Adjustable Toddler Belt

Have you ever had a pair of infant or toddler pants that were just a little too loose? My first son is thin. When he was a toddler, his waist size in pants was smaller than his pant length. So I put a belt on him for a while. What a pain to take off every time he needed a diaper change. Then I discovered the adjustable waist pant. Hallelujah! But these can be hard to find in infant sizes (24 months and smaller). So he wore athletic pants for a long time! Good ole elastic pants!

My second son is.... not so thin. :) He is built like a tree trunk, round and solid! With the added bulk of a cloth diaper, now I run into the opposite problem. He needs larger pants in the waist, but they are still a little too loose.

My sister-in-law had the same problem with pants staying on her son too. She introduced me to the Dapper Snapper. It's an adjustable toddler belt that snaps in the back, so you never have to worry about taking it off during diaper changes. I thought it was a great invention! Created by a mom, of course! And they come in all different colors to either match an outfit or add flare.

I really didn't want to spend $10 per belt. So I made my own version of one. It's a simple concept. But I've never attached snaps before, and I went through almost a whole package before I figured out how to use the tools and attach them correctly. Typically I could make about 4 belts with one package of snaps (at $2.59 per package, plus my 40% off coupon because I'm cheap). I already had the black elastic on hand. But I did check the elastic out to see if I could get a navy for jeans and tan for khakis. Unfortunately I only found black and white elastic in my local craft stores. More colors are probably available online.

I didn't measure anything, which is strange for me... the perfectionist! I just placed the first outtie snap and then fitted them on the jeans to the tension I liked, and placed the rest of the snaps. I used a youtube video as a reference on how to attach snaps, and of course now I can't find it! The problem I had was putting the innie snaps on backwards, or hammering until the metal was crooked. I seriously had no idea how to attach these things! The innie piece with the side that feels raised up is the side that gets hammered against the prongs.

Homemade Bar Soap

I was given a bar of homemade soap once. It was pumpkin scented and smelled delicious! It had coffee grounds mixed in as an exfoliant, and it felt great! I was shocked when I found out that it was homemade. Buying all the start up ingredients wasn't easy or cheap. The sodium hydroxide (used to make lye, which is used for saponification and makes the soap, soap) had to be ordered online and some of the ingredients weren't carried in the same store, so I had to make multiple stops. But once I had everything, the process was pretty easy. (And once I found a recipe I liked, like the grocery store soap, I could find most everything easily and in the same store.)

The cold process method is what I use. I found the link below to be very useful. It's a great tutorial. It also has a grocery store recipe (which I've used many times), so you can find all the ingredients you need in one place! With the exception of the sodium hydroxide of course. I buy that from http://www.brambleberry.com/default.aspx along with any essential oils. Occasionally I will make a batch of specialty soap. But I dread having to buy extra ingredients and fragrances. I make soap for our everyday use and typically make a simple recipe with coffee grounds and call it good. One batch usually lasts many months.

I did the math and a simple bar of soap is about .50 cents per bar. A specialty bar is over $1 per bar. We usually bought Lever 2000 from Sams (because it was the best price). It's about .42 cents per bar. Just a tiny bit cheaper than homemade, and a lot less work. Store bought soap bars are a little bigger too. But ick! It makes my skin super dried out. And to buy something like Dove or Dial is almost $1 per bar, even from Sams.

I get so freaked out when I hear about the crazy ingredients in everyday things that end up being bad for your health. I know all the ingredients that I put in this soap.

http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soaprecipes/a/grocerysoap.htm

A great resource is a book called The Soapmakers Companion. It's on my list of things to buy! It has everything you need to know about soapmaking and recipes.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I was getting low on All Free & Clear liquid detergent. I was dreading a trip to Sam's. Not only do my Sam's trips turn expensive really quick, but it was the end of January, which meant the end of our monthly budget. I just wanted to hold off until February. We made a trip to WalMart and my husband said "Why don't you just buy a small jug of detergent to get you through until February and it won't cost very much." A valid idea. But I of course think of value when I buy. Groceries are shopped for by the unit price, not the listed price. And something like laundry detergent is bought by price per load. I think All was about 11 cents per load.

I use Country Save for my cloth diapers. It's a detergent free of dyes and perfumes, it's a detergent for clothes, but safe for diapers as well. I did the math on how many loads I do, how many boxes I had left, and if I would need to buy more by the time I was done with diapers. I figured I would, in fact, need to buy more detergent, so I could always use that for my regular laundry too. When I did the math, Country Save was 10 cents per load. Hmm...

