Flats Challenge Day 7: What Did I Learn?

Today was the seventh day of the Dirty Diaper Laundry Flats and Handwashing Challenge. The challenge officially ends for the participants when we change our babies into their nighttime diaper. Ava is now down to sleep in her normal non-flats-challenge nighttime diaper and the last load of handwash flats and covers are hanging on the drying rack, so we have officially completed the 2013 Flats Challenge. This post is a recap of sorts, to look at what I learned from the challenge and think about flats as a diapering option.

Last flat of the challenge: a Rebourne Clothing birdseye flat folded in an Ava Fold.

The Flats Challenge seemed to go by really quickly for me. I felt like it made my week very busy, though that was more from blogging every day than from handwashing every day to be honest. I did a total of seven loads of handwashed diapers this past week, not counting wool wraps. By the third day of handwashing I felt like it had become more of a habit and less of a chore. There was something calming about taking that half an hour a day to wash diapers in the camp washer. It gave me a chance to think and zone out a little. I really liked the feeling of connection to my ancestors that I felt while handwashing. Even though it was hard work each and every time, and my hands and back are certainly sore, it is cool to know that if my family needed it I could do this to save us money. 

The last load in the camp washer.

 Learning to handwash flats gave me an opportunity to rethink both my cloth diaper stash and the way I wash them. After finding out how simple flats can be, I am going to be destashing most of my all-in-ones and pockets and using mainly prefolds and flats from now on. I also thought through how my diapers are washed in the wash machine and realized that if I switch completely to flats and prefolds I should be able to cut back quite a bit on the water and time that my washing machine uses to do a load of diapers. 

The last load of the flats challenge hung up to dry.

I do think that using flats and covers is a very viable option for anyone who is struggling to diaper their child. Every baby deserves clean diapers and if cost is the struggle for a family, then cloth diapers just might be the solution. A family without a washing machine and without the finances for disposables could benefit hugely from information about using flats and handwashing them. I know it is work, but for us it really only added about 30-45 minutes of work to my day. If I ever found myself in a situation where handwashing was my only choice, I would do it gladly. Just knowing that my hard work would show up so tangibly as extra money in our budget would be the best motivation for me. 

I think the thing to keep in mind with the different options for diapering is that your life and situation is unique to you. Your hard is hard. Whether you are saving your family money via a cloth stash of all-in-ones, or whether you find yourself needing to handwash a small stash of upcycled flats, we are all doing the best for our children and families. The important thing to take away from this week is that the option of cloth diapers CAN truly work for any family. We just need to advocate and get the information out there to the families who can be helped the most from it. Knowledge truly is power, and families can be freed from the burden of diaper need if they just have the right information and support.

Flats Challenge Day 3: Flats 101

Today is Day 3 of the Flats and Handwashing Challenge! So far it has been going really well for us over here. I washed my second load of flats in the camp washer today and felt like it went better and quicker than yesterday. Due to a rainy day today I hung the flats on my indoor drying rack and placed it near a window to get at least some indirect "sun" to help with stains. 

Today is an open topic day for the Flats Challenge bloggers, and I decided to write a Flats 101 post! Before I started researching for the challenge I didn't know much about flats, and a post like this with all the information in one place would have been so helpful!

What is a flat?

A flat is simply a large square of fabric. The edges can be turned and hemmed or can be simply serged, and the size can vary from 27"x27" to 30"x30" or even larger! Most flats are only one layer of fabric, though sometimes you can find some that are two layers in order to have a decorative side. Flats can be made from really any type of absorbent material. Most are cotton, bamboo, hemp, or some combination of those. If you are looking for flats on a budget you can use cotton flour sack towels that can be found at most stores near the kitchen towels for around $1 each, or you can use receiving blankets as flats! You can even upcycle old t-shirts as flats: just take an XL-XXXL 100% cotton t-shirt and cut off the bottom, side, and top seams so that you end up with two large squares that you can use as flats! If you are on a very small budget a great option is to go to a thrift store and look for receiving blankets and t-shirts on a day when the thrift store offers $0.50 items. You could feasibly get a whole stash of 24 flats for as little as $6 - $12 if you found twelve t-shirts for $0.50 - $1 each and cut them to get two flats out of each shirt.

