Nursing Pad Tutorial

Hello!! Recently I've started to chronicle my DIY adventures on this blog because in reality, THAT is what my family is up to right now! I talked about all of the fun things we've done in our house so far in this post. I am a serious NOVICE at most of this DIY stuff. But there is something I've gotten pretty good at over the past 2 years. Making Nursing Pads, and dang good ones at that!

When my 2nd daughter was born, see this post, I was all about breastfeeding! I've touched on this in a few of my other posts. Part of breastfeeding, is managing leaking milk in between feedings. Lovely right? Liquid gold going to waste? UGH. But was even more frustrating is the cost of nursing pads. I had a large supply, and lots of leaking, and so I was going through about 8-10 pairs of nursing pads a day! Which meant I was spending $30 a week on nursing pads, easily! That's more than I was spending on diapers! I knew that eventually my leaking would slow down, but until then, I was throwing money away!! I looked at reusable ones, but I was worried about size, and absorbency. So, I decided to make my own. Originally I got help from my genius mother, who is all knowing about sewing. Now, I have the pattern down and I can whip out a dozen nursing pads in 30 minutes.

I've made these for a few friends, who have really liked them. So, here's a quick tutorial, so that YOU can custom make nursing pads and stop wasting money or waking up soaking wet!

Supplies:

Fleece (any color, but I use neutrals)
Flannel (One or two kinds, I'll explain later)
Scissors
Circle to trace 4-5 in in diameter (Or larger or smaller to fit your preference!)

Fleece will be used as a barrier to protect your bra/clothes. It works well to repel moisture. If you don't believe me, put a few drops of water on a piece of fleece, you'll see!

Flannel is used as the soft side against your breast, and also as the absorbent core of the nursing pad. I use cheaper plain flannel for the inside and cute flannel for the outer layer. You can use the same kind for both if you want!

Start by tracing your circle onto some flannel to create a template. It is much easier than tracing a circle 100s of times!

Notice that one of my templates is slightly smaller, about 1/4 - 1/2 in. This is the template you'll use for the interior pieces. By making them a tad smaller, the edges aren't as bulky when you sew and they fit much nicer!

To make 10 nursing pads you will need:
10 Large Fleece Circles
10 Large Flannel Circles
20 Small Flannel Circles

(I use 2 interior layers for my regular nursing pads. I made nighttime nursing pads using 3 interior flannel layers, for extra absorbency. )

Cut out your circles and put them in 3 stacks. Then you can start assembling your pads. I do one at a time.

One Large Flannel, 2 Smaller Flannel, 1 Large Fleece. You will sandwich them together making sure that the right side of the flannel is facing out.

I put one pin in the center to keep all the layers in place until I can put a few stitches in.

Set your sewing machine to a basic straight stitch. You will want to sew two curved lines (kinda like a baseball) to hold the pieces together. I've done straight lines too, but the curved ones help the pad cup better to the breast.

Once your lines are finished you can trim off any excess from the flannel or fleece around the edges, and finish them! I usually sew the curved lines on all the pads first, trim them, then finish the edges last. It seems to go faster this way.

I use a zig zag stitch on the edge to finish it and prevent fraying since these will get used, and washed often. It might take a few tests to see how wide you want your zig zag, and how close together you want your stitches. You want to stitch right on the edge so that you are enclosing the top and bottom layer completely. If you have a different stitch that would work for this, go for it!!

You can do two passes if you feel like the first one didn't get close enough to the edge, or the stitches were too far apart. After you are done, tie your ends, trim any excess thread and you are done!!

Cute baby shower present, hospital gift, or just to make for yourself! My mom and I originally made 30 day time pads, and 12 night time pads. I used these for the entire time I nursed, which was 18 MONTHS! I talked about my breastfeeding journey here. So I can tell you they hold up well, and I plan to use them again when we have more kids.

I wash them normally with the rest of my burp rags, baby blankets, baby clothes. Every few months I would do an extra soak with Oxy Clean, just to refresh them. They are super absorbent, easy to make, comfortable to wear, and much more cost effective & environmentally friendly!

I hope you found this tutorial easy to follow, and if you have any questions, please let me know!

Until Next Time, Happy Blogging!

Part 2: Making our House a HOME!

