Updated Cloth Diaper Stuff

Hello, my name is Danielle, and I am addicted to cloth diapers.

I'm sure my addiction is no where near as bad as it could get, but considering that I'm attempting this in order to save money and can't seem to stop shopping, I'm not exactly proud. But hey, in the long run, I know I WILL save money- maybe just not as much as I had originally intended. 

So here's my updated stash so far- 

First up- my newborn stuff. 5 covers (just some thirsties and bummis), and 24 Green Mountain Diaper newborn size prefolds.  I'm not sure how I feel about prefolds. I attempted to practice folding them on one of Kayla's stuffed animals and it wasn't a pretty sight. But I took a lot of trusted advice and went with them for the first few weeks since most one-sized diapers won't fit NB, and that's what I wanted to really invest money in. 

Then the rest of the stash- 

First, my newest Sunbaby diapers. Size 1- they're still one-sized, but Sun Pei began making two one-sized diapers- one for tiny, skinny babies, the other for chunky babies. I ordered mostly size 2 the first time, so I ordered a few size 1's in hopes of using them right away, or close to it. And check out these patterns. Drool. 

Then on the shelf- top two are itti bitti d'lish AIOs. Got them on sale around black friday from Kellyscloset.com. I'm intrigued by the idea of AIOs, and they are just so super, amazingly soft that I sometimes wander in the nursery just to rub them. They're a small size, so hopefully I get to use those soon, too.  The shelf below has 3 BumGenius 4.0 Artist series, and then the rest of my Sunbaby diapers. Oh, how I love those Sunbabies. I so hope they work! 

And here's a closer shot of the rest of the Sunbaby diapers:

Closer look at the itti bitti diapers:

The inside of the itti bitti AIOs, with the extra snap in liner:

Up next- two Blueberry Pockets (OS), one Flip diaper, an itti bitti d'lish in Medium, and one motherease fitted:

Two econobum prefold and cover sets:

This is just a few miscellaneous items- a few prefolds, two tiddliwinks covers (Which are adorable!!), and 3 Blueberry pocket shells:

Covers-

Just another look at the other diapers- 

This is on my changing table. Cloth wipes, a spray bottle (with just water, for now) to wet the dry wipes. I also have a wipe warmer that I will have pre-moistened wipes in, but I didn't get that set up just yet. 

More cloth wipes

Ah, my planet wise diaper pail liner. And my stupid diaper pail. I thought I threw the thing out but found it buried in the basement. Truth be told, I hated the thing last time. No matter what we did this pail stunk! But I thought I'd give it a shot again since we did save it, brought it upstairs, cleaned it up, ordered the nifty pail liner- only to find it doesn't fit this pail. So we have to get a plain old covered garbage can sometime within the next couple of weeks if we plan on using this liner. I'm not opposed to using just a hanging wet-bag (which was my original plan) but since I already invested in the liner I figure I may as well just go get a cheap can. 

And here's the place where all my storage is going:

This picture was taken before Christmas- so don't mind the mess on the left. But this is my upcycled bookshelf that was originally destined for the trash. The thing looked like crap. I covered the drawers with batting and fabric and got some baskets and stuff for the shelves. One shelf is missing from it now... let me see if I can find a picture of where it got to.....

Well, this is as close as I have. The very bottom of that bamboo looking entertainment center, under the TV, there's a pinkish looking thing tucked away in there. That's the other shelf. The CD unit was falling apart and that drawer came off the runners and wouldn't go back on. So I just left it as an open space in that thing, and put the drawer under this entertainment stand and keep spare stuff in there now. 

Hmmm. 

Oh! And the last cloth-diaper related item- wipes solution. I have a ton of recipes, but decided to start off with just a water/soap solution. I'm really interested in the ones with the essential oils, but I've also read a ton of things saying that essential oils need to be used carefully around babies and certain ones are better left for when they get older. Playing it safe the first batch, I just did some soap and water.

And just to pretty it up a bit-

This is 16 cups of water, .5 cup of baby bath soap. 

When I start adding some oils later on, I'll probably add about .5 cups of a carrier oil (maybe almond? Not sure yet) and then a few drops of other essential oils- I'm think I'll definitely invest in some tea tree oil and lavender, but there are so many other options that are good for different things, and knowing myself,  I might wind up with so many different oils I could start up my own apothecary business. Moderation is not a strong point for me. 

Nursery Stuff

So somehow, despite getting only 3 hours of sleep a night for the past month and a half, and after chasing around a crazy 3 year old all day, I've still managed to find a little energy left to do some crafty things for the third bedroom. Not too much so far, but still think it's looking pretty cute.

