A little off topic

Jan 5,2010 / By Maria / 3 Comments

>I have talked about “free for shipping” drawings on hyenacart before. In stalking some FFS diapers, I came across a homemade “taggie” blanket that I loved, made by DooDooRags. I loved it so much, I contacted her right away to see if she could make another one for me. I entered the drawing, but as I expected, I didn’t win!

As it turns out, she makes diapers too! So I guess this isn’t totally of topic.

I had seen taggie blankets when my daughter was little, but she wasn’t really into that. My son loves the tags on burp cloths and such, so this will be perfect for him! The front is an adorable puppy print and the back is a bubble minky fabric, giving him another texture also.

Those are the sellers photos, I asked and she said I could use them.

This is too cute, and I love that I’m supporting a work-at-home-mom instead of buying a factory produced item from a big corporation.

I started working on this post last week and I got the blanket today. Um…squee!!!! It is so freaking adorable. I wish we had feel-o-vision because it is soooo soft. As I suspected, my son latched onto it (and the “tags”) right away. I LOVE this and I can’t believe it cost so little. It is beautifully made and I wouldn’t know it wasn’t a pricey, mass produced item if you didn’t tell me. Actually, that’s not true. It’s too well made to be factory made.

I am going to update this post with “action” shots soon, I’m pecking this out one-handed while nursing a sleepy boy right now. (see below!)

I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to buy anything from this seller and when I have a few bucks to spend, I am definitely trying one of her diapers!! She told me “I am better at diapers! I mostly make the taggies for gifts and for my son.” So if she is better at diapers, they sure must be great! I think a taggie blanket would be a really nice baby gift, especially if you worked with her to find a fabric that would match the nursery decor.

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Made in the USA Wet Bags & Pail Liners

Planet Wise wet bags

Dec 30,2009 / By Maria / 2 Comments

>I love my Planet Wise small wet bag, but I wanted a few more. You can read more about why I love them in my wish list post.

The colors and prints are adorable.

I got a medium, to give me a little more wiggle room than the small I have now (that holds 2 diapers but it’s a tight fit).

I also got a wet/dry bag, which is almost exactly the same size as the medium bag. However, it has a separate “dry” pocket on the outside to hold clean diapers, and also has a snap loop handle. I thought this would be great to keep several diapers in the car when we were going to be out and about for a bit longer and would need more than the two or so I could easily fit in my bag.

I fit four clean diapers with no trouble & tons more room.

I also got a large wet bag to keep in the laundry room to use as a diaper pail basically.

I looped it on the drawer handle for now. It’s awesome! It fits a day’s worth of diapers (10) easily, with no wicking & no smell. Boy does it stink when I unzip it at the end of the day, ha ha! I’ve put dripping wet diapers in it after rinsing, and it doesn’t leak when closed, even if I hold it upside down.

At the end of the day, I just unzip and shake the diapers into the washer. I pull the inserts out and fold laundry tabs in before I put them in the wet bag to make things simpler. Then I toss the bag in too!

You can dry these in the dryer, but I want to baby them, so I hung them to dry. The insides of the bags are PUL.

By morning, it’s dry & ready to use again, but I’d love to have a second one, so I can have one in use constantly.

I wish all of the wet bags had the loop handle. A medium would be great to hang on the dishwasher handle to hold wet towels, dish cloths, and cloth napkins (when I finally get some!) It would also be handy to be able to loop a wet bag around my diaper bag handle. I love the wet/dry bag, but I usually just keep 1 or 2 diapers and a folded up wet bag in my bag for short trips. It workd wonderfully, but would be convenient to hang it on my bag handle instead of trying to shove it back in the bag.

I also got a large “basic” pail liner.

The outside is super soft and it has an elastic drawstring and PUL inside.

I haven’t tried it in my diaper dekor yet. As I said in my post about pails, I’m not sure if it would be worth the trouble, it might be easier to stick with what I’m doing now!

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Econobum

Dec 29,2009 / By Maria / 4 Comments

>I got this free with an order by using a coupon code. Not a fan.

It consists of a nice prefold. I mean a really nice prefold. Not even in the same neighborhood (or country for that matter) as those Gerber diapers people use as burp cloths. Really.

and an extremely thin, cheap, one size cover. It comes in white only.

The prefold is unbleached cotton, so it had to be “prepped” by washing 3-5 times, which I did. Supposedly, you are able to trifold the prefold, and place it inside, rather than pinning or using a snappi, so that’s what I did.

Leaked instantly! (Probably not fully prepped) I suppose I should give it another chance, but I really don’t care to. I believe the intention is to re-use the cover, only changing the prefold (unless the cover gets really dirty).

At under $10 retail for a set of 1 cover and 1 prefold, this would be a very economical method of diapering, especially if you were to buy just a few, and fill in with plain old (decent) prefolds.

However, I feel that you’d be much better served to buy a few BG 3.0s (approximately 2x the cost of an econobum set), adding to your stash as you could (this is pretty much what I did).

I definitely do not see an econobum lasting through more than one child (I’d be surprised if it lasted more than a few months) nor would I expect it to have any resale value.

I’d definitely put this is the “penny wise, pound foolish” category.

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Pail or no pail

Dec 27,2009 / By Maria / No Comment

>Part of my going with the flow has actually been not using a diaper pail. I went from 3 to 6 to 12 to 15 diapers, so I was/am constantly washing. I was essentially using my washing machine as a diaper pail, which only became a problem when I was doing laundry (pretty much every other day).

When that happened, I just put the diaper sin the utility sink. That’s fine, but it can get a little smelly.

If my husband changes a diaper, he just puts the dirty one there, and I have to fold the laundry tabs and pull the insert.

I’ve been interested in trying a pail liner, probably one with a drawstring, to see if it would fit in my diaper dekor pail. However, since I wash daily, it seems like an extra step. It would work wonderfully if all diapers had their laundry tabs folded in and their inserts removed before being put in the pail, so I could just dump it into the washer and go. Otherwise I’ll be left wading through a dozen stinky diapers to find inserts & tabs. I’d probably still miss one and up with a diaper chain and an insert wadded up inside a diaper.

So the other thought was keeping a wet bag in the laundry room . I wanted to do that anyway so I had a good place to keep dirties after spraying. If I put them all in there, my husband could still just put the rare diaper he changes, into the sink. It’s a short trip to the laundry room, which is outside my kitchen, so it’s really no big deal.

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Smartipants

Dec 25,2009 / By Maria / 4 Comments

>Smartipants is the only company that did not respond to my request to use their images in my “wish list” post.

Still, I was intrigued by the claim that the insert would agitate out in the wash, and it was also the least expensive one size diaper I’ve seen so far.

It’s also the first one I’ve seen that doesn’t come with a doubler.

It has only a single row of snaps, and the insert agitates out because it has more of a “patch” than a pocket. Annoying to stuff for sure.

It was fine, but nothing to write home about. Even the ability to wash without removing the insert doesn’t entice me. If they were all you had, you could just change them & wash them. No tabs to fold over & no insert to pull out. For me, I don’t care. I usually grab the insert with the wipe, then lay it inside the diaper & fold it up. I have to use hand sanitizer after changing a diaper anyway, so who cares.

They’re also only about $3 cheaper than the Bumgenius, but appear to be much cheaper. Don’t forget that they don’t come with a doubler either.

I am realizing how economical the BG 3.0s really are, I just wish they came in more colors and some prints too!

Edit August 2010: This has been in our regular rotation for 8 months and is a favorite. It has held up well, is easy to use and doesn’t leak. It looked basic initially but looks can be deceiving!

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