{DIY} Padded Crutches Tutorial

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Emily had surgery on her foot a week ago and has made her way around on crutches quite well so far.  But, after two days of using the crutches full time at school her arms were very sore, so I knew I needed to come up with a fix, quickly.

I scouted the web and found many options to buy padded covers for the crutches but that didn't suit me well.  I needed something now, not a few days from now, so I went on a search for some instructions for making a set of covers at home.  I didn't find much.  I could duct tape a towel around them but I knew that would not go over well with Emily so I brainstormed and came up with my own solution.  And now I'm going to share with you.  You're welcome.

Lay the crutch on a piece of paper and trace around the top of it.  Cut out your pattern.

You need to cut the fabric quite a bit larger than your pattern because you need to adjust for a seam allowance and more padding than what is there now.
My first pieces weren't cut wide enough on the bottom.  Thankfully I pinned the pieces and tried it before sewing them or even cutting another set.
The bottom of your cover needs to be at least the width of the top of your crutches or the cover will not fit over the top when finished.  In the end, the top of mine could have been quite a bit more narrow, so you don't need as much extra as I have here.

With right sides together, sew your pieces leaving the bottom open; then clip the corners so the cover will lay correctly once turned right side out.

Time to iron your bottom hem.  Turn up the bottom edge 1/4" and press, then turn up 1/4" again to create a finished edge, press.  Sew hem in place close to left edge.

Now to make these covers stay on your crutches.  Using a small width elastic, place it an equal distance from bottom edge.  Secure elastic in place with a few stitches and then pull it taught with one hand while you sew.  This will gather the material as the elastic relaxes.  Fold over your ending piece of elastic and stitch to prevent it from unraveling.

To make your crutches more comfortable you will need some sort of padding.  I used quilt batting here because I had some left over but I would have used old towels or t-shirts if I didn't have the batting on hand.
Cut two pieces of padding, one just slightly smaller than the width of the top and the second piece the width of the middle of the crutch.  Most of the weight bearing is on the middle of the crutch so I felt it needed the most padding there.
Wrap it around your crutch and secure.  I used painters tape because I wanted to be able to easily remove it.  The painters tape secured the batting very well.

Place one side of your crutch into the cover and then carefully stretch the cover over the other side.
You now have much more comfortable crutches, and they're cute too!

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This is post is part of Made By You Monday at Skip to My Lou.  Skip on over to see what others have made this Monday.

Make your own: Instant Oatmeal Packets

I read that it was possible to make your own instant oatmeal packets several years ago.  I filed that away in my bookmarks for the day that I decided spending $2.50 on a box of conveniently packaged oatmeal was far too hard for me to accomplish.
OK, so maybe I had inclinations of being frugal and healthy way back then but let me tell you, with 3 kids under 5 years of age I was far too busy to care about the sugar content in instant oatmeal.  I needed that sugar just to survive the multiple diaper changes in one day.

Making your own instant oatmeal packets will save you money and best of all put you in control of what you and your family are eating.  You might not know this so I'll let you in on a secret- I'm a control freak, so this is right up my alley.

What you'll need:

3 cups Oatmeal
Pinch to 1/8 tsp. salt for each baggie
Baggies
Blender (or food processor)

You can use either quick-cooking oats or rolled oats; your choice.  If you use rolled oats you will need to chop them up in the food processor or blender to make them into quick-cooking oats.

Take 1 cup of the oatmeal and process it in the blender or food processor until it is oat powder; you may need to process 1/2 cup at a time if using a blender.

Make your packets
1/4 cup quick-cooking oats
2 Tbsp. oat powder
pinch of salt

To prepare:
Dump your oatmeal in a bowl and add 3/4 cup boiling water.  Mix and let rest for 1-2 minutes to thicken.  I have also had success with mixing 3/4 cup water in the bowl with the oatmeal and microwaving for about 90 seconds, stopping once to stir.

Flavor Combinations
We all know oatmeal usually tastes better with yummy flavors mixed in; here are a few flavor combinations you can add directly to your packets.

Sweetened Oatmeal: 1 Tbsp. sugar or other dry sweetener of your choice.
Brown Sugar & Cinnamon: 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
Apple Cinnamon: 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, 2 Tbsp. chopped dried apples, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
Banana Bread: 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, 2 Tbsp. chopped dried bananas, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, dash of nutmeg
Fruit & Cream: 1 Tbsp. non-dairy coffee creamer (I used vanilla because that is what I had) and 2 Tbsp. dried fruit (you could use peaches, apricots, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, etc.)
Raisin: 1 Tbsp. brown sugar and 1 T. raisins (you can also add raisins to the apple cinnamon oatmeal)
Health Packed: Add 2 Tbsp wheat germ and/or 1/2-1 Tbsp. ground flax meal

I added 1/2 Tbsp. of ground flax meal to each of my packets; it's an easy way to sneak in some beneficial ingredients without my kids knowing.