How do you fold a flat?

Since a flat is just a large square of fabric, it must be folded into a diaper to place on your baby. The amount of folds you can do is only limited by your imagination! There are many flat folding tutorials available online in both pictorial and video form. I have step by step pictures of four folding options and each one that I list has a link to a video tutorial from Dirty Diaper Laundry.

• First up is the Kite Fold: to do this fold, you first make sure your flat is square. Once it is square, the corners get folded in to make a kite shape. The bottom of the kite folds up to determine the rise height, and the widest part of the kite becomes the diaper's wings. Check out the tutorial to see this in action!

• Next is the Diaper Bag Fold: each side of your flat folds toward the middle, and then the bottom folds up to determine the rise height. Then trifold it like a prefold and fan out the top for wings. Fold the back down slightly to help contain poop, and then put the diaper on baby. Check out the tutorial to see this flat fold.

•  This is the Jo Fold: you fold all corners of the flat in toward the middle to make a smaller square and then trifold and fan out the wings. I have found this to be one of the quickest folds and it fastens really nicely onto baby. Check out the video tutorial here.

•  Lastly, this is the Origami fold: after you fold the flat in half to make a rectangle, you take one corner and pull it across so that you have a triangle facing you. Then you flip the whole thing over so the triangle is on the backside, and you fold the oblong side in toward the middle to make a thicker pad for the wet zone. This fold is tricky to explain, so definitely watch the video. Once you try it, it is really doable though!

• The other fold that I use often is the Pad Fold. I don't have pictures of this one, as it is pretty basic. Take your flat and fold it in half to make a rectangle. Then, fold it in half again so that you get a square. Then just trifold your square like a prefold and lay it in a cover. This is a great way to pre-load covers to keep in your diaper bag or to send along to Grandma's house. This is also a great way to continue using flats that might be too small to fit on your baby using a "fancier" fold. 
• There are a lot of other folds out there and in fact I just found this Master List of Flat Folds the other day. I can't wait to experiment with some new folds! Whenever I am trying a new fold I just remind myself that it really doesn't matter what it looks like as long as it stays on baby and contains messes. Once you get the hang of a fold it is easier to make it look pretty.

How do you fasten a flat?

There are three main options that I know of for fastening flats. The first one that most cloth diaper mamas are familiar with is a Snappi. You just clip it to each wing and to the front of the diaper and you're all set to go. I have found that some flats are very hard to snappi due to the type of material they are, though. Another option you can try is the Boingo. I haven't had a chance to try this yet, but it is the same type of concept as a Snappi but it has only two ends so you use one Boingo on each side of your diaper to hold the wings. The last option that you can use is a diaper pin. When I first started using my flats there were quite a few times where I found myself wishing I had a diaper pin, something I never thought I would have wished! Since my Snappis don't work on every fabric, I ended up going out and getting a few diaper pins to try and honestly I really like them. I have read that if you keep them stuck in a bar of soap between uses, it helps the pin glide through the fabric better. I need to try this because I have had a little trouble getting some of my pins through the flats. Overall though I like the pins because they give me the ability to fasten some of the fabrics that my Snappi struggles with. The great thing about diapers pins is that you can pick them up at most stores in the diaper section for about $1 for 4 pins. Much cheaper than the other alternatives and great for diapering on a budget!

What do you use to cover a flat?

Almost any cover will work over flats, depending on what fold you are using. If I have done some of the bulkier flat folds then I reach for my Blueberry Coveralls or my Bummis covers. If I am pad folding a flat, I reach for a GroVia or Flip cover. At night and naptime I always reach for my wool covers! If you are starting out on a budget, check out Imagine and Sweet Pea one size covers. I know that both of those are around $10 for a one size cover. You could even try a Gerber cover from your local grocery store. At around $5 that would be a great cheap way to start cloth diapering with flats, and with the money you save on disposables you could invest in a couple better quality covers. If you have a heavy wetting baby I highly recommend wool, even if you are on a tight budget. Check out my review of Gordy's Girl for a very affordable wool option!

I hope that this Flats 101 post will be a great source of information for someone looking at flats for the first time, or even someone looking into flats again! I will have another post later in the week comparing the different types of flats I am trying. I hope the Flats Challenge is going great for everyone participating!

