Earth Week . Giveaways!

Giveaway now closed.

I'm going to be giving away 1 set of my fabulous sherpa/flannel wipes plus 2 kits. The kits would include the fabric already cut and ready to go to make 5 wipes.

Just leave a comment on this post to enter. For extra entries post to Twitter (@LemonCadet) or post on Facebook (and leave that info in your comment).

Current giveaways include the fabulous sock monkey cup cozy from The Monkey Travel Club, details here. Natural Home Essentials is giving away some amazing bath and body products, details here. Sabra has some giveaways going on over at Sew a Straight Line. YOU MUST COMMENT ON EACH POST TO ENTER THE DIFFERENT GIVEAWAYS. You can enter just one or all of them. This post is just for the wipes. (Sorry for the all caps but I think it's strange that there are more comments on this post than on the other ones which are way more awesome).

In case you missed this, 8 Little Coconuts has a coupon code to sponsor Earth Week. Enter "earth week" for 15% off through May 7th. Nature's Fabrics is also offering 15% off until June 19th (no rolls). Just enter "pr15".

All of these links are also there on the sidebar. I'll be announcing my winners on Monday.

The photo depicts my well-loved wipes after 2 years of almost daily washing in super hot water. They are still super soft and even more absorbent.

Earth Week . Cloth Wipes Tutorial and Recipe

Cloth wipes were one of the first things I made for the baby. They are super easy to use, super easy to make, and a lot nicer than flimsy disposable wipes. When "soiled" just toss them in with the cloth diapers.

Step 1: Gather and cut your materials. I used flannel and sherpa. The wipes in the photo are 8" square so you'll need squares that are 8.5" to have a seam allowance of 1/4" all around. You can use a rotary cutter and ruler or regular scissors. (The wipes in the tutorial are from scraps but you can get the idea).

Step 2: Start toward the end of one side and sew all the way around, leaving an opening for turning. If you are using a thick and a thin fabric, sew with the thick stuff on top (right sides together) so that the feed dogs don't eat one side more than the other. Make sure to backstitch at the opening. Clip your corners off.

Step 3: Turn inside out making sure to poke the corners out. Tuck your seam allowances in and pin the opening.

Step 4: Topstitch all the way around. This will keep the wipes nice and flat when you wash and dry them a million times.

The most important thing to remember is that you're going to be wiping a butt with these. They don't need to be perfect -- just soft!

Nature's Fabrics is sponsoring the other half of Earth Week over at Sew a Straight Line. Click here for a coupon code and look in the left sidebar. Nature's Fabrics has a very nice selection of fabric to make your own diapers and wipes.

And now for the best part, my top secret amazing wipes solution recipe. We have been using this solution 3 weeks shy of 2 years and I am having a hard time remembering the last time we had any diaper rash. I know we have had a couple of issues but they were mainly when we were traveling and using disposable diapers.

1 cup distilled or boiled water (we use our Brita pitcher)

1 tbls Dr. Bronner's liquid soap baby mild (we get this in bulk at our co-op but it's at Target)

1 - 2 tsp Burt's Bees apricot baby oil (Target often sends me coupons in the mail)

6 drops or so tea tree oil (you can get this at most vitamin stores like GNC, natural foods stores, or for the best price try Trader Joe's)

We have both a pump and a squirt bottle from that section of Target with all the travel toiletries. Just put a bit on the wipe and you're ready to go.

And my secret to not making solution all the time is to double everything in the recipe except for the water. I put the "stock" solution in a bottle labeled MIX 1:1 and just add water to it when we run out.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Earth Week Sponsor . Monkey Travel Club

My second sponsor for Earth Week is Monkey Travel Club. We have one of her pencil cup cozies covering up a Mason Jar full of diaper dust (a must-have if you use cloth -- it really absorbs odors in the diaper laundry). We had originally planned to do a sock monkey theme in the nursery but it pretty much fell apart. We have this cozy and two handmade sock monkeys. Since Zadie asked to play with them the other day, they're no longer part of the decor. There is just too much other cuteness in the world to make it work.

Our monkey fits perfectly into the room despite the lack of theme. I just love how soft my the yarn is and that Ginny added a lemon button as a special touch. Ginny is a seamstress who makes amazing quilts, bibs, bags and even designs and sells her own patterns in her other Etsy shop, iSew. These cup cozies are really eco friendly. Instead of wasting the cardboard sleeve every time you buy a cup of coffee, use one of these. They're a great conversation starter and will last a long time. She also makes super cute owl items and a bunch of different monkey items.

