Fluffy Mail

Something came in the mail last week...

my bummis diaper kit I won from one of my favorite blogs, Simple Kids!

And look what was inside!

The Dude helped me unpack...

and sampled the goods.

Look at all of this loot! Inside that big box were 18 organic pre-folds, four covers, fleece liners, flushable liners, a wet bag big enough for the diaper pail, and a sample of detergent and bottom cream! Holy cow, it was like Christmas! I have been using pocket diapers and fitted with covers, but I don't have a full set of pockets (around 10, I think) and the fitteds are larges, which are really too big for him right now. I haven't used prefolds in covers since he was a newborn, and wasn't sure if they would be enough for my big wetter. After they were prepped (you need to wash untreated cotton diapers three or four times to fluff the fibers), I couldn't believe how soft they were! I kept petting them, but could never convince my husband to fondle them, too. Go figure. But I must say that I have had no problems with leaks, and although I usually use pockets at night, I have used the bummis pre-fold with one microfiber insert and had no leaks in the morning.

I am impressed by the quality of both the bummis diapers and covers. They have made a velcro convert out of me. Usually, I find that velcro wears out fast and even with laundry tabs, gets stuck to everything in the wash. Three of the four covers in the box were velcro and so far have not stuck to anything except what they are supposed to, and since the Dude is not so laid back during changes anymore, the speed is a definite plus! In the box is also a little booklet about cloth diapering, with details about use and care. Repeatedly, the company urges you to call or email with any questions about use, washing, problems, or questions of any sort. It's an impressive level of customer service, and I think it would be very helpful to first time cloth diaper moms.

If you wash every other day, this one box really has everything you need. It was so much more than I expected, and I am so thankful to Simple Kids and bummis for this fabulous gift! I couldn't resist one more action shot, the Dude in bummis with the snap cover.

DIY Hand Soap

It's amazing how a baby can eat away at your blog time! I have written so many posts in my head, my friends, but they never seem to make it to the computer. I've decided tonight that the laundry and dishes can wait (the diapers are done, so it's all good), and I bring to you my latest attempt in the make it yourself department -liquid hand soap.

I had pinned this tutorial link from A Farmer's Nest  awhile back, but never got around to making it. (Somehow I find plenty of time to pin things! This was on my Great Ideas board.) Now that I am officially a SAHM (stay at home mom), I decided the $5.00 for a gallon of soap she listed sounded much better than shelling out the $3.99 for a small bottle of natural soap at the store. Fortunately, I had all of the ingredients at home - distilled water, a bar of soap, and glycerine. Yes, I have a quart of glycerine in my cupboard; I use it for tinctures and bubble projects with the kids. I buy this brand from Amazon. Anywho... I followed her directions exactly, but ended up with runny soap. This may be due to the fact that I used Dr. Bronner's soap, which is a soft bar soap to begin with and probably higher in water content. However, after browsing other recipes on the internet and finding that they used a much lower water to soap ratio, I decided to buy a second bar and add it in. I simply reheated the soap with the new shavings, and let it cool. The cooled soap looked more like the pictures in her tutorial, but when I blended it I found that it was thicker than before, but still thinner than commercial soap. It is more of the "snot"consistency she described. That being said, it works just fine. It pumps out of my recycled containers without squirting everywhere (like Dr. Bronner's liquid soap does) and it doesn't clog up the spout. Even using two bars of soap, you can't beat the savings! I filled two pumps and still have almost a full gallon in the jug! And since  had everything but the second bar of soap on hand, I spent a grand total of $4.45.

The thickened soap after the second bar was added

Here are a few of my suggestions if you are thinking of trying this at home:

1. Use a food processor to grate the soap. It literally took two seconds, and cleanup is a breeze!
2. If you are using a soft, natural soap like Dr. Bronner's or one with lots of conditioners added (go for the natural!), use two bars.
3. Make it in the morning or afternoon and let it cool OVERNIGHT. I let the first batch cool for 10 hours and bottled it, then noticed the next morning that it had thickened a little more. I let the second batch cool overnight and it seemed to "set" better.
4. Use an immersion blender to mix the cooled soap, if you have one. It takes seconds!
5. Next time I might add some lavender essential oil to kick up the anti-microbial properties, and maybe some vitamin E, too.
6. Some recipes add a little honey. Why? I don't know, but since I saw so many with honey, it might be worth looking into.

