How to Fold A Cloth Diaper

One of the questions I am asked most frequently when people hear about our lifestyle is, “HOW do you fold cloth diapers?” Just today a dear friend called me with a newborn and the same question.  I tried to walk her through it on the telephone and I don’t think I was very successful… so Mrs. T, this one is for you! 

When Farmgirl was born I was very new to the cloth diapering world.  I didn’t realize that there are fancy cloth diapers that you can get, so I bought plain old rectangles from a Mennonite company called “GVS” (which is short for “Great Value & Service… And they definitely live up to their name!).  These diapers were a great investment!  I spent less than $100 in diapering supplies (including covers, which I bought elsewhere) and this stockpile has lasted through 3 babies.   (Papa the Farmer says the next baby definitely gets its own new diapers.  Some of the diapers are getting pretty worn out… But still… $100 to diaper three babies is pretty good!)

(GVS does not have a website, but call for a free catalogue!  They have lots of neat stuff, not just diapers!  Their number is 1-800-398-2494 and their email address is sales@gvsdis.com)

I fold my diapers in two different ways, depending on the size of the baby.  The first way I will show is the way I fold the diapers for the littlest babies.  I think I folded the diapers this way for about 3 months with Farmgirl, but only for about 6 weeks with FarmBaby.  (He was much bigger)…

So here it goes!




How to fold a cloth diaper for a little baby (approximately 0-3 months)

First, lay the diaper out in front of you:


Next, fold the diaper in half by matching up the two short ends so you have something that resembles a square:
 

Then you take that square, and fold in half one way, and then in half the other way (so you just folded it in quarters and now you’ve got another, smaller square):
 

Now is the tricky part (but it’s not too bad, I promise!).  Slowly, lift one corner of the diaper…


Now watch as I do this…  Continue to lift that corner and pull it across the diaper, and then several inches off the diaper, forming a triangle.  Did you see how that worked?  The corner that I lifted in the photograph above is the corner that is now the upper left tip of the triangle in the photograph below:



There!  That’s the hardest part!  The rest is easy!  Now, simply flip the whole thing over so that your triangle is now beneath the diaper:
 

The square part that is sticking out to the right is going to be the absorbant part of the diaper.  Start folding it over.  Here’s the first time I folded it:
 

And here’s the second time:
 

Ta da!  Diaper is now ready for Baby!  My baby is too big to model this style, so my favorite baby doll agreed to model it for you instead.  (Yes, I still have my original cabbage patch doll from 1984!  Her name is Amy, if you’re wondering!)

The diaper in the picture above is technically upside down, so just rotate it around so that the long side of the triangle is at the top.  This is the part that will wrap around the baby’s waist.  Next, lay your baby on top the diaper.  The rectangular part comes up between the baby’s legs:
 

Next, simply bring each side piece around the baby’s waist and pin it to the part in the middle.  Usually you only need one pin to do this.
 

And you’re done!  See?  That wasn’t too bad, was it?

Now, what if you have an older baby?  Well, then it’s even easier!




How to fold a Diaper for a Larger Baby (3 months - 2+ years)

As before, you lay the diaper out in front of you and then you fold it in half.

Next, fold it into thirds:

 

Now, take the upper corner and fold it out.  Depending on the way you folded it, your diaper may need to be pulled out to the left or the right:
 
Repeat this step with the opposite corner:
 

And ta da!  You are ready to put a sleepy, cranky baby in that diaper!

 

 

As before, the long, rectangular part comes up between the baby’s legs and the “wings” on the side wrap around and are secured with a pin.

Then, I put a diaper cover over the whole thing.  Personally, I really like ProRap diaper covers!  We’ve had several diaper covers over the years and these ones have held up really well through literally thousands of washings!  They're inexpensive (only about $7 each) and they also have great little leg gussets that help prevent leaking!  Click here to Search Amazon.com for Prorap

By the way, in a pinch, you can use a T-shirt to fold either of these diaper styles.  (Please don’t ask me how I know this.  Let’s just say I’ve been diapering steady for almost 7 years now!)  Just fold the sleeves in so you have something that looks like a rectangle and follow the steps above!

