Homemade Baby Wipes

I got this idea from Parenting Magazine a few years ago, I think it was featured in their section "It Worked for Me" but I've since thrown away all my old magazines so I don't remember who deserves credit for this idea.  All I know is I've been telling myself I should just do it, and finally, this past week, I did it.

Homemade Baby Wipes. . .

These are pretty self explanatory, but I'll explain just the same:

1-2. Cut up soft old worn out tees or other clothing made from soft jersey into wipe sized rectangles. You can even end up with fun colors!
I used Yellow: a scrap of an old adult tee, Pink: the back of a cute toddler tee (I'm planning to use the cute front part for a memory quilt or pillow) and Blue: my 4 year old's worn out pj pants that had major holes in the crouch.
3. Put these new washable wipes into the container of your choice, I'm using an old wipes bag with a plastic snap top.
4. Use a spray bottle to moisten each wipe as you need it. (Also a small bucket to put soiled wipes into for washing later.)  The lady in the magazine said she just used water but I am using a 1:1 water/hydrogen peroxide solution, just to be sure it's cleaning well and can kill germs.  I keep my spray bottle on a high shelf in my bathroom so it's out of the kids' reach. The bonus to that is, the bathroom is the warmest room in the house so whenever I've used them the wipes have been nice and warm, just slightly above room temperature which I'm sure is nice for my baby.

Granted, I've only tried these for about a week now, but I'm pretty happy with them so far.  I'll probably still use disposable wipes when we go out places, just to make it easier, or at least until I run out of the store bought ones.  I guess I can always put a designated ziplock bag into the diaper bag for soiled washable wipes.  Anyway, there it is!  One less thing to spend money on just to poopify and toss.
Now, we'll see if I can realize my next project, washable night trainers for my 4 year old.  And maybe if I can figure that one out I'll even switch to cloth diapers for my next baby. Who knows? Anything is possible.

Happy . . . wiping?

~Julie :}

Easy Under Cabinet & Hanging Kitchen Storage! (No Drilling Required!)

In the past year or so I've been on a quest to improve and simplify life.
One of the steps I took was to eliminate duplicate items from my kitchen. Things like multiples of the same sized pots and pans, dishes I never used, extra ladles, etc . . . One thing I got rid of was two extra sets of measuring cups. When I got married I received four sets. One basic white set, one rubber handled black set, one nice stainless steel set. (Which I actually re-gifted. Before using them of course.)  and a lovely red set.  When paring down I decided to keep the red ones because my kitchen theme is red and citrus fruits.

When I moved here for years ago I was pleased to find the kitchen was all white with some black trim. Which works well with my brightly colored fruit themed dishes and towels, but since I haven't had a chance to paint in there, it really does seem a bit starved for color.

Of course, there really isn't a lot of wall in my kitchen to paint. One whole wall (and some of each adjoining wall) is covered in a back splash of white tiles.

For years I've searched to try and find cute fruit themed wall stickers to dress the tiles up a bit and add some more color, but to no avail. The only ones I can find are not to my taste, being either too detailed, too dumbed down, and/or too dully colored.  I'm kind of going for modern-Asian-graphic or something.
(Hee hee, I just did a search and found these. They are almost what I want. Maybe I'll get them. I actually haven't looked for a while until now. :}  )

Ooo, just a random tangent! I just recently (after getting paid to do a Coat of Arms for someone,) found and bought these sweet things with my 'pin' money!

Aren't they adorable?

Anyway, enough blah-blah . . .

My point is, I had been wishing there was a way to hang pots, utensils, or really anything under my cupboards in order to better utilize the space.  I had been looking at under-cupboard racks but I was feeling a bit leery of drilling holes into my cupboards.

While looking I did find these two cute items at Smiths Marketplace.

I think this suction-cup basket was $5 and the over drawer towel rack was $7 or something.

I like being able to clear a bit of space near my sink by putting the hand soap and dish sponge up on the wall. I'll also position my soap dish underneath the basket to catch any drips from the sponge.  It works great, even with the dish soap perched in it.

Still, I hadn't found a way to really utilize any of the space under my cabinets.   Finally it came to me!
I realized, while it wouldn't be enough for pans, I could hang my red measuring cups under my cupboards using a small tension rod. No drilling required!  This not only frees up a bit more room in my kitchen drawers, and makes the cups very easy to use and put away, but also adds a nice splash of color. Yay!

All we had to do was measure the area where the rod would go, buy a thin tension rod to fit and some S hooks. My hubby was a darling and pinched one side of each hook together so that once on the rod they wouldn't easily fall off.

Granted, the hooks would be much prettier if they were the fancy black hooks of a prefabricated kitchen rack, but considering the ease and function of this solution I'm not about to complain!

Hopefully this will inspire you to think outside the box for your own storage/decor solutions!

Organizing Drink Mixes

I just thought I'd post up here some things I did recently to reduce clutter and reuse empty containers around my kitchen.

May you be inspired.

First of all, I bought some Hot cocoa mix in bulk almost 2 years ago for a big movie project my husband and I were doing, and hardly any of it got used for that. We have since brought it to multiple parties in the hopes of using it up, but the fact remains that I've been frustrated by these little individual serving packets for a long time now. They don't stack neatly, and they fall all over the cupboard. (And we're finding it hard to want to use them much when we seem to get at least two Stephens canisters every holiday season as gifts . . . I tend to favor the flavored cocoas!) Anyway, a while ago my husband just put all these packets into a grocery bag and put them on a shelf.

Lovely.

Needless to say, this has been an ongoing issue with how neat my kitchen feels for me.

On the other hand, I recently went through a big jar of peanut butter and felt the need to wash out the container rather than throwing it away. My mom used to reuse these jars all the time when I was a kid, and I was pretty determined to find a good use for it. (I bet you can see where this is going, huh?)

This is what I came up with . . . I filled the jar with as many cocoa packets as I possibly could; taking care to measure exactly how much one packet contains. Then I typed up a label and directions on my computer and printed it then I simply cut it out taped it on to the jar.

Tada!
Now all that cocoa fits nicely in my cupboard. Surprisingly, I still had a few packets left after this, but they were manageable. I rubber banded them together and tucked them in the back of the cupboard behind the big jar.

My husband is a big fan of drinks. Especially drink mixes. I guess it's just how he was raised. My mom always rather discouraged too much drinking of "Sugar Water" as she so deftly called it. But Jake's parents have had Kool Aid and the like pretty much at every meal even to this day.

Anyway, to appease him, we have a few of these colorful packets laying around the house, along with some fruit flavored teas. These latter ones did have a box at one point, but my toddler destroyed it. Thus, I also had these drink packets cluttering up my cupboard, but as they are of different flavors, brands and quantities I obviously couldn't do here what I'd just done for the cocoa. So I did this.
This was one of those mayonnaise containers with a flip top. All the packets fit nicely into it and it fits nicely onto a shelf.

Yay for organization!