Flats Challenge Day 2: Supplies and Preparation

It is Day 2 of the Flats Challenge! Today we are talking about the supplies needed and the preparation we made for the challenge. I began preparing for the Flats Challenge a few months ago, actually. I tried to get a little bit of everything so that I could compare and review the different types I am trying. Once I started trying flats, I really fell in love and have actually started to switch the bulk of my stash over to a flats and prefolds stash. This is why I have a relatively large flats stash right now! For covers I am using a mix of wool wraps, one size covers, and sized covers.

My flats:

• 5 flour sack towels - $4 for the set, purchased from Meijer on clearance. The regular price for these is $5 for five flour sack towels.

• 4 receiving blankets - I pulled these out of of my newborn baby clothes box. I had quite a few that were given to me when Ava was a newborn, so I chose 4 cute prints to become diapers.
• 2 Sweet Bobbins bamboo fleece - I paid $10 for these on a diaper swap page in EUC. I bought these especially as a nighttime solution. If you bought them new they run $9 each.
• 3 Geffen Baby hemp jersey - I bought these new from a website where I found a flash sale price of $13 total, though usually you would find three of these for $21.
• 3 Rebourne Cavewomen flats - I bought these new from Rebourne Clothing for $11 for three.
• 3 Diaper Rite large - I bought these used off of a swap page for $6.
• 2 Diaper Rite unbleached smalls - I bought these used off of a swap page for $5.
• 6 Imagine printed flats - I bought these used off of a swap page for $13.
• 2 Imagine Bamboo flats - I bought these used off of a swap page for $4.
• 2 Flip flats - I bought these used off of a swap page for $4.
• 1 Baby Monkeys Bamboo Terry Flat - I received this diaper at no cost to review (reviews will be posted once the Flats Challenge is over).
• 2 Orange Diaper Company Bamboo Terry Squares with doublers - I received these diapers at no cost to review (reviews will be posted once the Flats Challenge is over).
• 1 BumbleBeeBum Daddy Flat - I received this diaper at no cost to review (reviews will be posted once the Flats Challenge is over).
• 1 Urbun Sprout Fitted Flat - I received this diaper at no cost to review (reviews will be posted once the Flats Challenge is over). 
• 1 Brown Cow Cotton flat and cover - I received this diaper at no cost to review (reviews will be posted once the Flats Challenge is over).

My covers:

• Four Rebourne Woolie Wraps - I received one to review, three purchased by me later for about $30 each.
• 1 Gordy's Girl wool soaker - I received this to review. 
• 1 Flip cover - I purchased this used for $5.
• 3 Blueberry Coveralls - I purchased these new (seconds) a long time ago for $10 each.
• 3 GroVia covers - I purchased these used for $10 each.
• 3 Bummis Super Whisper Wraps - I purchased these new a long time ago for $14 each.

My first load of hand washed flats, covers and wipes!

My other supplies:

• 5 gallon bucket with lid - $5
• plunger - $5 (you can get this cheaper, but I wanted the blue one to match my bucket.)
• I use Soft Bottoms detergent which is around $10 for a 32 oz bottle. A bottle this size typically lasts me about two months for normal washing, and I think if I was to exclusively handwash flats I could make a bottle last four months. So the cost for this week should be about $1.
• I am not using a wet bag this week to see if I could in fact get by without one!

So my total flats stash cost is: $70 for flats, $102 for covers, $90 for wool, and $1 for detergent. Now, if I was just setting up a stash and not thinking about reviews I could definitely do with fewer covers and fewer flats. In fact, if I was on a tight budget I could easily have gotten my whole stash for $100 or less! Even so, with this larger stash that includes wool, the grand total is only $263. Compared to the $1500 - $2500 that most families spend on disposables during the diapering years for ONE child, this is still a huge savings!

My Green(er) Kitchen

I used to be a paper towel addict. They were used for literally everything you can imagine in our house and we went through a ridiculous amount each week. I knew there were cloth alternatives, but since that involved more laundry I wasn't too interested. One day it just clicked for me though. I was standing in the grocery store staring at yet another package of very expensive paper towels and I realized... I was quite literally throwing my money away on them. That was when I decided to kick my habit.