                                                                        Happy Diapering!

Frugal Girls’ Easter Bonnet! (Tutorial)

Am I the only one who thinks paying $15+ for a little girls’ dress hat that they are only going to wear to church a few times is obscene?  Well, for those of you needing Little Girl Easter hats, here’s a tutorial for a sweet little Easter Hat… just barely in the nick of time!

I found some very simple (pretty flimsy) little hats at “Dollar Tree” for $1.  We bought two.  One for the farm girl and one for a friend.



We also found these really pretty artificial flowers for $2:



With a little hot glue, this is what we ended up with:



In case you’re thinking to yourself, “Is that grass on the top of her head…” please don’t judge me!  She really wanted a butterfly up there.  Here’s a bird’s eye view:



We also made a second hat for a friend.  We started with the same $1 hat, but this one was green.  The Little Farmboy wanted “rainbow ribbon” on this one so we pulled off the little ribbon the hat came with and added some “rainbow ribbon”:



Then we tied a bow and glued that onto the back, leaving long beautiful ends! 

 

As you can see, the ribbon fits at the base, but it needs some adjusting to get the top of the ribbon to lay flat.  I was going to sew it little tucks into the ribbon, but I found that hot glue did the trick pretty well:



I think our friend will be very pleased when she gets her hat!  We had such fun making these today!  Now, we will not be wearing ours to church, but with the right ribbon and/or flowers, this could make an adorable hat for Easter!

Vegan Ice Cream

As the mother of a family on a vegan and gluten free diet, sometimes I just run out of ideas and I don’t know what to make for mealtime.  This morning was one of those days….
So I asked the Little Farmhands.  A more organized mother would not be polling her offspring for opinions, but that’s what I did.

“Let’s have ice cream!” they said.

Being the ever-so-responsible parent that I am, I said, “Yeah!  That sounds like a great idea!”

And it did sound like a great idea at the time!  But you know that inevitably, today will be the day that a grandparent calls and asks one of them, “So, what did you have for breakfast today?” And they’ll say, “Mama let us eat ice cream.”  And I’ll be jumping up and down in the background waving my arms wildly, yelling in a whisper, “No!!  Don’t tell her that!” 

But I didn’t think of that in the moment, so I said, “Yeah!  That sounds like a great idea!” 

Here’s how we did it….

Earlier this week Papa the Farmer came home with a couple of large brown bags of really brown, squishy bananas. 

We peeled them and laid them out on a cookie tray.  Then we put the whole tray in the freezer and let them freeze.

 

This morning, we pulled out our Champion Juicer. 

(Frugal note here!  If you want to make banana ice cream like this, but you don’t have a juicer, you can probably find a used one comparatively cheaply!  These juicers are top of the line so a lot of people buy them when they make a new year’s resolution to juice more or be healthier or whatever…  Then when the phase fizzles out, you see a lot of Champions on Craigslist and ebay, just looking for a new home!  If you want to be even more frugal, you can just skip the juicer altogether and just chop the bananas up and eat little frozen banana slices.  That’s pretty tasty, too!)

Now, are you ready for our very complicated recipe?

The next thing you do is run the frozen bananas through the juicer.  It comes out looking like this….

 

 Hey!  Who is sticking their finger in that!? 

Get your finger out of there!  Don’t you know I’m posting these pictures online later?!

We wanted to make carob “ice cream” so as we were running the bananas through the juicer we also added a scoop of peanut butter and about a cup of carob powder.

That’s it.

 

It’s important to have good help for the clean up phase. 

I may consider renting out our farm’s Dripper-Licker-Upper for a small fee.  Otherwise you’ll just have to lick up your own drips. 

To redeem myself in the “responsible mother” department, I didn’t just let them eat ice cream for breakfast.  We had air-popped popcorn, too (sprayed with a little olive oil and sea salt!)  After all, corn is technically a grain (not a vegetable).  That’s almost as good as cereal, isn’t it? 