When testing these packets I first made all brown sugar and cinnamon packets.  The three kids who eat oatmeal tried it and proclaimed it was the best they'd ever eaten, so I take that as success.  This time I made 3 different flavors for some variety, banana bread, apple cinnamon, and strawberries and cream.

Good luck and have fun taking control of your oatmeal!

Make your own: Brownie Mix

This makes a lot.  I only made half the amount the first time to make sure I liked them well enough to mix 15 cups of stuff at once; I did.

It's hard to find a good recipe for homemade brownies when boxed brownie mixes are easy, fairly inexpensive and just... well, good.  But, they are also made with enriched, bleached flour and partially hydrogenated soybean oil; no thanks.
These brownies are a really close substitute for the boxed brownies.  They are moist and fudgey with a crunchy top.  I make our brownie mix with whole wheat pastry flour and raw sugar so I feel somewhat better about eating the entire pan myself,  feeding them to my family.

In your largest bowl, mix:

• 6 cups flour (you can use any kind you'd like, I used freshly milled soft white wheat)
• 8 cups sugar
• 4 tsp. baking soda
• 4 tsp. salt
• 1 8 oz. container unsweetened cocoa powder

Mix it well to really incorporate the baking powder and cocoa powder evenly.  If you use all purpose flour you could store this in your cabinet or pantry in a ziploc bag or plastic storage container; just attach a piece of paper to it with the baking instructions.  I store ours in the freezer because the freshly milled flour will turn rancid at room temperature.  This time I divided up the mix into individual bags because I was avoiding the house cleaning before my mom arrives to save time later.  This large recipe made 7 batches of brownie mix.

To make the brownies, mix:

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 cup oil or melted butter
• 2 cups brownie mix
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts, optional

Preheat oven to 350, grease an 8" pan.  Your mix will probably be quite thick, spread it into pan and bake 30-35 minutes.

Make your own: Powdered Sugar

I thought powdered sugar was this special stuff made from something that was sugar like at one time but transformed into poofy powder by some highly complicated process.

That is until I was lazy one day and needed to make some frosting and realized I didn't have any powdered sugar.

Punch up Mr. Google.  

I'm telling you, Google automatically fills in the first three words of each of my searches now with "make your own fill in the blank."  Just today it was "make your own rice krispies" and guess what?!  You CAN make your own rice krispies!  Matthew was actually the one who wondered if it was possible so I'm thinking about making a video with him explaining that.

So anyway, back to the powdered sugar.  It's very simple, involving only 2 things.

Sugar and a blender. 

Oh, and maybe some dish cloths because your countertop might look like you poofed a bag of powdered sugar all over the place.

I made the powdered sugar today with two different sugars, one is the traditional, refined white sugar and the other is unrefined sugar, or evaporated cane juice.  This is sometimes called raw sugar, turbinado sugar, sucanat or rapadura.  They are essentially all the same but rapadura is refined the least amount.  Cane juice actually has minerals in it and the process of refining it takes those nutrients out, so we try to use raw sugar for most everything in our house.  I buy our evaporated cane juice either at a nutrition store, Whole Foods or through Azure Standard, a co-op that delivers once a month. If I run out before placing an order with the co-op I will pick up a box or two of Sugar in the Raw at the grocery store.

The process:

Dump your sugar into the blender and turn it on.  You may need to stop occasionally and knock the sugar back into the center of the blender.

To really freak your kids out you can remove the center piece of the lid and yell that the blender is on fire; they will usually come running for that.  But be warned, they will then start licking the air because it tastes like powdered sugar.

After blending for just a minute or so you will start to see powdered sugar forming.  Blend until you like the consistency.  The raw sugar ended up being only slightly darker than the white sugar once powdered.
Matthew did a taste test of the two different powdered sugars and concluded that the raw sugar had more flavor and after testing myself, I conclude he is correct; the raw sugar definitely made a more flavorful powdered sugar.  I combined the two and it is now safely stored in a Ziploc with the baking products in my pantry.

So, now when you think "I really need powdered sugar" for your fancy french toast but you're still cozy in pajamas, you can make your own and save a trip to the grocery store.