Stuffed owls for a mobile:


Of course I still have the monumental task of assembling the mobile, itself, but so far I am happy with the owls!

Painting:


Those are actually the only two I have pictures of so far. Ha! It feels like I have so much to do left, but really it's only a matter of organizing a few things and making some final touches. I'm having a lot of fun with this decorating thing!

Nursery Tree with Hanging Name

Woohoo! Behold! My latest creation.



It's not entirely done in that picture, but I couldn't wait any longer before I shared it. I'm just so damn proud of myself. So just imagine the leaves a little fuller around the edges, and a couple of bird houses in the tree.

Since we can't paint- or, more accurately, we COULD technically paint, but don't feel like making the effort to repaint later when we need to move- I have been looking for non-paint ways to spruce up the owl nursery. I wanted to do a tree with some owls in it, and more specifically wanted that long branch over the crib to hang her name from.

My original plan was going to be to use cardstock pieces for the whole thing, including the trunk. But I was worried how terrible it would look having tiny pieces of brown for the tree trunk. You'd definitely see the lines and everything. So I got an idea from another mommy-to-be on Babycenter.com to use foam board covered with cloth. Perfect!

I got 4 large pieces of foam board from A.C.Moore for less than 2 bucks each. Then swung by Joanne's and found the brown fabric that actually looks sort of like tree bark (that wasn't a must, just a lucky bonus, and I would have just used any slightly patterned brown fabric) and got 3 yards of it. It was way more than I actually needed but since I wanted the entire center of the trunk to be one pieces of fabric, I needed it to be longer. I could have also just gotten less fabric and cut it in pieces like I did with the branches, I guess, but I wanted it to look uniform. I got a can of spray glue, too.

At home we already had a box cutter (although we desperately need a new one and I wish I knew that before trying to use the one we have!), cardstock for the leaves and owls, and duck tape.

I just cut the shape of the trunk out first by lining up the foam board pieces, sketching it out, and cutting away with the box cutter. I also cut out the shapes of the branches to make sure they lined up with the trunk. I taped the pieces of the trunk together, and then used the spray glue to put the fabric over it on the front. Once the whole front was glued I turned it over and secured it and pulled it tight on the back with duck tape. Then I did the same for the branches. After the trunk was covered, I did the same for the branches. For the hole in the trunk, I taped a pieces of darker brown cardstock behind the foam. All of that was hung up on the wall with small nails.

Then I started cutting out the leaves. I just picked some of the paper and cardstock that I liked for the colors and patterns, planted myself down in front of the TV for a little while and cut until I had a massive pile of leaves.

I have a lot of leftover foam board. For the trunk and branches I actually only used two full pieces of it. Instead of just hanging the leaves on the wall, I decided to glue them onto large pieces of foam board and hang the board on the wall. I used the other two left to cut them into half-oval and oval shapes. I knew that the two half-oval shapes would go against the ceiling (why they had to be flat) and the two ovals would be hung below the others. I covered each board with the leaves, layering them from the bottom up.

At some point, I ran out of spray glue. I just substituted with some Matte Modge Podge that I had anyway and it worked just as well. *LOVE Modge Podge!*

When all those pieces were covered with leaves I used small nails again, first hung the half-ovals with their flat edges along the ceiling, and then layered the oval pieces over the other pieces. I decided after that point that I wanted some more leaves, so I made a few extra foam board-covered leave chunks and added them here and there where I wanted. I will probably fill in a few more leaves by just using glue dots to hang individual leaves on the actual wall itself. I'm sure with better planning this would all be unnecessary, but I like to fly by the seat of my pants with projects like this so I wind up adding and adjusting small things all the way until it's done.

Then I made those cute little owls out of cardstock, gave them a home up on the branches along with a few more leaves. Like I mentioned, I'm not done with details like that. I have a couple of small wooden birdhouses that are painted and ready to be hung but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

As for the name- first I printed out letters from the computer in the size and font I wanted. I cut them out to make a pattern for the letters. Then I traced the pattern onto the cardstock and scrapbook papers of my choice and used matte Modge Podge (Squeeee love Modge Podge!!) to attach the letters to their pages. After that, it was a quick trip to the Dollar Tree for 5 one dollar 8x10 picture frames, hot gluing some pink ribbon to the back of them, and putting my letter pictures into them and I was done! Easy peasy.

See what happens when the 3 year old spends a week with Mimi?

At least I think it's productive!