Hello all! It's been a while since my last post so I thought I'd give some updates on my family's journey to become more green. As I've written before, we've completely stopped using paper towels for clean-ups and spills around the house. We did this by starting small...purchasing a single package of barmops at the store each time we went until we had a nice sized stash built up while simultaniously vowing to NOT buy any more paper towels and just using up the ones we still had in the house. This allowed us to both wean ourselves off of paper towel usage and aquire a large enough supply of barmops so that i didn't have to wash several loads of laundry per day just to keep up with our barmop usage. The transition was a reletively smooth one...honestly, smoother than i thought it was going to be. My mom was the hardest to convert, as i had previously anticipated, but once she realized there was less money going out for that particular disposable expense, she came around. Now there were a few times that she arrived here from the store with paper towels in tow, but i just sent them home with her for her to use at her house...if she wants to literally throw money in the trash at her house, that's her business not mine. We've been using the barmops for quite some time now, so it's just second nature for everyone here to reach for one of them instead of looking for the roll of paper towels...even when friends come over, they know that if a spill happens, we use cloth towels. I've found that as long as they're clean and convieniently located, there's no problem. Something new that we've started doing around here is to use cloth napkins at mealtimes. We had been using the barmops as napkins as well, but I found that by doing this we ended up having fewer clean ones on hand for when spills occurred, which frustrated several members of the family. I had previously looked into buying cloth napkins, but i found that the pre-made ones were a bit more than i really wanted to pay. I figured it would be best to have enough of them to last through a couple of days since i generally wait until i have a full load to do laundry, and at $3-$5 a pop for pre-made, that would add up quite quickly. So, I decided to use my sewing skills and make some of my own. I was able to find some pre-cut fat quarters at the local big box store, and simply hemmed the edges up when i got home, ran them through the wash and had cloth napkins ready to go for the next day's meals. The fabric ended up costing only 97 cents per fat quarter...even adding in the cost of the thread i used, which was about $3 for the spool, it ended up being just a little over $1 per napkin. Way cheaper than buying them pre-made! And since i used fat quarters, there was no additional labor on my part as far as cutting out all those pieces...plus, they're quite large. The original measurments were 18x22 inches, and with the type of hem i used on them i only ended up losing about 1/4 an inch all around making the end product closer to 17.5x21.5, so still quite genorously sized. I'm very pleased with how they turned out, as is the rest of the family, and they are already getting a lot of use. My dad even found some fabric hanging around his house from an old project of his that he didn't need anymore, so he brought it to me to use to make more!
The newest venture in being less dependant on disposables started this morning. Over the past week or so, I've been making diaper covers to use on my little lady and this morning I put her in a cloth diaper for the first time! So far so good, she seems to like them and I like not having to throw money in the trash with each diaper change. There was one incident this morning when she pulled one of the velcro tabs open and had the diaper half hanging on her hip, but I figured out pretty quickly that by sticking her in a onesie she couldn't reach the velcro to pull it off again. The diapers I made for her consist of a waterproof cover with flaps of waterproof fabric inside that you simply fold up a diaper flat or prefold to fit inside the cover, slip the ends under the internal fabric flaps, place on baby and velcro closed. I figured this would be the most economical route at first, since the waterproof fabric is a little pricey and this way I can use the cover several times (as long as it's not soiled) by just changing out the wet/dirty diaper flat/prefold and wiping down the inside of the waterproof cover. Easy peasy! I'll still keep some disposables on hand for when I'm behind on laundry or when someone else is watching the kids (because I realize that by going cloth, I've pretty much made it so that I'll be the only one changing her diapers...well, the cloth ones anyway). I didn't bother making any for my little man since he's 3 now and in the process of potty training, although maybe some waterproof covers for his training pants wouldn't be a bad idea. He's out of school this coming week for Thanksgiving break, so I'm going to attempt to finish getting him potty trained durring the break. We've been struggling with this for a while now and I for one will be SO glad when we're finally there! Well, I guess that's about all for now, I'll try to be more on top of things with my blog...until next time!
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