This is a FAST project. The actual making of the soap, if you use a food processor, takes about ten minutes. The rest is just cooling time. I don't think I will buy hand soap again!

Have you ever made liquid hand soap? Do you have any tips to share?

Update 4/10/13: The soap continued to thicken over the next couple of days. By the time I needed to refill one container, it was so thick I had to thin it with water. I had one container of the original soap, which has since thickened to a good consistency. So next time, I think one bar and an extra day of thickening would make a perfect soap!

GFCF Chocolate Zucchini Snack Cake

 This is our new family favorite, and apparently the dog's favorite, too, since we came home to an empty 9x12 pan the first time I made it. She went to the trouble of taking it off the counter and removing the lid from the pan, so it must be worth the effort!

It was based on my carrot cake recipe, but with some modifications to make it a bit healthier, so I can call it a snack and eat it more often. It's easy peasy to make, and puts all of that zucchini to good use if you are sick of zucchini bread.

Ingredients:


1 1/2 cups organic sugar

1 cup coconut or sunflower oil

4 organic eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups grated zucchini

3 cups Bob's All Purpose gluten free four (or your preferred mix)

1/4 cup raw cocoa powder (of course you can use regular, but the raw has more minerals and iron)

1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp gluten free baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 bag of  chocolate chips (CF for those making this dairy free)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream the sugar and oil. Add the eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla. Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl, and wisk to mix. Add the zucchini and flour mixture, a cup at a time, alternating each and mixing well. Add chocolate chips and stir. Pour into a greased and floured pan (use cocoa for the flour and you won't get white specks on your cake) and bake for around 30 minutes. Use a toothpick to test.

I don't frost it, but you could dust it with powdered sugar, or frost if you are going for a traditional cake. I skip the extra sugar so I can eat extra cake!

Lego Towel

This is one of my favorite projects, and it's so easy! I don't have a tutorial, but it's simply an appliqué on a store bought towel (I got mine at Target for $5). I used fleece for the lego head. I chose fleece because it's soft and I had it on hand, but a micro-terry or french terrycloth would work as well. I did a Google search for lego heads and then drew the face on Wonder Bond free hand. I followed this procedure for the appliqué process, but I used a pressing cloth over the fleece (it melts!) and a lot of extra time to get the bond to stick. A little stitching and you have a custom Lego towel! It was Max's birthday present and has endured months of washing and is still going strong.

DIY BooBoo Ice Pack Cover

Whenever anyone gets hurt, no matter what the injury, the first thing my kids run for is an ice pack. Over time, we've lost one and the cover on the other had seen better days. I figured there had to be a way to make your own, and after a quick Goggle search, I found this recipe.

I used the one with rubbing alcohol, and since I had wintergreen, I didn't need to add food coloring (you don't want anyone to mistake it for plain ice!) It works like a charm!

I took a rough measurement by laying some fleece for a warmer side and PUL fabric (which is waterproof, so the sweat from the ice won't go though the fabric) for the cool side, over the ice pack. Quick and dirty folks, since it is going to be draped over cuts and scrapes! You could use cotton for this as well, but the ice will moisten it after a few minutes.

I pinned the fabrics right side together, on three sides, to make a pocket. I didn't even bother trimming the fleece until after I seamed them together.

Trim the seams and cut the corners close to the stitching. Turn right side out.

Pin the open edges under and topstitch closed. Normally, I wouldn't pin PUL to limit the amount of punctures in it, but the ice pack fits below this area.

I added a plastic snap to keep the ice pack in. You could use a sew on snap, button, or velcro as well. I just have an abnormal attachment to my diaper snap setter (and it's fast! You know I love fast).

That's it! I made two, just in case of double injuries:)

Quick T-shirt Nightgown Tutorial

This is my daughter's favorite type of nightgown, and lucky for me, it's quick to make! It's also a great scrap buster and a fast repurposing of an old t-shirt. What more could you ask for?

After selecting a t-shirt to use (looser fitting tees work better, as you will come to find out in this tutorial), choose coordinating fabrics for the bottom, or even another t-shirt. Madeline selected all of the shirts and fabrics for her nightgowns. You can use one large bottom piece or combine prints, as we do here.