Make Your Own Series

I make many of things we use in our home myself.  This is partly due to frugality, partly to cut down on the amount of chemicals and unhealthy ingredients found in processed foods and largely out of laziness.  Yep, as backwards as that sounds, it's days that I don't want to get ready and run to the grocery store for that one missing ingredient in my recipe that leads me to figure out how to make something on my own.  Once I find that I can make something easily I have a hard time buying it at the store the next time I run out.  I flip to the ingredient list and see a lot of mumbo jumbo that I can't pronounce, or even worse is once I've learned what the mumbo jumbo actually is, and I put it back.  I now have many ziploc bags labeled with things like powdered sugar, white cake mix, pancake mix, brownie mix, etc. lining my pantry shelves instead of boxes.

So I thought I would share these things with all of you so if you find yourself one ingredient short and too lazy to go to the store, you too can make it yourself.

I'll start with a reminder of my post about making your own laundry soap, found here.
I now make my own laundry bar soap that I grind up instead of buying the Fels Naptha and Kirks Hardwater Castile soap.  I'm giddy about my next batch of laundry soap because I scented the bar soap this time with the same mountain fresh smell that I miss from Tide.  Giddy about laundry soap, oh my.

Making Homemade Soap

A couple of years ago I started making my own laundry soap.  Then I stumbled across a video at GNOWFGLINS on how to make your own bar soap and it started my internet research (about the only kind of research I do) on exactly why it would be better for me to play Dr. Soap in the kitchen rather than pick up a 12 pack of Dove soap from Sam's Club.
I found that historically, soap was made from lard, lye and water but now we buy soap that has many synthetic ingredients.  Some of these synthetic ingredients are there for a good reason, such as making the bar last longer but many of them actually remove the moisture in our skin instead of providing moisture for our skin.  Plus, I think just as it is in many other areas of our health, we can do without most synthetic ingredients.
So, now I will show you how to make your own "cure everything lye soap" that sells for $4 a bar or more at those fancy historical theme parks.

Here are the basics:
You take lye (sodium hydroxide) and mix it with water to dissolve it, then you mix your fats/oils in a separate bowl and once you mix the two mixtures together it creates a chemical reaction where the lye bonds to all the fats/oils and creates soap; this is called saponification.  It is no longer lye or fats; it is soap. Although, the qualities of the fats you used will still benefit your skin.
Pretty cool, right?  It makes you want to strap on your safety goggles, rubber gloves, old apron and say "Let's get started!" Right?

Is it cheaper?
At first, no. I spent about $40 to buy the initial supplies to make our own soap, but I've only had to replenish my coconut oil and palm oil since my first order last summer and I've made 6 batches of soap (about 18-24 bars each).  Even the cheapest bar soap at the store will eventually be more expensive than making your own because the $40 in supplies makes more than 40 bars of soap.  It just takes more than one batch to see your savings but your skin will see the difference immediately.

I purchased my first supplies from the The Soap Dish (no affiliation, no money, mkay FTC?)  They are like most other online companies trying to combat methamphetamine abuse; as they will only ship lye (sodium hydroxide) if you purchase it with other oils or supplies.
(Side note: After making this purchase I did find drain cleaner at Lowe's that is straight sodium hydroxide.  Before the time of online stores, most people purchased their lye from a local hardware store in the form of drain cleaner.  Very few stores carry straight sodium hydroxide now due to the methamphetamine movement, so if you decide to look for it locally be sure to check the ingredient label.  The only thing listed should be sodium hydroxide (lye); there shouldn't be any fillers.  If you do find it you can come home and make soap with simple oils in your kitchen- using only olive oil would make a pure castile soap.)
I have made another purchase to replenish my supplies from Oils By Nature (again, no affliation, no money).  They had a bit better price on bigger quantities and when I had a mess up with the order they were very friendly and fixed it right away, at no cost to me.

My original order from The Soap Dish included:
Coconut oil 76 degree
Palm Oil
Stearic Acid (has acid in the name but it is actually a fat, it hardens the bar)
Shea butter
Castor oil
Sunflower oil
Lye
I used these fats along with olive oil that I had purchased locally for our first several batches.

To calculate any recipe I use SoapCalc.  You can research all the different qualities of fats and then decide what kind of bar you want to make by adding the individual fats; it will then calculate how much water and lye you need to use.
Example: I choose our bath soap to be heavy on the conditioning oils and lighter on cleansing but I make our laundry bars heavy on the cleansing oils and lighter on the conditioning because I need it to clean the dirt out of our clothes; not nourish our skin.

When cooking, I am the type to throw some of this and that into a pan and not measure anything.  You CANNOT do that with soap making.  Lye and the water/lye mixture is extremely caustic and you must have the correct ration of fats:lye in order for your mixture to make soap and not a harmful bar of caustics.  To make sure all the lye will be saponified you "superfat" your recipe by 5-6%.  That means you have 5-6% more fat than you scientifically need, just to err on the side of caution and ensure that there isn't any unreacted lye in your soap.  SoapCalc's lye calculator defaults to a 5% superfat recipe but you can change it to a higher percentage if you want.