Going in to the switch from paper to cloth I knew that my system would have to be easy in order for me to stick with it. I did a bit of research and ended up finding these fabulous unpaper towels from Athena Creates. I bought a family pack of 56 because I knew I wasn't going to want to do laundry too often, and then I bought a cute bamboo organizer to set them in on the counter. These unpaper towels have been amazing! They are made from cotton birdseye fabric and are about the same size as regular paper towels. They clean better than paper, wash up well, and we use them for almost everything that we used to use paper for. (Dog messes still get paper. Yuck!)

The next thing I had to figure out was what to do with the dirty ones. I found this wet bag at My Beautiful Girl and just had to have it! I have an accidental rooster theme going on in my kitchen, so this wet bag was perfect. It has the perfect amount of space for my unpaper towels and washes up beautifully each time.

My favorite reusable kitchen products, though, are these washable bowl covers that I got from MBG to match my wet bag. They have elastic to fit snugly around all shapes and sizes of bowls and casserole dishes. The adorable cotton print on top has a food safe nylon hidden under it. If they don't get too dirty a wipe with a damp cloth is all they take, and if they happen to need a wash they go right in with the unpaper towels. We absolutely love being able to reduce our use of aluminum foil and plastic wrap in our kitchen with these!

I also bought cheap microfiber cloths from the auto cleaning section of the hardware store for cleaning around the house. They get tossed into a laundry bag in our basement and washed separately from everything else.

So that's my green kitchen set-up! I love how much I have reduced our paper towel usage since switching to cloth and my purchases have already paid for themselves a couple times over with the cost savings of not buying paper towels.

I'm linking up to Your Green Resource this week. Check out other blogs via the linky at SortaCrunchy!

*Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the shops mentioned in any way and they did not sponsor my review. I purchased products from them of my own accord and all opinions here are my own.

Baby steps toward a greener life, or how I became an earthy-crunchy mama

It all started with cloth diapers.

My initial interest in cloth diapers has led me down a path toward being counter-cultural and "earthy-crunchy" in many areas of my life. The more I learned about how cloth diapers would save me money, keep waste out of landfills, and keep chemicals off of my baby's bum, the more I realized that those were goals that could be achieved in other areas of my household as well. Through wonderful bloggers who I respect and read faithfully I learned about reducing waste in my house, using natural solutions instead of products with chemicals, and saving money by reusing things or re-prioritizing what is truly important.

My home has less toxins, we waste less, and throw away less since I first heard about cloth diapers. I've become passionate about things like extended breastfeeding, natural childbirth, cloth diapers, baby-wearing, un-paper towels, reusable alternatives to disposable products, natural alternatives to chemical-based products, and real food. Every little change takes us one step further toward helping our environment and our budget, and every time I fold a load of cloth diapers I am so thankful that I discovered this wonderful doorway to a more eco-friendly lifestyle. I'm going to start writing a few posts here and there on some of the things I've changed around my household to be more environmentally conscious and I'll occasionally post reviews on some of the products I've found that I just love.

After all... how do you not fall in love with a cute fluffy bum?!

Garden Fresh Pasta Sauce

A quick recipe for your enjoyment. Ben and I improvised this as we cooked and ended up with a fabulous final product. This is a great easy way to use up some of the surplus of tomatoes that you may have this summer! The measurements I have included are approximate since we were tossing things in as we went. Just adjust to the taste and texture you like.

2-3 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 T Red Wine Vinegar
1 T Butter
2 cloves Garlic, minced
2 - 4 cups baby bella mushrooms, sliced thick (amount used depends on how much you like mushrooms!)
6-8 large tomatoes or 10-14 small tomatoes, chunked
1 small handful fresh basil, chopped
1 small red chili, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1 - 2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 - 2 tsp dried marjoram (sub in fresh if you have it!)
1 8oz can tomato paste

In a large skillet or sauce pan heat up a couple tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Add red wine vinegar, butter, and minced garlic.
Toss in baby bella mushrooms. Add more EVOO if needed. Saute on high for a few minutes until they show some color and soften a bit.
Add in tomatoes, making sure to include juices. We chunked our tomatoes right over the pan so as to keep all those juices in the sauce.
Add basil, red chili, marjoram, red pepper, salt and pepper. Gently boil at med-high heat 5 - 10 minutes until the juices start to concentrate.
Add can of tomato paste to thicken sauce. Simmer for another few minutes to bring the sauce together and thicken to desired consistency. Check spices and add more as desired.
Serve over al dente spaghetti or other pasta of choice.

