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My wedding dress – it was exactly what I wanted, plus it was affordable!

When planning my wedding, I was given a set budget by my parents.  Anything I didn’t spend on the wedding, they told me, I could keep.

And I really wanted a washer and dryer for the third-floor apartment we were moving into…otherwise I’d have to take laundry to the community laundry room across the complex if I wanted my clothing to be clean and dry.  So I tried to be frugal in my planning, aiming to put together a wedding I’d be happy with plus have enough money left over to buy the washer and dryer.  (I did, and I did!)

One way that I *really* cut costs was with my dress.  The average cost of a wedding dress is about $1,500 – so I knew that choosing the right dress had the potential to really save some money.  When it came time to choose, my choice was between two similar-looking dresses…one of them priced at 1/4 the cost of the other.

I liked both of the dresses equally, so I chose the most affordable one.  Why was the dress that I chose more affordable than the dress I didn’t choose?  It was labeled a “bridesmaid” dress!  The dress was exactly what I wanted, and I still get compliments on it when people see my wedding photos online.  It was perfect, yet it was priced at a fraction of the typical wedding dress cost.

If you’re choosing a bridal gown for this upcoming wedding season, don’t forget to check out bridesmaids dresses at a more budget-friendly price.  You can find bridesmaids dresses in the traditional cream, ivory, and even white…but you could also consider alternate light colors, like a soft blue or even a light pink, like Jessica Biel’s wedding dress!

Like this lamp? Me too – but it costs more than my mortgage!

I get a bit bummed out during the winter. Do you?

If so, it’s not just the dreary weather that could be getting you down – the lack of sunlight in the winter months can have an actual impact on your body.

In fact, there’s a real diagnosis for people who “get depressed in the winter but feel much better in spring and summer” = SAD, or Seasonal Affective Disorder.

A bit of info about SAD:

Seasonal affective disorder (also called SAD) is a type of depression that occurs at the same time every year. If you’re like most people with seasonal affective disorder, your symptoms start in the fall and may continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody. Don’t brush off that yearly feeling as simply a case of the “winter blues” or a seasonal funk that you have to tough out on your own. Take steps to keep your mood and motivation steady throughout the year. (Mayo Clinic)

Now, I wouldn’t say that I have full-blown SAD – which, by the way, is most common in both women and people between the ages of 15 and 55 – but I certainly do feel the effect of the lack of sunlight in the winter months.

In years past, I’ve taken a vitamin D supplement for my seasonal blues/depression.  But today, I happened to be at my doctor’s office for my yearly physical, and I asked him about his tips for seasonal depression.

He told me that even more effective than vitamin D supplements is, of course, sunlight.  But since winter weather yields clouds that block the sun entirely for many days in a row, another alternative is incandescent light.  Yep, regular old light bulbs.  He told me to put the highest-wattage lightbulb I can safely use in the lamps in my house, and to leave those lamps on as often as possible during the day.

Simple, right?!

I’m adding 100-watt lightbulbs to my shopping list and giving this a try. Thanks for the tip, Dr. E!

This photo is from a trip to Mexico that our families took together.  I’m the one in the red polka-dotted romper and Kay is in the back, wearing blue.  Please note: the donkey, the random Mexican man peeking out from behind my grandfather’s sombrero, and my grandmother’s fabulous red + white dotted dress!

So – Tricksy is excited to partner with Kay, over at Georgia Carpet Industries, to bring you some of my favorite DIY tutorials/recipes – like last week’s Pumpkin Spice Syrup Recipe, and today’s laundry soap recipe.

People who know that I make my own laundry detergent ask me about the recipe fairly often.  I tell them that this stuff is awesome for a number of reasons:

1. It’s *so* cheap (around $0.01 to $0.02 per load, depending on the ingredients you choose)
2. It’s great for sensitive skin
3. It makes you feel kinda crafty to know that you (easily!) made your own soap, and
4. It’s nice to whip up a batch when you’ve totally run out of regular detergent and aren’t planning to leave the house but have a mountain of laundry to wash (it’s not like I’m speaking from personal experience here or anything….)

Homemade laundry detergent has only three ingredients, aside from water.  Here’s what you need and an approximate price breakdown (depends on where you purchase it) for each item:

1.  Borax powder = about $4 for 76 oz. (around $0.21 per batch) 

2.  Washing Soda = about $3 for 55 oz. (around $0.22 per batch)  

3.  Bar soap (Fels Naptha is recommended, but I’ve found that Dial bar soap is excellent) = about $2 for 1 bar (about $0.67 per batch)

Here’s the recipe, which comes straight from TammysRecipes.com (one of my favorite sites for recipes and homemaking advice).