I remembered that I had made my own detergent once. I wasn't impressed by it. It didn't clean my clothes any better than other detergents and I found it to be a hassle. Stirring and dunking a scooper in a huge bucket with every load. And now with 2 kids, I do a lot of laundry. I need laundry time to be easy and quick. I hate how the liquid detergents (like All) always leak and create a soapy mess on my shelf. So I contemplated homemaking a powdered detergent. My math came out to 5 cents a load. Wow! I did the math on homemade liquid detergent... 1 cent per load. Yikes! That sold me right then and there. But only if I could find a way to easily mix and dispense. I remembered a watching the Duggar's on TLC. I googled the Duggar recipe and it suggested filling an old liquid detergent container and giving it a shake before you dispense. Here is the recipe:

http://www.duggarfamily.com/content/duggar_recipes/30455/homemade_liquid_laundry_soap_front_or_top_load_machine_best_value

Ingredients; cheap and all found at WalMart. Process; quick and easy. I bought a 5 gallon bucket with a lid at Lowe's to store my gelled detergent. Every time my dispenser runs out, I just fill it half with water and half with detergent. Shakey shake and done. And for a tenth of the price! Oh, and it does clean our clothes very well! Even my husband's work clothes come out smelling fresh and clean.

Shadow Puppets

The library has a monthly Born Learning event where families come and play. The theme this month was shadows. Luckily, we had just played in the dark with flashlights a few days before. So Ethan was very excited! One of the stations was a make your own shadow puppet. Ethan chose a train (pink!) and a dolphin. Euan got 2 different dinosaurs. Taped to popcicles, and we got some shadow puppets!

This inspired me to use my newest birthday gift, my Cricut! A part of me wants to use the Cricut as much as possible so I can justify how much it costed! I filtered through the templetes and found images that were easily recognizable by shadow only. And Voila! The first my Cricut creations!

Alfredo Sauce

I love Olive Garden. The alfredo recipe from my Joy of Cooking cookbook is awesome! I add a few things for my favorite flavors.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup grated parmesan (4 oz)
salt, pepper and fresh ground nutmeg to taste

1. Melt butter and cracked garlic in sauce pan over medium heat. Smack garlic cloves so their cracked open, releasing their flavor. You want to be able to fish them out when the sauce is done.
2. Add cream and cheese and stir until melted. Turn heat to low. Add seasoning to your taste.

Toss with 1 pound of fettucine, use whole wheat if you can! It still tastes yummy. Maybe all the cheese and cream counts out the healthy part, but oh well! It's a treat!

I also love Pizza Hut's alfredo pasta. Diced chicken breast and season with salt and pepper. Cook in a skillet with olive oil and toss with short pasta and alfredo sauce. Top with mozzarella and a little parmesan and bake until melted.

Elmo Quilt

I made 2 quilts for Christmas, one for each of my boys. It was my first quilting project. The only thing I am disappointed in is that I didn't flatten and smooth the fabric and batting enough when pinning. So there was a little bunching here and there. Nothing noticable to the average person, but frustrating for perfectionist me!

Euan loves 2 things right now. Cows and "Melmo"! I couldn't find any Elmo only fabric, and I really wanted a life size Elmo blanket. I drew a 3 foot sized Elmo on the red fabric with pencil, using googled images as my inspiration. I used a triple stitch setting (for boldness) and followed my pencil lines. This was Elmo's basic shape. Some lines went jagged, some went a stitch too far, but this totally worked for me. Elmo is fuzzy, so it looked perfect!

I cut out other colored fabric for the eyes, nose and mouth and did an applique technique. But after being washed, Elmo's eyes bled through a little and are now a faded red. Maybe for future projects, double up on the white and prewash the red fabric.

I am so proud of my quilt, even with the mishaps. I was pleasantly surprised with how adorable Elmo turned out! It's better than I had planned!

Cars Quilt

A Christmas present for Ethan. My first attempt at making a quilt. I got the basic instructions here. However.... I did the traditional binding, tedious hand stitiching! I bought the fabric for the front, and used an unused Cars flat sheet for the backing. It wasn't complete by Christmas, just the binding left to complete. But I wrapped it up anyway and finsihed it the next day. Ethan loves it!