to shake it periodically, so leave some space. But it'll still go smoothly through the pump.

The proportion is appr. 20-25 gr of soap and 500 ml of water. Also you can add coconut oil, glycerin and essential oils.

Weekly Summary

A case for crayons. Outside - 100% wool, inside - cotton.

30 stone bags for the whole class - done!

Another Ms. Pumpkin with pumpkins for the school.

Ms. Sunflower with sunflower for the kindergarten.

My wool fairies, Waldorf inspired

I started doing Waldorf wool fairies about a month ago, when my son's teacher asked me if I could do it for their nature table. I had a big box of merino wool but something stopped me from doing such fairies. I had many pics saved on Pinterest, they all looked so magic and attractive but still hard to do.
Well, when I promised to make a fairy, I looked for a tutorial and started my first fairy. Here are the best tutorials I got:
(1) Standing wool fairy (it stands on a thick wire and a wooden circle)
(2) Standing wool fairy-2 (it's all felt and has armature)
(3) Hanging fairy

So this was my first fairy:

I wanted to make a standing fairy for the school, so then I did one more:

She was hairless for several weeks until I got my inspiration back and finished her quickly.
Then I tried little fairies with legs and created these two:

The green one has wet felted dress, which turned out too thick, but... let it live :-)

Then I wanted to create a pumpkin girl and decided to give it to our kindergarten. So I did this girl and some pumpkins:

Then I was asked to make 2 more fairies: for another kindergarten group and for another class at school. So yesterday I did another Ms. Pumpkin for the school:

And in the morning I've created Ms. Sunflower for the kindergarten:

Actually, I was going to post a tutorial with some tricks I had realized while making the fairies... but now I think I need to make a separate post with the tutorial :-)