 

Ladybug Letters!

The weather here at the Good Old Days Farm has been a bit too chilly to do much out side... So we've brought the outside in, with our new game.  (Kinda sorta.)  A while back we got creative with some egg cartons, paint and stickers.  The ladybugs are just two buttons glued together.  Inside each compartment is a different letter.  (Except we had to put "c" and "k" together and skip "y"... since it makes 3 different sounds... in order to put a 26 letter alphabet in 24 spaces).  We put the ladybug in the egg carton, close it, shake and open again... Then the little farmhands have to say what sounds is made by whatever letter the ladybug is sitting on.

This game is so much fun if you happen to be a little Farmhand who is learning how to read!  It is one of the suggestions in "Happy Phonics" ... a learn-to-read program that uses cardstock games to teach little ones how to read.  My little farmgirl loves workbooks and will actually complain to Papa the Farmer if I don't let her have enough workbook time... But, I like the games best! And even little workbook-girl has to admit that these games are fun! Diane, at Love To Learn has done a wonderful job of putting together a step-by-step reading program based on non-competitive games.  After all, what parent child doesn't like to play games? 

And by the way, if you put numbers instead of letters in each compartment, Voila!  Instant adding, subtracting or multiplying game!

Hay, That’s a Very Good Question!

Did you ever wonder what happens to those elaborate fall displays that you see in stories during October?  You know the ones I’m talking about…  The displays you see in the middle of the city with big bales of hay and scarecrows and pumpkins everywhere.  I always laugh to myself when I see hay in the middle of the city!  Not exactly it’s natural environment!

Well, look what Papa the Farmer came home with today:



17 bales of hay FREE from an upscale health food store in Dallas!  We have a friend who works there and when the manager mentioned that he wasn’t quite sure exactly how to dispose of the autumn display, well, that friend thought of us! 

You may be asking yourself what we are going to do with 17 bales of hay.  That’s a very good question.  I’ll let you know when I figure that part out!  I’m pretty sure Papa the Farmer has plans for it… Mulching figs trees is my guess! 

I think we should make scarecrows.  We could make a whole family of scarecrows with that much hay.
Do you care to guess what he might do with it?  If you have a suggestion, leave it in the comments below!  If we use your idea, you will be forever immortalized on our blog… whatever that’s worth to you!

Pears, Pears, Pears!

Well, I think I’ve come to the last of the canning for this year.  My friend Carol (from the farm "Moss Gathers" in Celina, Texas) and I struck a deal.  She has a couple of big pear trees.  She picked the pears, gave them to me and I canned them and then give her half the pears back.  We did this a couple of times throughout the summer.  Last week I think I canned the last for this year.  I just peeled them, diced them and then put them in jars with white grape juice.  Mmmm, yummy!

It was a lot of work (and there’s a possibility that she got the better end of this deal!) but I am so looking forward to trying these this winter!
Oh, and then, because I am cheap and I don’t like anything to go to waste, I did one last jar of blended pear peels.  Honestly, they don’t taste that great, but maybe I can use them in a recipe instead of apple sauce.

During our garage sale last week we met one of our neighbors who we had never met before.  (That’s because for most of the time we have lived here I have been home alone, pregnant or with a newborn plus other young children and no car.  So I haven’t gone out much and I haven’t met many people!)  Anyway, this neighbor saw that we had children and asked if we would like some pears from their pear tree.  They have so many pears they don’t know what to do with them all! 

Talk about melting in your mouth!  I don’t know what’s so special about these pears, but they are delicious!  I’m allergic to apples and so over the years I’ve eaten a lot of pears… These are hands-down the tastiest pears I’ve ever tried!  We really enjoyed them!  Thank you, neighbor!  We plan to invite him to participate in our fruit  CSA next spring!

(CSA is short for Community Supported Agriculture.  Members of The Good Old Days Farm will receive a weekly box of home grown fruit or vegetables throughout the season)

Garage Sale!

