Also, I spied my one true love there, in kitchen appliance form *sigh*

And who wouldn’t want to rock up to a wedding with these guys as your date? So handsome! ❤
The little guy and I were still a bit sick so we were all home in bed by 11.30pm x

March Photo a Day “your neighbourhood” : we haven’t seen the sun in a week and there is a slight flood happening in my street

Play along with Point & Shoot at Sunny + Scout

I baked some Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing (yum), and of course had on hand the many varieties of teas I’ve been collecting. Susan brought Costco cookies (so yum!) and Clo brought White Tim Tams and choc-mint slices. We were on bikkie overload!

Once again, it was so fun! There’s something so fantastic about bringing creativity into people’s lives – people who think they are “uncreative” – and seeing what they come up with, once given the tools.

We created a “Scrappy Framed Photo”. The instruction of this craft was minimal compared to the resin bangles, as all I had to do was show some examples of some scrapbooking I had done previously, and show everyone what was available to them and how it might be used. Then for the most part I wasn’t even there (off trying to print photos and feed the baby!), and what everyone came up with really delighted me!

To thank my lovely gests for coming I made these little party favours, by cutting the cupcake shapes on my Cameo and popping some lollies and malteasers inside (though I was lazy and used sticky tape on the outside instead of glueing them!). So cute =)

I already have ideas for next months Crafternoon Tea Party!

Play along at {Point & Shoot}

Whenever I tell anyone about it (usually people ask if they see him in one), 90% of the time I’m met with either scoffs of “You’ll never keep that up” or “How gross/hard/time consuming, I could never do that”. You also get those few who want to actually argue AGAINST using cloth, as if what you’re doing is wrong. They like to say the research isn’t sound (economical, environmental), without having done any research themselves. This post isn’t for those people, as you can’t reason (or usually converse politely without getting stabby) with people like that.

This post is for all of you, my friends!

What a lot of people don’t realise is how awesome modern cloth nappies are these days. And easy. Believe it or not. And NOT gross! Believe it or not. And totally worth doing =)

Awesome
You can get all sorts of colours and cute patterns, and in summer you can have the bubbas dressed only in their nappy and a singlet and they have a full outfit on, no need to cover these up! Here is Raf in his Christmas nappy in 2011 at 2 months old (made by my lovely friend Amanda at Tiny Cheeks):

Easy:
Modern Cloth Nappies are shaped like disposable nappies, with velcro or snap closures at the front/sides. There’s no pins to deal with, and not much folding involved. There are a variety of different types for faster drying times or more convenience, I’ve got at least one of every different kind (pocket, snap-in, all-in-one). You put the nappy on just like a disposable. When it’s time to change, you take it off, and put it in a bucket with a lid (no different to a bin or nappy pail that you put the disposables in until you take them out to the rubbish bin). Once the bucket is full (usually a day and a half) you do a load of washing. The only thing different to a normal load of washing is that you need an extra rinse cycle at the start. While the baby is still only on breast milk or formula, you don’t even have to do anything with the poo (for those without kids, it’s not really “flushable” at this stage, and not *too* stinky either). Once they are on solids and their poo is flushable, you can use flushable liners, which sit inside the nappy and catch the poo, which you then just tip into the toilet and flush away, before putting the nappy in the bucket until it’s time to wash.

Not gross:
As a mum or dad, you have to deal with poo. You have no choice. You have to wipe your baby’s bum after they poo into any kind of nappy, you will eventually have to wipe their bum when they are toilet training. So all this “wah I don’t want to have to deal with the poo” thing is kinda ridiculous. Not a lot of people realise you are actually suppose to put the poo from disposable nappies in the toilet anyway before you chuck the nappy out! Dealing with poo in a cloth nappy is SO easy. With the flushable liners you just tip the poo into the toilet and flush it away, you don’t have to touch it! As for how clean the nappies are after a wash, you can see in my video below, they are white as white can be. The sun is amazing for bleaching out any marks that the wash misses.

Here I am explaining the different types of nappies you can get (long video!):

There is a multitude of websites out there with facts and figures of the savings to your finances, which I’ll link to at the end, but the basics are that from birth to toilet training, you can save around $1500-$3000 using cloth (about $1000 per year!). That is factoring in washing powder, water, and electricity.

Environmental Benefits of using cloth:

• The production of disposable nappies uses around 3.5 times the amount of energy used for a cloth nappy.
• The production of disposable nappies uses over twice the amount of water used for washing cloth nappies.
• Disposable nappies use over 8 times the amount of non renewable raw materials and a whopping 90 times the amount of renewable materials (measured in weight).
• For one child with an average 6 nappies a day over 2.5 years, approximately 734 kg of solid waste goes into landfill.
• Disposable nappies are not bio-degradable and can sit in our landfill for hundreds of years.

Places to buy & read more about cloth nappies:
Tiny Cheeks
Bambooty
Pikapu
PeaPods
Itti Bitti
Green Kids
Ebay
Bonnibuns
GloBugs Bamboo
Baby Beehinds
Cotton Bottom

Here’s Raf in a Bambooty nappy, with his cousin Malia and Aunty Erin:

So, get on it people! Cloth nappies are making a massive comeback =)

It was a good venue to take my Day 4 Feb Photo a Day challenge photo: “Stranger”

Play along at Sunny + Scout