Homemade Laundry Soap

1/3 bar Fels Naptha soap or one whole bar of Ivory or homemade soap (I used Ivory)

1/2 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

1/2 cup borax powder

water

2+ gallon bucket, for storing

1. Grate the soap and place in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups of water and heat until the soap melts.

2. Add the washing soda and borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat.

3. Pour 4 cups of hot water into the bucket. Add the soap mixture and stir. Add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.

4. Store your laundry detergent in the bucket, covered. (I put plastic wrap on the top of mine, and I also left my long plastic spoon in the soap to stir it briefly before each use.) Use 1/2 cup per load of clothes.

(Be sure to visit Tammy’s site for more information and photos).

And that’s really all there is to it!  I think it’s worth trying out, at least once:

• You may find it’s not worth the effort and that you’d prefer to purchase regular detergent.
• You may find that you love it and want to use homemade detergent exclusively.
• You may find that you don’t care to make it on a regular basis but that you can use it for laundry emergencies.
• At the very least it may be a good weekend project to do with your kids.

So here’s the price breakdown. I compare the homemade stuff to Arm and Hammer, since A&H washing soda already goes into the recipe.  My other alternative is whatever is on sale with a coupon that particular week – it’s different each time and not necessarily a sensitive skin formula.

• Arm & Hammer Laundry Detergent for Sensitive Skin = $13.98 for 64 loads (6.99 per 32-load bottle)
• Whichever brand is on sale with a coupon = $4 for 64 loads ($2 per 32-load bottle)
• Homemade detergent = $1 for 64 loads

So the solution is pretty clear to me: if I’m not going to make it myself, I’d better be watching the detergent sale cycles!

A pot of French press coffee + my vintage mug, ready for some pumpkin spice syrup!

I love the food and drink options that come along with cold weather.  Crock-Pot meals, roasted whole chickens, apple cider, and hot chocolate are among my favorites…but my very favorite cold-weather edible may be Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice latte.

In fact, I love this latte so much that I ordered one every morning for a week when Starbucks brought it back this fall.  (Of course, I cannot exactly recommend that you do this!)

Maybe you are – like I am! – dreading the day when the Pumpkin Spice latte disappears from Starbucks’ menu until its return next fall.

Or maybe you entirely missed out on enjoying a Pumpkin Spice latte this year due to a situation that the Wall Street Journal called a “Halloween Horror Story” – Starbucks experienced nationwide shortages of the syrup needed to make the lattes, and customers became frantic (even TIME Magazine covered the story!)

Either way – you can enjoy your own version at home long into the winter, using the recipe below!*

1 1/2 cups of water

3/4 cups of white sugar

2 cinnamon sticks

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

4 tablespoons pureed pumpkin (canned pumpkin – make sure to get 100% pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling)

Directions:

Combine water and sugar in a medium pot over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until sugar has completely dissolved. Add pumpkin and whisk to incorporate into the water + sugar mixture.  Then whisk in the ground spices and add the cinnamon sticks.

Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, but do not let the mixture come to a boil (reduce heat if necessary). Remove from heat and allow to cool for about 10 minutes. Remove cinnamon sticks, give them a quick rinse to remove the ground spice residue, and set aside.

Strain syrup through cheesecloth into an airtight container (I like to use some type of glass bottle – you may need a funnel if you use something with a small neck).  Discard the pumpkin/ground spice “pulp” from the cheesecloth.  Add the cinnamon sticks to the syrup container.  Store syrup in the refrigerator.

You can add the syrup to espresso with steamed milk for a latte.  You can also add the syrup to brewed coffee, chai tea (or any other black tea), or you could even just add it to warm milk.

*The recipe above is my spin on a syrup recipe I found from Courtney over at Cook Like a Champion. I set off on a mission to make an exceptional pumpkin spice latte and tried quite a few recipes…some were awful, some were okay, but the latte I made using her recipe stood out as the best.

The recipe above is based on the original recipe but includes my own modifications, made to suit my personal preferences (I prefer more spice and pumpkin and less sugar, and I like to put the cinnamon sticks in the syrup jar after straining).  If you prefer sugar over spice, you may want to check out the original recipe here to compare and see which version you’d like best!

Just click on the thumbnails below to save the full-sized images, and then upload as your new cover photo.