Cloth Baby Wipes

DIY Cloth Baby Wipes

Five more weeks until Baby Dylan is guesstimated to arrive! And that means it's time to start finishing up all the little projects I've started, but haven't completed.  The clock is ticking :S

My husband and I decided from nearly the very beginning that we were going to give cloth diapering a shot.  I thought it would take more convincing, but he agreed pretty readily and I've been slowly accumulating a nice stash of the most adorable cloth diapers over the last several months (but more on that and the intricacies of butt origami later!).  After some thought and a lot more Googling, I decided that it would make sense to do cloth wipes as well - for all the same reasons (better for the environment, better for baby, and better for my wallet).  I've also heard from other women who use the cloth wipes that it makes for a much easier clean up - you will generally use one cloth wipe in place of three or four disposables and, because you're using thicker and absorbent materials, there's less seepage through the wipe.  Less poop on me?  I'm sold.  After a diaper change, the wipes can get thrown in the wet bag with the diapers and get washed together.

When I looked online to buy the wipes, however, I saw they were going for a pretty decent price.  Obviously, since they're reusable, I'll be saving money regardless.  After looking at them, though, I thought, well, geeze, I could make my own and save even more (which is the #1 goal here, folks).  Sure enough, there were plenty of women posting online about sewing their own wipes and it looked pretty simple.

I essentially spent $0.00 making these wipes, but, even if you spend some money on materials, it's going to be ridiculously cheap. 

First, I decided what material to use. When you're looking for fabrics, you want something absorbent and you can mix and match fabrics.  I had a bunch of flannel on hand, so I dug that out. You can get a yard of flannel for under $4.00 normally, but, if you want to save even more, you can just cut up old flannel pajamas or flannel sheets. Summer is great for picking up cheap clothes at yardsales that can be re-purposed for just this sort of thing, especially when people have the "Stuff a Bag for $1." Those old Sponge Bob pajama bottoms they're just dying to give away can come in hand for you. ;)  My baby shower was this past weekend and, awesomely enough, everyone and their mother seemed to gift me a pack of baby wash cloths (thanks, everyone!). After counting them up, I had - wait for it - 75 baby wash cloths.  Oh.my.  It was perfect, though, because a two sided wipe - flannel and terry cloth - was perfect for cloth baby wipes!

After cutting the flannel into squares slightly larger than the 8x8 wash cloths, I pinned the flannel and wash cloths together:

Pin the back part of the materials together

Next, I cut the excess flannel around the wash cloth:

Snip, snip, snip

Now they're ready to sew. Unfortunatly, because I'm currently without a working sewing machine, I had to hand sew these.  If you have a lot of spare time with nothing better to do (which, at my job, is quite often the case), go for it.  Otherwise, I would really recommend using a machine because it takes foreverrrrr to do these by hand.  I was averaging about one every hour or so. 

Terry cloth side

Flannel side

 It's also nice to have a helper:

Meow

And here they are completed.  It was so simple to do & would be a great small project you can do while you're resting or waiting or otherwise.  When I eventuallyhopefully get a new sewing machine, I'd like to go over the stitching, just to make sure it holds up well.  I've only made 6 so far, but other women have recommended you start out with two dozen or more.  I imagine it depends on how often you're doing laundry, etc, and it's also nice to have more than necessary for times of dire need.  Once they get put to use, I'll update on how well they work.:))

Leafy greens

After ten straight weeks of full-blown morning sickness, I can eat again.  Thank goodness!  And, thankfully, I'm finally having healthy cravings.  I was worried for a minute that I'd only want corndogs and cheesy rice for the remainder of this pregnancy.  :x  For the past couple of days, all I have wanted is milk.  But raw, creamy, fresh-from-the-farm milk, not the watery stuff.  But, in a society that treats raw milk like poison, I'm just not willing to take the pressure.  I'm already having a time dealing with comments about my coffee consumption and whether or not I'm getting my subs toasted.  Now I'm craving salads.  Normally, I'm not a great consumer of salads, at least not until summer rolls around.  I'm a pretty seasonal eater.  But now I could eat salads morning, noon, and night.

After years of searching on-and-off, I've finally found a store bought salad mix that I like.  The goal is to eat organic and direct from the farmer, but in a pinch I'd like to be able to just drive to Weis and grab a bag of greens.  Every product I've tried until now either tastes disgusting (or has no taste at all) or is wilted and soggy - just overall sad bags of lettuce. But the other day I picked up a container of organicgirl baby spring mix.  Not only are these greens delicious, but they're crisp, colorful and stand up very well in a salad.

From their website:

organic ingredients:

baby green romaine lettuce, baby greenleaf lettuce, tango, tatsoi, baby spinach, baby red romaine lettuce, lolla rosa, baby red chard, arugula, mizuna, baby green chard, baby oakleaf lettuce. ingredients may vary by season.

Delicious!  Just an FYI: even though the packaging proclaims they wash the greens three times, I would still wash them before hand if you're adamant about that sort of thing, because there is still a bit of dirt (maybe from transportation?)

I can't wait for spring to come and, along with it, farmer's markets!  Until then, I think I'm going to stick with organicgirl when I can't make it out to get fresh farm salad mixes.

 I've also bought some seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds to try and see if we can't grow our own veggies indoors this year (I'm pretty excited about that prospect!).

R is for Rabbit

“Weeks passed, and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey, and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the Boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter.” 

― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit


I love the look on someone's face when I tell them that I have a free roaming house rabbit.  At first incredulous, then suspicious.  "You mean you just let him run around??"  When I inform them that rabbits can easily be liter-box trained "just like a cat" they are bemused.  Most people have no idea.

I love having this conversation.  I like to imagine that I've created a ripple effect - that, just maybe, those people who always felt bad about having to leave Cotton in her cage will continue reading and learning and realize that they can bunny proof their home, or even just a single room, and give their bunny some much needed running and roaming time.

Loki is our Dutch rabbit.  He's pretty well behaved.  But, he's incredibly smart and, for a bunny, that's downright dangerous.

Since we adopted him he's had free range of our little apartment with no problems.  He would still leave a pellet or two around the living room, but such is the way of rabbits - they have to make sure you know that, even though they're using the bathroom in this plastic den you've given them in the corner, this is still their living room - got it?  However, when we took in my mother's cat back in April, he became a little....too friendly with her.  Constant kitty mounting ensued and so Loki has since been banished to the bathroom for a temporary hiatus.

This past week Shane and I have been working on downsizing the apartment.  We're expecting our first baby in August, so we've been trying to make room and get everything organized (easier Pinterested than done).  He and my kickass future mother-in-law carried down a huge couch and love seat we've been meaning to get rid of for months.  So I think the plan is to get the living room cleaned and with minimalist decor, then move Loki from the bathroom to the livingroom.  Which I will be incredibly happy about.  Rabbits are fundamentally social pack animals and do best when bonded with another rabbit or around their human family.  He'll be much happier when he's able to snuggle up for cuddles on the sofa again.