After our kitchen transformation (see the post here), I knew the next project I wanted to do, and I promised Andrew it wouldn't take as long as the kitchen. I wanted to increase our storage in the laundry room. Really, really bad. This is what we had:

Clearly, it was lacking, considering we had stuff piled on the dryer all. the. time. And the shelf, although it was great, was clearly not able to hold everything we needed! So, I looked on a few other blogs, and got some ideas. But I ended up just copying what we already had. I knew I wanted two more shelves, so I just had to figure out dimensions and where to place them. 

We ran to home depot, which is only 3 minutes from our house, AWESOME! And I was instantly discouraged. I didn't want to spend $100 on two shelves. I looked and looked to find something that could be cut down to the length we needed which was 75in wide! They didn't sell anything that was 150 in long that would work. :( So I figured I'd need to buy two 8ft (96in) boards and cut them. The only problem was finding something that was 15 1/2 in deep. I found the pre finished boards that are used for home shelving, but it was $25 for 8ft. No thank you! I didn't need pretty shelves, just functional ones. 

I was at the end of my rope. My kids were reaching their "we'll be good in the store" limit, actually they were past it. And Andrew was trying so hard to find something only to be shot down with my "It won't work" glare. Andrew found the perfect solution! He found 3/4 in MDF board, which is similar to plywood. Our current shelf was made from MDF and it held up just fine. The great part was a 4 foot x 8 foot board was only $19. They cut it down to our specific measurements (LOVE Home Depot), with extra for another project, and it was awesome. I found great brackets to install the shelves, and we headed home. 

Andrew sanded the front edge of the board to match the current shelf, and I started painting. Painting was the longest part of the project since I wanted to do 90% of the painting before we installed.

While the shelves were drying, we measured out the side supports, which were 1x2 boards. And put those up. I decided I wanted the distance between the shelves to be 12 in, 16in and 12in. I knew I wanted a larger shelf for taller items. And I also knew the top shelf would keep canning jars on it, so I didn't need it to be very tall. 

We installed the side supports, and brought the now dry shelves in!

After setting the shelves on the side supports, we measured and installed the bottom supports. With all the supports, we tried to hit at least one stud, and use heavy duty anchors for anything going into dry wall. Each shelf should easily hold 100-120lbs. The only shelf that might be asked to hold something close to that would be the top shelf, canning jars, even empty, are heavy! 

After we got those up, we were done for the night. We were so proud, because this project only took us 2 hours, and the longest was the drying time for the painted shelves! The cost was also awesome, for the wood, brackets and paint we used, it's an estimated $25! Seriously awesome.

Here is the finished and organized picture!

I LOVE side by sides:

So much more storage space!! I also added another touch on the opposite side of the room. (It's a tiny room, but it's on the opposite wall). When we moved in we salvaged a cabinet door during the remodel. I painted it with some chalkboard paint, but never got around to using it. Now...it serves as my "Honey-Do-List."

Awesome right? Well, that is all about our laundry room storage re-do! It was a pretty quick project and I'm so happy to have it done! Now, I have extra space in my garage and pantry where all of the canning jars, kleenex, and paper towels were being stored. 

I hope you guys are finding some fun projects to do! Until next time, Happy Blogging!

Part 1: Making our House a HOME!

So the last post I showed you some of the projects we were working on. After completing those, I decided we should just keep going! There were so many things I didn't like about this house when we bought it. But Andrew (and our Realtor/BFF Kristin) reminded me that cosmetic things can be changed! Easily. But it still took a long time to make the changes we wanted. 

Before we moved in we did some demo, and I talked about it here. And then after we moved in we did some painting upstairs, and had to wait a 6 months for landscaping, and I talked about that here. And since then we've done a few small things like this, and this. Really, we have accomplished so much in this house, but there were still things we really wanted to change. 

 Counter Space. Although I had more counter space in my house than we did in the apartment, it was only by a tiny bit. I always wanted to extend the counters, but that would be spendy. So, we decided to  built an island/extension. I showed you a picture in the last post, but here is the island in action!

It may not seem like a lot to you, but it cleared off the edge of the counter to the right, and the cupboard that all of the pots and pans were jammed in. So, then I was able to take the juicer, toaster, and food processor and hide them in a cupboard. Which made my counters much less cluttered!!