Measure your trim fabrics and sew the pieces together, if using two. Be sure to press the seam open. Since this is a nightgown, and she just HAD to have them right away, I used a lot of cheats. Instead of taking proper measurements, I just held the folded piece of fabric against the hem of the t-shirt and added a bit for the seam.

Another cheat here - instead of measuring and sewing the bottom piece into a tube, I pinned the right side of the bottom fabric to the right side of the t-shirt hem, inserting a pin exactly where the two open ends should come together to form a seam.

I unpinned the piece around the seam, pulled the t-shirt fabric back, and sewed a seam.

I pinned the t-shirt back around the seam and made a seam around the entire bottom of the gown, where the two pieces attach.

I pressed open the seams and added a hem. I zigzag my seams to finish them, but if you have a serger you could do that as well. I would, at the very least, pink them, since nightgowns get washed frequently.

This was our final product, but because the t-shirt is quite fitted, it was too tight for comfortable night ware. Lesson learned - loose t-shirts are better! A refitting was in order.

I cut the bottom part of an old t-shirt that I recently hand dyed, and then cut off the original gray t-shirt a few inches below the waist. I seamed these two pieces together to add ease ( and both are jersey, so no need to finish the seams!), then added the patterned bottom to the new blue panel.

Now the nightgown was loose enough for comfortable movement.

This t-shirt had more ease, so I simply added a slit to the bottom fabric for easier movement. If you use an old t-shirt or two for the bottom layers, as we have also done in the past, you should have enough stretch to skip a slit. With old tees this project takes about a half an hour, with fabric strips about an hour for the first one. A quick and frugal refashion!

Baby Bits

Quiet around here, I know. The combination of pregnancy and my computer crashing didn't help much. I lost a few tutorials, but fortunately I had a fairly recent back-up so once it was fixed, I was able to recover most of my pictures. Lesson learned - keep the back up drive plugged in!

We are still waiting for the little one's arrival, but I thought I would post a few snapshots of some of my little baby projects.

The changing station. I had a changing table for the first two, but this time we saved space with a dresser top changing pad. I've always had a mobile on the table for distracting squiggly babies, but since I had no sides to clip one to and vaulted ceilings, I needed to come up with a different solution.

We added a small shelf to the wall to hold newborn essentials out of reach, so I simply sewed a piece of one inch elastic together to slip around the shelf, ad sewed three twill tape pieces to the bottom. I added snaps to hold pictures or soft creatures (the ones pictured here were cut from a cute Ikea print and stuffed), that can be easily changed out as he gets older or becomes bored with them.

I sewed about a dozen fitted diapers to start us off with (I also have prefolds), using the Rita's Rump pattern. It is super easy, and if they fit well, I think I will sew a dozen more as pocket diapers using PUL on the outside and adding snaps (these will need a cover as they are not leakproof). I just love all of the cute flannel prints!

For me, a glider is just as essential as diapers. We got rid of ours after the kids got older, but my mother found this one on Craigslist for a great price. The chair cushions came out of the wash looking fine, but the footstool was stained. I recovered it using an Ikea canvas curtain panel found at Goodwill for $5. I didn't have enough material to recover the cushions, so I decided on a racing stripe, instead. It was a little tricky maneuvering the cover under the machine, and I did realize that I had reversed the striped piece on the bottom cushion, but that's what you get for sewing at 11 pm when you're pregnant. I can live with it, and eventually I will recover the entire chair (the cushions look beige in this picture, but are actually more of a yellow cover and don't quite go with the rest of the room).

Last but not least, the activity blanket. The top panel was from a dear friend, who hung it above her own daughter's crib. At first I thought of making it into a quilt, but the bright colors and playful pattern just screamed fun, so it became an activity mat. I cut about 8 inches off of the bottom to use as pieces for the rest of the blanket. The inside has a layer of cotton batting and it is backed with a yellow fleece for comfort, and to keep it from sliding on the floor.

This panel was backed with fleece and edged with ribbon tags, since we all know that babies love the tags best.

The alligator piece is attached with elastic to pull on, and the butterflies are covered with a knit fabric to finger. The dotted panel above opens to reveal a parrot.

There is a second flip panel on the top left, and a peek-a-boo fleece door over the lion. The flowers on the bottom left are actually a strip filled with celophane so they crinkle when you grasp them.

Now I'm just trying to convince the little bean to come so he can enjoy his goodies!