You may have noticed that my blogging has been… well… sporadic lately.  That’s because for the past few weeks I’ve been gearing up for and then having a garage sale!  The night before the garage sale I told Papa the Farmer “NEVER AGAIN!” It’s been a lot of work, but it’s been fun.  So now I think I probably will do it again. 

Getting ready was a whole-family affair.  Buying pre-made Garage Sale signs would have been expensive (we needed several) so the little farmhands made our signs all by themselves!  Well, ok.  Not ALL by themselves.  Papa the farmer drew the letters and they colored the letters in with marker.  Bad idea!  The little farmhands are only allowed to use washable markers, so after it rained in the middle of our sale (Murphy’s Law!) we decided to paint the letters on.  Still, I think the signs turned out pretty good:

(Sorry that the sign is crumpled.  I had to pull this one out of the trash after the sale in order to take a picture!)
Anyway, after all the work was done, the garage sale turned out to be lots of fun!  For 3 out of the 4 years we’ve lived here I’ve been a stay at home mom with no car, so I haven’t really met anybody.  I got to meet so many fun country people!  A lot of the “old timers” from town came and left and came back and left and generally spent a lot of time heckling each other!  Hanging out at our garage sale was a little bit like hanging out at an old-time barber shop!  I was surprised, some of our “customers” came three times in the same day, others stayed for up to 2 hours!  I enjoyed that part of it the most!

The previous owners of this house left a lot of unidentifiable things in the workshops and so we sold some of that in addition to usual garage sale stuff.  Papa the Farmer put all that “man cave” stuff out on a table and I put other items up on the porch.  (I was so thankful for our big porch!  When it rained for 2 days in the middle of sale, all the stuff stayed dry!)


There were two things about having a country garage sale that really surprised me. 

#1 – I had a whole bookshelf full of books for sale.  A lot of people took one look and said, “I never read.”  IS THAT POSSIBLE?  Obviously it is, or they wouldn’t have said it, but as a homeschooling  mom I can’t get my head around that.  I could understand if someone said, “I don’t want to read those particular books” but “I never read”???  Come on!  As my neighbor put it:  isn’t there anything in the world you are curious about?

#2 – One man who stopped by our sale a couple of times was a Black man who lives nearby.  Now, I had heard a rumor that a long time ago, our little town used to be the local headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan.  But he told me that THEY STILL MEET!  That shocked me.  I have no idea if it’s true.  I’m just telling you what he said.

Anyway, it was a good, interesting, fun and profitable experience.  If you’re thinking about hosting your own garage sale, I say “Go for it!”  I’m already looking forward to doing it again next year!

Car-Clutter, Be Gone!

I’ve heard it said that the state of your vehicle reflects the state of your life.  That quote has been stuck inside my head for a while now. Every time I go somewhere I hope that no one will look inside my van and judge me by anything they might find in there.  Really… those little toy cars everywhere aren’t mine.  Neither are the rocks, sticks and leaves you’ll find in the backseat.  The coloring books and mini “magna doodle boards,” dolls, waterbottles and sunglasses floating around back there aren’t mine either.  And I promise, I didn’t know anyone had left crayons in the car that day it was 108 degrees outside…

I decided to take charge. Admittedly, there’s stuff in there that’s my fault too.  (Like old gas receipts that should have been thrown away a long time ago!)  A car organizer is just what we need!  So, being too cheap to actually purchase some, I decided to get creative with a striped bedsheet, old jeans and scrap fabric and sew some.  

Here is my attempt to tame the clutter-beast!

 

 

Notice they’re all different?

They are very simple to make… Just measure the van seats, mark where the headrest attaches to the seat and make buttonholes there, then add whatever pockets suit your fancy.  The bulging pockets on the left side of the denim strip are actually cup holders.  The pockets immediately below that hold a full size coloring book.  The red pockets in the lower right corner close with an elastic and will hold a number of large items (which I added at the request that I make a pocket large enough for a certain somebody’s doll!) 

Now we just need to take a road trip!