Let the eating begin!

Our garden is just starting to let us in on its bounty. Our pepper plants are struggling a little, but everything else is flourishing. Note for next year... less is more. I don't think we realized how much a single plan can produce when planted in good soil!

So far the harvest has been: 2 yellow squash, 6 zucchini, 4 pickling cucumbers, 1 salad cucumber, 2 grape tomatoes and 2 yellow cherry tomatoes. No, the grape and cherry tomatoes did not make it inside the house! They were happily consumed in the garden while searching for zucchini in the other bed.

I found two quick refrigerator pickle recipes to use up my cukes, and I must say they turned out delish!

The first recipe I made comes from Aarti Sequeira, last season's Food Netword Star winner. This was my favorite of the two pickle recipes... slightly sweeter, and the cilantro with the salad cuke is so perfect and summery! The only modification to Aarti's recipe that I made was that I substituted white wine vinegar for rice vinegar. Turned out great even with a substitution.

The other recipe I used was actually a Rachael Ray dill pickle recipe. While I am definitely not a Rachael Ray fan, this recipe was easy and really good. It has a good mix of spices and herbs with the white vinegar, and the addition of garlic added really good flavor. The longer these sit in the fridge, the better they taste, too!

From the ground up...

We tried to garden last year... tried and (mostly) failed. The soil at our new house is solid clay so aside from grass and weeds things don't grow well here. We did have some very successful green pepper plants though, and we were motivated to try harder this year. I decided to take up blogging again to journal about our garden adventures and our journey toward a simpler life.

Since the clay wasn't friendly toward the plants we tried to grow in it last year, we decided to cart in some better soil and build a better growing environment from the ground up. Over a month ago Ben and I built ten garden boxes to hold the soil we were planning on getting. Our boxes are just build out of pine 2"x6" boards with 2"x4" pieces as the connecting supports. We built two 30'x2' boxes, two 4'x8' boxes, and six 4'x12' boxes and laid them out in their places.

Fast forward through many rainy weekends until we finally had a dry(ish) day to have soil delivered last week. Of course the day we were going to borrow a tractor to distribute our dirt to our boxes it started raining for two days. Thankfully by Saturday of Memorial Day weekend the rain had cleared up. Saturday and Sunday were spent hauling and spreading dirt, picking up more dirt at the distributor, hauling and spreading more dirt, and finally hauling and spreading dirt in a thunderstorm! Yes, that's right... it started storming mid-task Sunday afternoon, so we decided to buck up and finish the job. Finishing the soil left us all day Monday to spread landscaping fabric down between all the boxes and get our load of pea gravel spread on the paths. Once done with the boxes and paths, we were finally able to get our seedlings and seeds in the ground!

Lest you think that this all went smoothly, rest assured that box gardens are a ridiculous amount of work and we had plenty of issues along the way. The tractor got stuck in the soggy clay a few times, and once got stuck for quite a while. The remaining grass back there will take a long time to come back and some of the tractor tire ruts are there for good. I already mentioned the pouring rain that we spread soil during, but then on Monday the temperature hit at least 85 with full sun, giving us some fantastic sunburns. Not to mention the fact that we initially tried to get these gardens in about a month ago!

After all of that, I'm just thankful that the gardens are planted. If we get even half of what we planted to produce, then we'll be eating like kings all summer! We'll have: seven varieties of tomatoes; summer squash and zucchini; strawberries; three types of beans; three varieties of peas; several kinds of lettuces and spinach; radishes; celery; six kinds of peppers; six kinds of winter squash; potatoes; three kinds of onions; cucumbers for eating and pickling; carrots and parsnips; rutabagas and turnips; and that's not counting the herbs in my deck boxes and herb garden! We should be stocked on herbs: basil, cilantro, oregano, thyme, marjoram, dill, sage, rosemary, lavender, beebalm, mint, parsley, chives, and chamomile.

I'm looking forward to finding ways to use and preserve our harvest this summer!