Greener Life and Knit Wool Diaper Covers

After Johnny was born I went a little "green" crazy! I spent a lot of money on all the "green" cleaning products and anything that claimed to be organic. As Johnny got older and we got pregnant again it just wasn't reasonable for us to spent extra money on that kind of stuff. But recently, with Lily's arrival coming up fast I have a renewed sense of saving the Earth and giving healthy pure starts for my children. I discovered the greenest and cheapest way of cleaning the house! By making our own cleaning products out of cheap and dollar store ingredients!!! I found this http://www.eartheasy.com/live_nontoxic_solutions.htm
It lays out each ingredient and how you can use it and gives receipts for other cleaning solutions. I discovered Borax and Washing Soda which are the main ingredient in most store bought cleaning products. My homemade dish washer detergent is just half Borax and half Washing Soda, showing me that companies stick all kinds of mostly unnecessary things in the stuff we buy. Our dishes no longer smell or taste like our cleaning product and there is no film ever left behind...nothing I have bought has worked as well!

Borax and Washing Soda where scary to me at first, I wasn't sure where I was going to find them or how much they where going to cost. Borax, which is marketed as a all natural laundry booster, I found in Walmart on a bottom shelf for just $3 for 76 oz!!! and Washing Soda I found at a local grocery store for just $3! I bought everything else at the dollar store, including some reusable plastic containers to put our homemade products in. Here are some more things I made

Laundry Detergent
2 cups (2 bars) grated Ivory soap (3 bars for $1 from the dollar store)
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
use 2 tablespoons per load!
I love this because it is cloth diaper and sensitive baby skin approved!! There is no real sent added to it, but if I feel the need I can add some essential oils for a natural sent. There are many different ways to make laundry detergent, this website gives ten, I used #4.
http://tipnut.com/10-homemade-laundry-soap-detergent-recipes/

Disinfectant:
2 teaspoons borax
4 tablespoons vinegar
3 cups hot water
and put into a non-aerosol spray bottle that I kept from something else
For the table or kids stuff I use Clorox Anywhere Hard Surface Daily Sanitizing Spray.

All-Purpose Cleaner:

1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup baking soda (or 2 teaspoons borax) into
1/2 gallon (2 liters) water.
Store and keep. Use for removal of water deposit stains on shower stall panels, bathroom chrome fixtures, windows, bathroom mirrors, etc.

Cleaning our linoleum floors
1 Cup Vinegar
a few drops of baby oil
1 Gallon of Warm Water
when floor is extra iky add 1/4 cup Borax

I also now have a spray bottle of vinegar which combined with baking soda and a scrub brush is a great bathroom cleaner (when it isn't too bad.)

Making our home more natural and Earth friendly we stopped buying disposable water bottles, I bought some plastic reusable bottles (from the dollar store!) that we refill from our water cooler. We recycle anything possible, use reusable grocery bags and just try to be careful about what we toss out. These are just little things that I get frustrated with myself for not having started years ago.

Johnny was in cloth diapers for over a year until his big butt just wouldn't fit them any more. With Lily I hope to do the same and maybe even make it last longer. I wanted to get her into the cloth diapers as soon as possible, since it is easier when they are not mobile. And being extra frugal I knit some wool diaper wraps. For one $5 skein of wool yarn (with coupon $2.50) I can make almost 3 newborn sized covers (as opposed to commercial diaper covers or soakers which are upwards of $20 a piece.) Wool is naturally antibacterial which means you only have to wash them once every 2 weeks they won't grow stuff or smell, also wool is naturally waterproof, thanks to a chemical called lanolin! However these diapers are not washing machine or dryer safe and you must be careful with them when they are really wet or they can loose their shape. For the prewashing and the washing later I found a great website that explained a simple process.

Rinse covers in cold water and then gently squeeze out the excess water not letting any partof the diaper hang loose. Then Fill a bucket or sink with warmish water. In a seperate cup put some lanolin (breastfeeding cream) a few drops of baby shampoo and hot water until lanolin has dissolved. Then dump the cup mixture into the sink without agitating the water too much. I let the diapers soak in there for 15 min (because they had never been washed) again without agitating the diapers or water. Drain the water and fill the sink with cold water to rinse the covers. Roll the covers in a towel to squeeze out the extra water and lay flat to dry for 48 hours or until they are bone dry. Wool has a tendency to "felt." When wet wool agitates to much it can become one solid piece of material, which is why you want a little agitation but not too much.

Aunt Chel also made Lily some cloth wipes and with the use of a wipy warmer, and some home made wipy solution including baby oil and/or shampoo, water, and tea tree oil we will only need to buy disposable wipes for the diaper bag!

Lily's 5 newborn sized diaper covers. I will put a prefold diaper and/or a doubler under these and use the snappis to hold it all on her.

I just love these colors, this is all set up for Mommy to make the next size up diaper covers!

Just a disclaimer that I have just started all of this and my info is coming from many websites and my own mind, I made no guarantee that haven't messed this up some how :) Mostly I just wanted Lily and Johnny of the future to understand and see what I was doing if they ever wanted to do it too.