Stay at Home(made) Mom part 2

Back in August our friend Tammy Myers showed me how to make my own baby wipes and I LOVE IT! There are many advantages to making your own wipes, the first of which is obviously cost. A box of baby wipes cost around 2-4 dollars depending on where you get them from and they usually only have about 80 wipes. When you make your own wipes you use "select a size" paper towels, which only cost about 2-3 dollars. Each roll has 133-140 sheets per roll AND you cut those in half so you actually get between 266-280 wipes. Because the "recipe" calls for baby wash the wipes are very gentle, gentle enough for wiping her face, hands and neck. And on top of all that, they smell really nice!

Besides the paper towels, there are a few supplies that you'll need but most of those you'll have lying around the house.

Here's what you'll need: Baby wash (your favorite brand and sent), Olive Oil, 1 roll of Select-a-Size paper towels (I like to use Bounty), a mixing bowl, a container for the wipes, a tablespoon, a 1 cup measuring cup and Distilled Water

Using a serrated bread knife cut the paper towel roll in half



Place the roll, cut side down, in to the container.



Then in a mixing bowl mix together 2 cups of distilled water,



1 tablespoon of olive oil,



and 2 tablespoons of baby wash.



pour mixture all over paper towels, making sure to pour in AND around the cardboard roll.



remove cardboard roll



Vuala!


Lastly,Tammy recommend writing the "recipe" for the baby wipes on the side of the container for easy access. She was nice enough to give me her old container that she used with her kids!

Stay at Home(made) Mom

I've decided that I'm going to start a little "segment" called Stay at Home(made) Mom (a play on words... "stay at home mom" and "homemade" - get it?) where I can tell all about the things I'm making instead of buying in order to save money. I've recently had a revelation about buying baby food vs. making baby food, so here it goes...

Before Lori was born I decided that I wanted to make my own Baby food. I only started a few months ago, and I have to admit, I have used store bought. To be honest, I wasn't sure if it actually was cheaper to make my own. It wasn't until recently that I realized that it is in fact cheaper. I was talking with my friend Chilly, whose daughter is a little older than Lori and she was telling me that the once Lori gets a little bigger she'll be eating from the bigger jars and that the bigger jars cost more money... almost twice as much as I was paying. I also realized that Lori hasn't been eating a whole jar per feeding yet and she will be soon, which means I'm going to have to buy MORE food than I am. All these things caused me to take a closer look at the cost of BUYING baby food verses the cost of MAKING baby food. And here is what I have come up with...

Right now at Walmart it cost .42 for 2.5 oz of baby food. (that was the cheapest one available) Right now she's eating about half a can a feeding, which equals 61 cents a day. That's not that bad right?

The next size up is 4 oz and it cost 1 dollar. So that means that when she starts eating one of those a meal she'll be eating 3 dollars of baby food a day. (you like my crazy math skills?)

So I went to the store and bought the things I'd need to make baby food and here is what it came down to...

3 lbs of sweet potatoes at .79 a lb = $2.37

a bag of Fuji apples = .99

Ziploc Zip 'n' Steam bags = $2.79 (use these instead of steaming/boiling the fruits and veggies in water... much faster, and MUCH easier clean up!)

So the grand total is... $6.15, so far so good. The next step was to make the baby food and see how much I get.

I started with the sweet potatoes, I peeled them, and cut them in to large cubes and put them in the Zip 'n' Steam bags. I cooked them according to the directions. (7 min) Afterwards I placed them in to my food processor and blended the heck out of them, adding water until it was a good consistency. (I think next time I will add apple juice, she likes it better.)

I had saved up all the empty jars from the baby food I had purchased and I was going to use them for a project with the kids at the school I used to work at BUT I figured I'd use them for this instead.

Then I started filling up the jars. I actually ran out of jars before I ran out of baby food so I had to resort to using small Tupperware containers, and when I ran out of those I used ice cube trays. I repeated this same process with the apples.

When all was said and done I had enough jars, Tupperware containers and ice cube trays to equal 25 dollars worth, more or less. I was pretty happy with the outcome and plan on making more in the future.

If you'd like... I'll keep you posted. :)

Ad"ventures" in Etsy.com

What do you get when you cross stay at home moms with crafty entrepreneurs? You get Etsy.com, an online market place devoted to selling solely handmade items. It's not unlike Ebay.com, just without the bidding and second hand junk aspect. I kind of stumbled across this site while looking for my cousin's homemade diaper covers online. She was selling them on Etsy and found myself really intrigued by this creative site with a strange name. (The origins of the name are unknown.)

A few weeks later I had grown tired of looking for Lori's burp cloths because they were stark white and seemed to blend in with everything. I decided that I should sew some ribbon and maybe a soft piece of fabric on them so that they would stand out. They didn't look half bad. So I kept going, I dyed them, got nicer ribbons, and added new fabric. Then I realized that I had an extra Cubs emblem from a T-Shirt that I got for Jorge's T-Shirt quilt and from then on I was ON A ROLL! It took me a while to realize that it might be a good idea to see if I could sell these on Etsy. I love sewing and doing lots (and I do mean lots, probably too many for my own good) of crafty things, so why not try to make some extra cash while I was at it?

The Cubs Burp Cloth

I am yet to make a sale, but that's ok. I was getting discouraged but Jorge has been so supportive that I haven't really considered giving up. For the first time I really feel like Jorge is in this with me and that feels great. I really enjoy the days that Jorge comes home from work and I get to show him my latest project.

So that's the newest with me. I've posted a link to my new Etsy site so that you can see what kind of things I've been making. I'm "looking to expand my repertoire" (don't I sound professional already?) so if you have any ideas I'd LOVE to hear 'em. I'm always up for a new craft project!