My Latest Projects

So at some point a few months back I got it in my head to learn to sew and do a few projects. It first started with wanting to make "unpaper" towels to replace all our paper towels with. I'm not the greenest person, but have really begun to realize how much waste we have. Paper towels was a HUGE one. I could have either just bought some or gotten plain towels to use, but I wanted to make them.

As I gathered everything I needed, even getting a small crafting machine for cheap, I kept looking around for even more things to make. That's when I fell across Veggie Tale material to make cloth books! RC LOVES Veggie Tales so much and is really getting into looking at books that I really wanted to make them for him. So I bought 3 without having a clue how to make them or even if my little machine could handle the project. Crazy...I know, but that's usually what happens with me and projects. I find something I want to do, get the stuff needed for it and figure out how to do it later! There's plenty of tutorials out there after all!

So my start of my sewing projects was the unpaper towels! Thankfully I was able to find someone to teach me how to make them. I went over to her house for a lesson and came home ready to make them. I completed a few, washed them and found out the stitching wasn't going to hold. Back to the drawing board...err rather Karen's house for help. This time around, I got to use her serger and that did the job! All the unpaper towels are finished now and are great! No more paper towels here...except maybe for certain occasions like cake decorating!

My next project...the cloth books. I literally stared at the instructions on the fabric sheet and was clueless how to begin. Back to Karen's again! Karen is an awesome teacher by the way!!! In a couple of hours I had my first completed cloth book! Woo hoo...one down...two to go!

Now I sit at home with my borrowed sewing machine from another friend trying to complete the books. So far the projects are going pretty well. I haven't messed up much and finally have the machine working well...so long as I keep the speed on the slower end. It doesn't like to go fast! That's okay though because...slow means I probably will do a better job anyway!

After I complete these books it's time to get a very special book made for RC. I decided to try my hand at making a quiet time book for his big brother gift. Yes, I'm nuts, but that's how I do things. I could probably pay Karen to make the quiet time book, but I really want to make this very special Veggie Tale themed quiet time book for RC myself.

Why do we cloth diaper?

Today I walked into Target and saw a lady purchasing a GIANT box of disposable diapers. Each time I see that I am so thankful we chose to cloth diaper.

No emergency runs for diapers when you realize last minute you just used the last diaper.

No spending tons of money of diapers each year.

No looking in the diaper pail/trash and realizing RC just went through 10 diapers in an hour (especially when he was a newborn!).

No adding to the landfill with the thousands of diapers we would be contributing.

Instead, we always have diapers handy and can wash them at any moment to get more!

Instead, we have super cute diapers to show off when RC goes without shorts/pants.

Instead, we are keeping nasty chemicals off RC's tush.

Instead, we are reducing our Eco footprint.

Instead, we have a 17 month old (boy) that is already starting to understand when he is going potty.

Instead, we have more money in our pockets and can reuse all our diapers on future children!

My thoughts

about the lunette cup and the ease of it's use!

I really can't believe I didn't try this earlier. I guess the upfront cost of a whopping $40 was keeping me from trying, but really $40 is not much at all when you look at the cost of tampons and/or pads. I scored my lunette cup fro half price from a half price deal site. It is DEFINITELY worth the $40, though I am glad I only spend $20!

There really was no learning curve for this. At least, it is very similar to using a tampon. Of course, initially for inserting it is bigger than a tampon, but once in it is super comfortable, can be worn up to 12 HOURS, and doesn't dry you out!

All those reasons are why I bought it in the first place. I was looking for another alternative. The other alternative were cloth pads or sea sponges. I wasn't digging those as options. My first preference for a menstruation alternative was a longer wearing time frame. Especially for those slow flow days, I didn't want to still be having to change it out every couple of hours. The cup will definitely help in that area.

When I tried mine, I was able to only try it on the final days of my last period, but with the little I was able to use it, I loved it! Especially since those were the days that tampons would be practically dry and just tear me up when changing them.

*Disclaimer: I bought my lunette cup. Lunette has not given or requested anything in return for this review. All thoughts and opinions are solely mine.

Taking the plunge

Going to take the plunge. I'll let you all know what I think about it. I had been thinking for a while to try some other alternatives to tampons, but have been kind of chicken. Hopefully this works well for me. Lucky for me, I hit a deal on a half price site and got it for $20 rather than $40!!!

 *Disclaimer: I bought my lunette cup. Lunette has not given or requested anything in return for this review. All thoughts and opinions are solely mine.

No more shopping for milk

Yesterday I went to a cloth diaper/pamper yourself event that had a few vendors as well. One of those vendors was Oberweis. Travis had heard of them at work one day so we looked into it. My initial thought was, if we were only going to get milk delivered the $3.00 delivery fee each week was WAY too much. So we put it out of our minds....until yesterday when they had their table set up, I got to try their chocolate milk (which by the way is fantastic), and found out I could sign up then and get $0.99 delivery each week. Okay now were talking.

I went ahead and signed up yesterday as there is no contract so we can stop anytime with no problems. As I was signing up though, there was a cooler for $24.95 or free if you kept service for 6 months. Hmm....with all my Thirty-One thermals and other coolers we have I skipped paying for that. After all, it was just a Coleman cooler. Not like it was really neat cooler or anything like that.

Last night I received my welcome email and stated my delivery date is Monday and that my first delivery would be today. YIKES!!! Had to get the rest ordered that I wanted. I love that I can just go to the website and place my order for milk, juice, etc. As I was getting my ice cream...bam we'd like you to buy a special thermal for the ice cream that is $4.99. Well let's just say it is EXACTLY like my Thirty-One Picnic Thermal! So I said NO thanks!

Today the delivery guy came. I stayed home to be able to ask if he could use my bags, etc. He just GAVE me one of their bags because he thinks it's crazy to pay for it and he has a "ton of them" as he stated.

Now we have whole milk, 2% chocolate milk, and two flavors of lemonade plus some ice cream, organic chicken nuggets, and sausage to try! The ice cream though, unless it wows me, I won't be buying hardly ever. After all $6.49 (or around there) for a quart of ice cream is pretty expensive in my book!

Now you are probably wondering, if I don't want to pay the extra fees, etc. why have their service? Well their milk is supposed to be one of the best around, comes in glass bottles that get returned for reuse, and I don't have to worry about running out of milk (or at least I shouldn't have to!)

While my hubby and I are not major environmentalists, we aren't huge animal rights activists, etc. we are finding that we want to make some changes in our daily lives. This is just one small step. Instead of plastic or cardboard with plastic lining, we can return the bottles for reuse each week! If we decide we want to keep one, it will cost us $1.50. Not too bad since they are good bottles. Sometime later I will write a post on how we have gone greener.

The bottles fit awesome in the Thirty-One Making Memories Rolling Thermal Tote. The frozen are in Oberweis' thermal, but my Picnic Thermal Would work much better. I think mine has a better thermal lining especially.

This week's delivery of the refrigerated items. I had put the frozen away already. Whole milk for my son, chocolate milk (it was free), and lemonade and raspberry lemonade! All very delicious.