Check out the flickr group for the Monkey Travel Club to see monkeys and owls on various adventures. He really gets around! Giveaway now closed.

Project: Earth Week . Cloth Diaper Report (the conclusion)

Back when Zadie was tiny Baby Lemon, I wrote a couple of posts on our experiences with cloth diapers. You can read my posts on cloth diapering a newborn: part 1 here, and part 2 here. I also wrote a guest post over at Surely You Nest on switching to cloth for a toddler. It's been a long time since then and I feel that we have it figured out.

We currently use a mix of pocket diapers and fitteds with covers. I was hesitant at first to try Goodmama diapers but I gave in to a print with rainbows and clouds and was immediately sold. And for good reason. These diapers are hard to beat. We have a heavy wetter here so we need something super absorbent. These last about 3 hours. Some people go coverless but I think they must not have rugs or furniture. We still love Thirsties covers.

We also have a few pocket diapers. Mostly we use the BumGenius brand stuffed with one of the microfiber inserts sold with the diapers and another hemp insert. We have a few Thirsties AIOs as well. These have the microfiber built in to a pocket system. They are surprisingly trim and we still add a hemp insert. The only downside to the Thirsties is that they take a long time to dry.

While the Goodmamas show absolutely no sign of wearing out, I don't see the BumGenius diapers lasting through another 2 years with a second kid (no this is not a hint. I am not, nor do I intend to become, pregnant anytime soon). The velcro is starting to pull off most of the Thirsties AIOs and we've already replaced the covers once. Always a sucker for something new, I bought the BumGenius flip system to try out and I didn't really like it.

We still hang our diapers on the line every chance we get. The sun bleaches out the stains and keeps everything so much nicer. The Goodmamas have been in the drier many times and it doesn't seem to bother them. We always hang the pockets and the covers.

At night and when we are going out for long periods of time, we use the Seventh Generation diapers. We could not get anything to work for nights. I wish I would have believed my friend when she told me not to mess with it. But I'm all type A and had to see for myself. I wasted a LOT of money on pricey inserts. A LOT. We go through a pack of diapers every 3 weeks (more if we travel). We are still using the same wetbags I bought when I was pregnant and even the same bags for the dirty diapers. While I will keep the wetbags because they are still in great shape, I can't wait to toss the laundry bags in the trash. They are spent but I know we're almost done with this. Welcome pullups! There is nothing more green than potty training.

So there you have it. This is what works for us. Every baby is different and every kid has a different body. It does take a little bit of experimenting to figure out what is going to work for you.

And we still love our changing table (above). Check out the monkey cup cozy! I love it. It's concealing a Mason jar of diaper dust. Mr. Lemon just punched a bunch of holes in the top with a hammer and nail. More on the cup cozy tomorrow when I'll be announcing two sponsors.

Don't forget to check out Sabra's Cloth Diapering 101 over at Sew a Straight Line. Tomorrow she will be writing a tutorial on sewing your own cloth diapers (really amazing if you have the time). I will be posting a tutorial on making your own cloth wipes and sharing my secret wipes solution recipe.

Project: Earth Week

Earth Day is Thursday, April 22. I'm thrilled to be joining Sabra of Sew a Straight Line in an entire week of green posts. Sabra has some amazing stuff lined up including a few giveaways, a special guest blogger, and some tutorials -- all centered around sewing projects. I think it's important to think about what we can do to be better citizens of this awesome planet and there is no better time than now.

I like to think that our household is pretty green but we can also do a lot more. This weekend I spent a few minutes tidying up the office and took inventory of all of my unfinished projects (see left sidebar). These are projects that I have the supplies for but have not completed. Some of them haven't actually been started but since I acquired the stuff for them, I counted them. My pledge for Earth Week is to finish 5 of these projects before I buy any new fabric. I know I won't finish any projects this week and I know that doesn't seem like much but that's my plan and that's a pretty big deal for me. Oh how I love to buy supplies...

Anyway, later today I'm going to post about my experience with cloth diapers: what has worked for us, what is working now, etc. Tomorrow I'll post a tutorial for making cloth wipes and a recipe for our solution while Sabra goes to the big leagues with her cloth diaper sewing tutorial. Wednesday I have a secret guest blogger planned and Thursday I'm going to talk about foamy soap. There will be some giveaways here too. I'm really excited about this week and want to send a special thanks out to Sabra for letting me tag along in the festivities.

Oh, and feel free to grab the graphic to post on your site or blog. Also, if you'd like to be a sponsor, shoot me an email and we'll set it up.