Kelly's Closet

My favorite place to buy cloth diapers and CD accessories: Kelly's Closet.

Use the link below if you're interested in exploring the site or making a purchase - they'll know that I sent you! :)

Kelly's Closet has a great rewards program, as well as fabulous giveaways and coupon codes!

Tree Huggin' Baby Blog Event

Now that our darling daughter has arrived (she's 2 months old now!) I have had much less time to keep up with all the great blogs I discovered during my pregnancy. One blog that I always check in with (and subscribe to via email) is The Tree Huggin' Momma.

Check out this amazing blog -- and the month of giveaways she's hosting starting September 19!

Homemade Cloth Diapers

We are very lucky to have talented family and friends - and to have received a number of handmade flannel fitted diapers (with velcro to close) made and used by one of my lovely aunts. I also received a number of flannel pieces all cut out and prepped to become fitted diapers - which my mother-in-law kindly sewed together for me.

I love the flannel - but since the fabric is such a tight weave, it needs to be secured with pins rather than a Snappi (which I find intimidating).

I just found a great YouTube tutorial for making incredibly inexpensive prefolds from one of my favorite websites: http://greenmommydiapers.com/

This is super simple - for any level of sewing experience - and, the best thing: the final product can be used with a Snappi (no pins required!).



And -- here is a simple video showing how to put a pre-fold on your baby. I have prepped ours for our anxiously awaited little one a bit differently - simply by tucking the right side into the little pocket created by folding the bottom up, and the left side in (this keeps them together nicely so that they are completely ready to use):



You would put a diaper cover over this.

Of course, there are many ways to fold a prefold diaper -- once we have a favorite, I'll post again - but check out YouTube for video tutorials on the many ways of folding these simple, inexpensive diapers!

Cloth Diaper Giveaways

Ah...giveaways...the excitement of potentially winning some exciting fluff to add to my stash... I can't even tell you how much time I've spent entering these giveaways.

Freckleberry Finds has a TON of kid & baby giveaways all the time -- and a super simple entry form!



For the best fluff giveaways, I subscribe to The Cloth Diaper Whisperer. Each week, they have another great giveaway (not to mention -- when you make a purchase from Kelly's Closet, keep an eye open for coupon codes for free diapers -- I've received a free cover and GroVia AIO).

This week - TCDW is giving away TWO GroVia AIOs! Check it out here.

Cloth Diaper Prep

I spent all day yesterday preparing our cloth diapers for Sprout's arrival - I loved seeing all of the covers and cute fluff on my clothesline, enjoying the sunshine. :)

Washing Brand New Products...

New diapers do need to be laundered prior to their first use. Some items such as pocket diapers, covers, inserts and items made from micro-terry or bamboo only need a quick wash; warm or hot water works best (detergent is optional but recommended).

Between information from Kelly's Closet and from the packages of prefolds & pocket diapers, I determined the following:

Cotton & hemp products (most of my prefolds & all of the AIOs and pocket inserts)

5-6 hot water washes required before reaching full absorbancy. I did 3 hot water washes yesterday, and dried everything in the dryer (not the covers...those went to the clothesline) between washes. I used Rockin' Green detergent on the first wash, and for subsequent washes, omitted detergent. I plan to wash with detergent again today.

Darker colored diapers

I have some BumGenius 4.0s that I received as shower gifts -- and some are bright green/blue/etc. These I washed separately and will continue to was separately until 5-6 washes, just to avoid any color bleeding.

Hand-me-down diapers

Thanks for my wonderful aunt, I have a bunch of homemade flannel fitted diapers that were used with her grandson. These I washed separately once, and then the second time with my dark diapers (since I'm not worried about color bleeding). Some have velcro, others will require a snappi. All of the flannel was washed once with detergent, and dried once - then back to the nursery.

A note on pre-folds

The prefolds I have: Gerber Birdseye cotton (also have flats from them) and Osocozy unbleached cotton - seemed SO big! (especially since my plan is to use these for Sprout during the newborn stage...) After washing, just as the package suggested, I have noticed a substantial amount of shrinking. Now, folded up, I think they'll work great in the Thirsties covers and the homemade PUL covers from my mother-in-law (everyone is catching CD fever! they're irresistably cute!)

Back to prepping and organizing...I'll post a picture of the fluff on the clothesline. :)

First Post...

I'm new to the blogging world - but very excited about all of the info-sharing opportunities!
We are expecting our first - "Sprout" - to arrive any day.  (Our original due date was June 28, but it was moved to June 20 early on in my pregnancy...we'll see!)  On Monday, both my sister-in-law and my husband's cousin gave birth to beautiful baby boys - now the family is waiting for us to join in!

Right now I'm working on the finishing touches for the nursery, as well as getting Sprout's cloth diaper stash ready: washed and organized!  We're planning to use prefolds with covers to start, and then moving on to BumGenius 4.0 pocket diapers (although I don't know that I'll stuff the pockets...) once Sprout is big enough to fit them. I also have some hand-me-down, homemade flannel fitteds from my aunt that we'll use with a cover.  My next post will be a report on the fluff stash... :)