Faux "gdiapers"…

A store near me was liquidating their stock of gdiapers in a two for one sale. Though I have always been a “Bummis” prefold and cover fan, I decided at that price it was worth it to give them a try, especially since I had read many places that the gdiaper system can be used with prefolds.

When Wilhelmina was born we tried our much loved Bummis covers on her for the night and it just didn’t fit right and they still don’t for right but the gdiapers fit amazingly well.

At home she is always in a prefold with no cover, but just a prefold belt holding it up, it is perfect because it makes EC easy and we feel right away if she is even slightly wet.

But when we go out, I want a well fitting diaper that is easy to get on and off and the gdiaper turned out to be exactly what we needed. However, the small Bummis prefolds that I have and use just didn’t fit right in the the small gdiaper cover, so I was using the flushable inserts when we went out. The problem with that was that we would often come home and she would still be dry (I potty her when we are out) but there would sometime be a tiny stain of bm so though it wasn’t “used” I couldn’t reuse it either. So the solution was to make my own inserts. These work perfectly in the gdiaper and keep the fit of the diaper trim. I used 2 layer of “Zorb” sandwiched between 2 layers of flannel and made them the exact same size as the flushable inserts.

Cloth insert for gdiaper

Because I will be travelling in 3 weeks and out of the house for 3weeks, I needed to decide what I would do diaper wise. I will be using the prefolds and diaper belt while I am at Annie’s, but for the travelling and the time in Vancouver, I will be using the gdiapers exclusively. At this moment I have a few gdiapers but only two of the small size. The medium just don’t fit Wilhelmina yet and I doubt that they will be fitting that much better in 3 weeks. Though I will bring them if she happens to outgrow the small while we are in BC, I felt the need to get some more of the small size so I won’t get stuck. But instead of buying, I decided to try to make them…

I thought that the hardest part would be to find the snaps, but it turns out that the Elastic was what I couldn’t find… (and I only found velcro and not aplix)

Though I might tweak a few things still (and try to find some better elastic) I am quite happy with the results…

Here are the inside and the outside of the cover (made with knit fabric I already had)

faux gdiaper coverfaux gdiaper cover

I made a liner out of PUL, but I can use the “gdiaper” liners in there also

faux gdiaper with PUL liner

I didn’t have knit ribbing, so I used a scrap of normal knit for the leg cuff and pulled it tight while sewing

faux gdiaper leg cuff

Here is one for the snaps for the liner. It is “snap tape” so all I did was cut and sew it in.

(Ignore the bad stiching… it was almost 1am when I did the velcro)

faux gdiaper snap

All together with the liner snapped in and the cloth insert

faux gdiaper with cloth insert

All done! and Action shots…

faux gdiaperfaux gdiaper on Wilhelmina

faux gdiaper on Wilhelmina

As I said, I really want to find better elastic that is wider. I covered the elastic on these with Orange Knit fabric which made it a bit stiffer than I would have liked but it is still very usable and looks comfortable.  Besides the waist, the trim and fit is exactly the same and the liner that I made is interchangeable with the original gdiapers.

I plan on making more of these 🙂

New Bag…

I needed a new bag/purse…

so last night after the kids went to bed and I had a cup of cappuccino… I headed to the sewing room and started drafting…and sewed… and sewed… and went to bed late…

Then got up this morning and finished it….

I am SO happy with the way it turned out…

It is lined, has a main pocket and a smaller front pocket and it has a zippered pocket in the main pocket…

New Bag

I also sewed some panels that when inserted make the side and bottom more rigid…

New Bag

New Bag

Making Paper…

Annie introduced me to the blog Unplug your kids recently and I am now hooked…

Each week there is a theme and then you blog with a craft/post with that theme… and then leave a comment with your link…

I am definately going to try and keep up with this…

This week’s theme is “Square” and it took me a while to figure out what I was going to do and then yesterday I got an idea… I have been wanting to make paper again with the boys and I just needed to make it square to fit!