After doing the island project we realized just how much we didn't like the cupboard color. Now, this has been an issue since day one. The floor, cupboards, counters and walls are all the same basic brownish hue. This is part of why we painted the island cream, because we wanted something different. We also have a granite top buffet on the other side of the kitchen that is the same cream color (a GREAT Christmas present from Jana & Jake!). 

I did lots of research about changing the cabinet color. Since I come from a painting family (My grandfather and father were both painters), I knew I could handle some painting, but I didn't know what kind of paint. I knew I was going to be touching the cupboards a hundred times a week, so I wanted them to hold up well. I came across a BUNCH of blogs that did Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformations. Not to be confused with Rust-Oleum Cabinet Restorations, Wood Refinishing Kit. There was nothing but boring wood on the cabinets, I definitely didn't want to restore them, but transform them!

We purchased the kit from Home Depot for $80, and had the dark base tinted to Espresso Color. I went back and forth about this color, but I am SO grateful we did it. We watched the DVD twice, and read the instructions thoroughly. We knew the hardest part was going to be the dry times. Some coats required 12 hours of dry time! We tried to plan it so that we would always be busy. Here are some pictures and steps we took!

See, cluttered counter tops! And boring colors. It was our house, sure, and I was proud, but it was BLAH. Andrew took off all the doors and drawers, and I taped up everything. I used blue painters tape, which was a mistake. It always seems to bleed. The Green Frog tape does better, but I forgot :(

Messy cabinets! Another organization project to come! I taped inside the cabinets on the areas we would see, and then taped everywhere around them. While I started the "de-glossing" step inside, Andrew started on the doors and drawers. "De-glossing" just consisted of rubbing the cleaning agent all over the doors to ensure no dirt or dust remained and that the "Bond Coat" would adhere correctly.

This was pretty tedious, but we were told by other bloggers that it was the most important step, don't skip or skimp! It was recommended to let the doors dry for 1 hour after that. Then we started the first "Bond" or Paint coat. It had ok coverage, but I knew we'd need another coat because the kit recommended it.

This was the end of the first night. We started around 8pm and finished around 1am. The following day we had arranged for the girls to go over to my in laws for a play day, and we are really grateful we did, it was a long day! Each door required 2 coats on each side, with a 2 hour drying time in between coats. The inside was fast since it was much less wood to cover and only one side. 

After the 2 coats dried, we did the "Glazing" process. You paint on a glaze and wipe it off to achieve the "desired look." It brought out the wood grain and made the cabinets look like they were expensive replacements, instead of just old cabinets we painted over. It's a long process, since we had to glaze both sides, and each coat had to dry for 8-12 hrs, but I was glad we did it. After the glaze we did the final top coat. Honestly, I didn't see a huge difference after the top coat, but it says it helps to protect the cabinets, so we did it! After the top coat its recommended to let the cabinets, doors and drawers dry for 12-24 hours. We did, and then re installed them. And now we have THIS:

How about a side by side comparison? Yes? OK!

I LOVE it. What a nice contrast! And I know you can't see it, but the counters are so much more organized! 

Although it  was a long, long, long project, it was worth it. With supplies the cost was around $115. Good deal for a complete kitchen makeover. AND we have enough left in the kit to do our 3 bathroom vanities that are the same blah color. Wahoo! 

Well, until I post about our next project....Happy Blogging!!

Projects and Great Finds!!

Who says that summertime is the best time for home improvement? Not us!! We have already started, and finished some of our projects and we are really excited to share!  

When we moved into our house we had A LOT of projects and A LOT of things we wanted to purchase. Many of them went undone, due to time, priority, and financial constraints. After being in this house for 18 months we are finally getting down to some projects and purchases that I have been dying to do!!

First up, we added some furniture to our living room and bonus room. One of the hardest parts of moving from an apartment to a large house, is that you don't have enough furniture. Which also means when people come over, you don't have enough seating. We thought about building some nice bench seating, but I wanted nice comfy seating. So we ended up finding some beautiful couches at RC Wiley. But at $400 a piece (and we needed 2), I couldn't commit. $800 was a big chunk of our tax return and I just didn't think it was worth it. So....I searched craigslist. We've been pretty lucky with CL, and our luck has continued. We found two great couches!

This couch is up in our BSU bonus room,
and now we can have comfy movie nights!

This couch is in our living room, it is actually a "futon" couch,
which folds down into a full sized bed! Great for guests!

