Why Buy When You Can Make?

As soon as we learned of my pregnancy with our daughter, Cadence, my husband and I began readying our home. A guest room was emptied and painted "Perfectly Pink", a crib was carefully constructed, and every electrical outlet was made safe with plastic covers. We knew there was more that needed to be done, but what?

In my near constant quest to read every important piece of literature on pregnancy, I stumbled upon The Complete Organic Pregnancy. In this well-thought-out and carefully researched book, the authors guide soon-to-be parents through every day decisions like which coffees to drink and foods to eat, to less commonly discussed concerns like what face creams to use or plastic bottles to drink from. Though the book completely overwhelmed me, I did take much of it to heart, namely the section on safe cleaning products.

After reading about all of the harmful chemicals found in most store bought cleaners, we got rid of ours and bought some all natural cleaners from Seaside Naturals. We were happy with them, but after reading the ingredients I realized they were something I could make at a fraction of the cost.

I have a couple formulas that I like well enough to share with my readers, so here they are. My gift to you!

CREAMY SOFT SCRUB

2 cups baking soda
½ cup liquid castile soap*
4 teaspoons vegetable glycerin (acts as a preservative)
15-30 drops antibacterial essential oil. I use lavender.

Mix together and store in a sealed glass jar, shelf life of 1 year
I use this on my sink, tub, and grout. Smells great and softens skin!

CANDYCANE GLASS AND SURFACE CLEANER

1 part water
1 part white distilled vinegar
30-45 drops of peppermint oil

Combine ingredients in a plastic spray bottle.
Gently shake before each use.

Check It Out!

If you are looking for a great one stop shop for all of your diapering needs, I have just the place. Green Mountain Diapers is a cloth diapering website that not only provides its customers with fabulous merchandise, but also incredible instruction on how to get started diapering with cloth.

It is well known throughout the cloth diapering community that Green Mountain's, "Cloth-eez" prefolds are far superior to any other prefold on the market. We have used these prefolds with the Bummis snap covers for our little one with great success and ease.

With each order, GMD will include a detailed instruction booklet for the laundering and care of your diapers. We laminated ours and keep it in the laundry room.

Here is what we have bought for our daughter who is now 18 months old:

2 dozen Cloth-eez® Newborn orange edge
2 dozen Cloth-eez® Yellow edge
2 dozen Cloth-eez® Red edge
3 Bummis Super Snap covers size newborn
3 Bummis Super Snap covers size small
4 Bummis Super Snap covers size medium (She will be in the mediums until potty training)
2 (12) packs of 2 sided wipes
2 bottles Kissaluvs Diaper Lotion Potion Concentrate (We have only used 1.5 bottles in 18 months)
1 small wet bag
1 large wet bag

To diaper as we have you will also need:

-A medium sized trash can with a lid
-two, 5 gallon buckets of Charlies Soap (We do ALL of our laundry with Charlie's and have barely made a dent in the 2nd bucket)
-a Prince Lionheart wipe warmer (Wal-mart carries these)

That's all, Folks!

I would be more than happy to private message the total of these purchases to anyone who may be interested.