First I needed to find a frame… and since square frames are not too common, I went to the hardware store and got one quickly made which put me back 4$… I stained it last night and let it dry…



then this morning I got a piece of a screen and stapled it to the frame…



and then a little duct tape to keep the water out and to keep it neat…


the boys and I then ripped some paper that would have otherwise headed into the recycling…


next was to put water in the blender and add the paper…



and pulse until a smooth pulp…



paper making time!!

dip the frame into the bin with the pulp water…



turn over onto a towel (with newspaper underneath to soak up the water)



and with another towel, cloth or sponge press the the excess of water off on the opposite side on the frame…



carefully peel away the paper from the frame… and cover with another towel, or fold over the excess towel and press the water out (we had seven layers or towel, newspaper and our paper and then put a cutting board ontop of it all and then sat on it.. )

Then I took each piece and put it up on the window to dry…


our own homemade paper!


a playdough day…

For a while now colin has been wanting me to make a new batch of playdough… KhĂ©na is now at the age where play dough doesn’t look like food as much anymore so this morning I finally decided to do it…

I made two batches… one blue and one green… both with a vanilla scent…

here is the recipe I use…

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup salt
  • 2 tsp cream of tarter
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract (I use the cheap clear stuff)
  • 1 cup flour
  • colouring

Mix in a pan on the stove over medium heat until thick…

The boys watched while I made it and then ran down stairs to get the play dough toys while it cooled…

They sat down at about 9:30… and their imaginations just soared…

KhĂ©na smashed and bashed and pressed and mashed… Colin made toast with butter, pizza and Anakin Skywalker…

Xavier made cookies and cakes and spaghetti and meatballs… I cut a kleenex box and they had an “oven” to cook things in…

playdough cookies...

Cookies

playdough cookies...

at noon I asked them to put it away while we ate lunch…

After lunch they went and played in the snow for about an hour and a half and then got inside and soon after got the playdough out again and played for another 2 hours with it…

I have a feeling that we will be playing with playdough quite often in the next few days…

Some mistakes turn out for the best…

I have issues when it comes to sewing…

I can’t do patterns… I have no patience for them… they always look much more complicated than they should be… maybe they aren’t… I don’t know… but I just I can’t use them….

So I wanted to make some pants for KhĂ©na…

I had a semi pattern that I cut out a few months ago when I made a pair of cords for him… the problem was that back then no pattern would fit him… the waist had to be a size 3-4, the crotch had to be wider than the pattern for that size because of the cloth diaper and the legs had to be WAY shorter…

So I adjusted the pattern to the way I thought would work… and it worked… in a way…

By mistake I adjusted the pattern upside down… I figured out my mistake after I had cut and “tried” to assemble them… and finally after a lot of frustration and puzzle making…. I ended up with a pair of pants that fit him… but was nothing like the pattern I had made…

This summer, I made the same mistake… again…

So yesterday I decided to try again… I got the pattern out and got some Jean material that I had bought for this…

I looked at it and thought “omg I am not going to make that mistake again” so I erased the words “top” at one end of the patterns and wrote them at the other end… then cut the material making sure that I added more length…. sewed the outside seams and then realized that I had already corrected the pattern the last time I had made the mistake.. so again… I cut them upside down… arghh!!!

I did the puzzle thing again… I didn’t want to waste the material so I decided to cut what was too much at the top and then add a bit of corduroy to fill the space that was missing and add that to the bottom… of course then the brown cord looked a bit out of place so I thought about some pockets on the side with appliquĂ©’s to compliment the colours… and it worked…

I am SO happy with the way that they turned out!!!! I think that I am going to make more of the same… (well… this time on purpose!!)

I wanted to make them a little longer so that they fit for longer… So at the moment they fit Colin perfectly… so I now need to decided to hem them for KhĂ©na or have Colin wear them and make another pair for KhĂ©na (I would make them a bit less baggy for KhĂ©na also)


New Jeans...

New Jeans...

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