Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Rockin Green Soap Blog!

It's finally up!! I have been counting down the seconds till it finally was posted! Here is the link and I hope you enjoy!

http://rockingreensoap.com/?p=897





Thumbs up!!!

Friday, June 10, 2011

WINNER! WINNER! WINNER!!!

And the winner for the Thirsties Fab Fitted iiiiiiisssssss . . . 


  1. Erica G
Random.org

CONGRATULATIONS Erica G!! You will be getting an email from me shortly!! You'll need to email me by next Friday, or I will draw again.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Fitteds and fleece covers

Hello! So today's video is about fitted or countors as some are called and fleece covers. Please forgive my voice. Literally all of the plants have decided to set off pollen bombs, and that is what I'm most allergic to. Yaaay! And again, forgive my focus crazy camera.



**Edits- You can also use fitteds with a fleece cover, not just flats and prefolds.

I'm a Rockin Green Guest Blogger!

So Rockin'Green put out a cattle call for guest bloggers on Facebook. I of course jumped at the chance to participate. I wrote one that got a little personal and you got to know me a bit better. It's title is From Disgust to Obsession. I'm soo excited for you all to read it! I soo can't wait. It will be live the 14th and you bet your bottom dollar I'll be linking it here!


Meagan
p.s. Oliver has been teething 3 molars so that is why I haven't posted any new diaper posts. I like pictures to go with them, and my room has the best lighting, but that is where Oliver wants to be (in my bed and arms). 

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Fabric types and prepping each

Ok so here is my post on different fabric types and prepping. It probably might be an overload, but It's what confused me the most so I hope to un-confuse new cd'ers.

Natural fibers have oils. Especially organic or non-bleached fabric; but bleached still do have oils in them, but not as much because they had to be washed during the bleaching process. So when you first get any natural fiber products, you want to wash them. A lot. Not just wash, but wash then dry and repeat it several times. The first wash I do with detergent then the rest of the washes no detergent. I usually do 5 cycles of washing and drying. There is an easier way. I will talk about it after the not natural fibers (videos included!) Natural fibers are kind of special. The more they are washed and dried, the more absorbent and fluffy they become.



Here is a sampling of my natural fibers. (left to right) On the bottom is Osocozy unbleached prefold, on top: bleached prefold, Grovia (I can't remember which one, but i has natural fibers) soaker, hemp doubler, Fuzzibunz hemp doubler

See the difference between the two? Sorry it's a little dark. I can never find good enough lighting in my house.
Not natural fibers include (but not limited to) Fleece, microfiber, microsuede, PUL . . .I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them. For me, I don't feel the need to wash more than once. They don't have any oils, but they do have plenty of dirt from manufacturing and being in transit. For these diapers and inserts I would just wash once with lots of hot water and an extra rinse or two. This is my opinion though, others I have read like to do several washes. Which I think is unnecessary since non-natural material doesn't have oil and wont fluff up/get more absorbent with washing.  So it's really up to you on this one.

BOILING METHOD????
Yup that's right. Boiling. As in boiling water to make spaghetti!! This is a super quick way to get rid of most oils in natural fibers. AND it's a great way to strip diapers that have detergent buildup or ammonia stink. The way I'm demonstrating in the videos is with microfiber inserts WITHOUT SNAPS. Again I repeat, WITHOUT SNAPS.  If you boil something with snaps, they will melt. Fair warning to you all. Luckily, this hasn't happened to me, but I read about it :( poor, poor diapers. RIP.

Step 1A.  Wash your diapers. You really don't want to boil soiled diapers. . . that just sounds nasty.
        1B. Also get your pot of water starting to boil.
        1C. Get an empty dry pot out and tongs, set to the side.




Step 2A.Put clean diapers in boiling water.
        2B. Set timer for 20 minuets.


















Step 3A. (Sorry, every one came home so it became a mad house, so no video for step 3)
Grasp tongs firmly in your hand (left or right, your preference) and take out one piece at a time. Let the water drip out as much as possible.
       3B. Put the piece into the empty pot.

 
I strangely can't find the boiling pictures from today. Oh well! This works too!

Step 4. Load into washer and do a couple of rinses. I did two today, just because I was stripping them, and wanted all the gunk out.


Now that was for microfiber. For natural fibers I would add a tablespoon (or a good squirt, I never measure) of Dawn BLUE Original dishsoap. I don't know why it has to be the blue Dawn, but everyone says to only us it. So I will go with the crowed on this one. Boil for the 20 minutes, (keep an eye on the pot. My first try I got preoccupied and it bubbled over. That was a lot of bubbles) then instead of two rinses like above, I rinsed till I didn't see anymore bubbles when i stopped and looked into the washer mid cycle. Some people do one more rinse, just for good measure, but I don't have the time to. Then dry :D

So that is boiling. Not hard. I find it's easier than washing, drying a billion times. I always forget to go switch them around. Then I usually stop after 3, so it's not getting the optimal fluffing.

Don't forget to go and enter to win a Thirsties Fab fitted! I'll draw the winner on Jun 10th!

I really hope I didn't overload you.

Tell me about your boiling experiences!!!

Fuzzibunz!

Well I had an absolutely amazing review of Fuzzibunz diapers, but then the maintenance to blogger I guess deleted it. Sigh! So I'm writing it again, and I hope you forgive any mistakes I make. I just had my wisdom teeth removed and i'm on some intense pain medicines.

I actually received my Fuzzibunz Perfect Size Large months ago. I'm talking probably 8 months ago. But I guess this means I have full knowledge for the product. I love them. End of story. I love how the entry to the pocket is in the back (I have found some that are in the front.Weird), which I like so I don't have to touch anything gross to get the inserts out.

The fit is amazing. He has plenty of room to grow, especially since he is thinning out. I haven't had any issues when it comes to leaks. It has held up with the worst of his tummy issues and what ends up in the diaper. At night it can hold multiple inserts because of the generouse sized pocket. I can also put my hand in with out difficulty.Some other brands my hands (which aren't huge, average women hands) feel like they aren't going to fit all the way and eventually pop a seam because of the small pocket size.

One thing I have noticed, the microfiber layer on top of the PUL seems to hold stains very well. Which I'm generally not overly worried about stains, but now that our daycare is allowing us to cloth diaper, I don't want to gross the girls out any more than I have to. And with our very little sun that we have had, it's been hard to try and sun the diapers to get them white. So I did multiple strips and soaks with different type of soaps and RLR; none of it helped. So finally I broke down and added a little bit of bleach to the wash. Now they are practically new looking!

Speaking of daycare, my son's teachers love the Fuzzibunz. They love the snaps! They aren't a fan of hook and loop because they feel that it wont stay on. I also like the snaps for daycare because they like to wrap the diaper up like a disposable so when they do that with hook and loop, it attaches to the outer layer and kind of destroying it (I have told them about the tab on the inside). Snaps are great that way because they don't have an option of sticking the Velcro to to run print or color.

So Fuzzibunz Perfect Fit are great. End of Story. Perfect for daycare and daddy friendly, and on the go. I highly suggest stuffing them right out of the dryer so that you don't have to worry about stuffing them while in the midst of changing a diaper. Have a Happy diapering day!!

p.s. Don't forget to enter my giveaway!

This is the best I could get. Oliver is now a very active toddler.