OK, so I put my fats into the lye calculator at SoapCalc and then told it I wanted to make 2 lbs of soap and divided out the percentages of each oil.  It then gave me the weight of each oil, the amount of water to use and the amount of lye needed to produce a 5% superfat.  It also gave me the chemical make up of the final soap so I can see how hard, creamy, bubbly, conditioning, etc. the soap will be.

This batch has the following fats and measurements.  The information in the parenthesis is what that particular fat contributes to the final bar of soap.  Don't use these measurements for your own batch though; please put your fats into the lye calculator and print our your own; just to be safe.

12 oz. distilled water
4.4 oz. lye
8.1 oz. coconut oil (hardness, cleansing, creamy lather)
8.1 oz. olive oil (hardness, creamy lather, conditioning)
7 oz. canola oil (conditioning)
6.4 oz palm oil (hardness, creamy lather, conditioning)
.9 oz. sunflower oil (conditioning)
.6 oz. shea butter (conditioning, creamy lather)
.3 oz. castor oil (extremely nourishing to skin, bubbly lather)
.3 oz. beeswax (hardness)

Gather safety equipment: white vinegar, gloves, safety glasses, old apron, long sleeves, long pants and wear shoes. Fill a gallon pitcher full of water and a cup or so of white vinegar; use this to clean up anything that touches lye.  The vinegar will nuetralize the lye; I pour the vinegar solution on the bowl, thermometer, spatula, etc. a couple of times and then wash with dish soap before I take off my gloves because the idea of washing things only once really freaks out my husband who avoids the kitchen lab like the plague when the lye is out.

Weigh water in a glass bowl.
Weigh lye in a separate bowl then slowly add to water while stirring.
(Always add LYE to WATER and never water to lye.) This will create some fumes so if it's nice outside, I do it outside (with the kids nowhere near!) but if it's cold I do on the stove top with the exhaust fan running.  If you add the lye very slowly the fumes won't be so bad.
Adding lye to the water will create a chemical reaction and it will get very hot; don't try and pick up the glass bowl for awhile.  Place a thermometer in the bowl and wait for it to get to 110 degrees; this usually takes at least 20 minutes for me.

Measure your solid fats by weight into a bowl, then place them in the microwave for 30 second intervals until they are melted.  Measure your liquid oils and combine with your melted oils.  I usually measure the liquid oils directly into the big bowl I will be mixing the final soap in.
Wait for your oils to reach 110 degrees.

Once the lye mixture and fat/oil mixture both reach 110 degrees, carefully pour the lye mixture into the fats/oil mixture.

Use an immersion blender (I found an old one at the thrift store for $2!) to mix the mixture; be careful not to spray it everywhere.  It will turn creamy as the saponification takes place.  You are looking for the mixture to "trace" which looks like pudding or custard.  When you move the blender around and the trail stays then you have reached trace.
After trace you can add anything you want to, such as oatmeal, honey, lavender flowers, fragrance, etc.

Time to mold!  I use $2 drawer organizers found at Wal-Mart to mold our soap but you can buy official soap molds or just use a dish from your kitchen.  Sometimes I line my mold with parchment paper, sometimes I just rub some coconut oil on it to help release it.  This particular batch was extremely hard to remove from the mold, so don't do what I did; line your mold with parchment or freezer paper for easier removal.

Smooth your soap out, lightly tap it on the counter to settle it and then put it somewhere safe, out of direct light for 24 hours.  After 24 hours you can unmold the soap and cut it into bars.  Most of the saponification has taken place so it will not hurt you anymore; in fact my soap is already producing a bubbly lather after 24 hours!  Once you cut the bars, stand them on their sides on a tray and place in an area out of direct light to finish the curing time(I put ours in a bathroom closet.)
Some say one month is a long enough cure time, others say 6 weeks.  The longer it cures, the harder and more creamy the bar will be.  I cure our soap for 6 weeks just to be safe that all saponification has taken place; plus, the bars are harder and will last longer.

Now you have this somewhat soap, somewhat-not mess left to clean up.  If you clean it now it will be more like cleaning oil.  If you wait 24 hours it will be like washing off soap.  I usually clean it up right away and just deal with the oily residue but this time I waited 24 hours and it was so much easier.  I just stashed the bowl inside the closet so I wouldn't have to look at it for a day.

So, there you have it; a tray of 14 bars of soap that is so much better for your skin than the bars purchased at the store.  If you were to package these and sell them as "old fashioned lye soap" just like the fancy historical theme parks you could rake in around $56 for that tray.

I hope you'll don your safety glasses, gloves and apron and play Dr. Soap in your kitchen lab soon!