Keep in mind, I was going to spend $800 (plus tax) on two couches. I found these for $75 each, So $150 TOTAL. I cleaned them and they look brand new! Great find!

We purchased a new king sized bed about 9 months ago, and have LOVED it. It's so nice having more space and a lower bed (our old queen was pretty high up for me). We decided to just go with a "hollywood" basic frame until we decided if we wanted to buy/build a new bed frame. We love the frame, the only think I have missed is having a headboard. I feel like the bed is unfinished without it. I planned on building one, but on a whim I searched on craigslist and found a STEAL.

Pre-paint picture! We have all dark wood in our bedroom,
 so this just wouldn't match.

After 2 coats of Espresso Rust-Oleum paint, it looks like this! PERFECT!

We are so excited to add it to our bedroom, and, get ready for it, it was ONLY $25. Seriously. It's solid wood, and so sturdy. We are so excited! 

For years, I've been pining over things off Ana-white.com. I love her plans and her gorgeous wood creations. One that I've been staring at for-EVER is her Kitchen Island. The plans are here. It wasn't my first time using a table saw, but I definitely got more practice! It was my first time using a Kreg Jig type approach. Kreg jig holes are the hidden holes that furniture makers use, and I was really excited to apply the technique. After a few practice sessions we got started. And our finished product was this:

I am so happy with it! It will replace our old microwave cart, and I will be able to store my new pots and pans on it! Total cost was around $75. It was a little more spendy that I thought. But it was because of the spray paint it took to cover it! 

Because of tax returns we were finally able to buy some much needed things for our home. Most things we have, are from wedding gifts, or our first year of marriage. So they are between 6-7 years old. They've been used and abused. So, we replaced our pots and pans with a great set from Costco. We bought a new blender, which is super important since I do a smoothie almost every day. We purchased a Bissell Proheat 2x Carpet cleaner. After 6 weeks of having the stomach flu in our house, a carpet cleaner shot to the top of my wish list. We also bought a new dishwasher since our current one is 11 years old, terribly noisy, inefficient, and rusty inside. It will be delivered at the end of the week! We are still looking around for a lawnmower and a few other small things.

Our projects planned for the next few weeks are repainting/transforming the kitchen cabinets (we will be using a Rust-Oleum Cabinet Transformations kit), painting the master bathroom (the only room that hasn't been painted), building a kitchen table, (yay for Ana White!), building some trellises for our garden, and planning the garden, and refinishing our stair banister (it's been sad for a few months). Whew. I'm so excited!! I'll be sure to post our projects on here as we complete them! 

Other than the projects we have going on, our family is doing well. Andrew is adjusting to his new job, and I am trying to keep the kids entertained inside while we wait for spring to come! I can't wait till they can run around in the backyard again! 

I hope you have some great projects planned, and I'll be posting more soon!

Until then, Happy Blogging!

Girl's Room Makeover!

Ever since we moved into this house, I've wanted to decorate. I dreamed of beautiful girls rooms that you see in magazines and on blogs. But I didn't have the time, patience or money. I figured I could probably make most of the things I needed, or find them for cheap. So, I started by writing down my biggest goals for this makeover:

1. More Storage

2. More Color

3. Pictures

4. Functional Space

First I started with pinterest. I was a pinterest HATER for a long time. Why do I need a special website to tell me whats fashionable? I have my ideas organized. Right? WRONG. So I finally joined and started pinning ideas for girls' room. I found organization ideas, picture ideas, vinyl ideas. 

You can see my pins here. I hope. :)

How about some pictures now? 

Here is before the make over:

Beth's bed on the left, Ami's crib on the right. 

$10 Craigslist Chair, window seat covered in 
stuffed animals.

Severely unorganized closet.

$40 refinished craigslist dresser, super plain jane.

 My goodness, did you fall asleep? Talk about B-O-R-ING. Yeah, it worked. But I was far from loving it. I needed wall decor, pictures, and organization.

Lets see the NEW room:

 I LOVE how it turned out! I moved the beds around a bit, added some vinyl on the walls, framed pictures, and so much more. I love how the yarn light fixture turned out. Inspiration here. This picture shows it best. But lets look at the others.

Everyone needs a tree in their room! Beth says she LOVES it often. 
Inspiration here. 

Pictures. Owls. Including the Pirate Owl. Beth ripped off an eye and now says "Aarrggg. The Pirate Owl." It's so cute, I decided to leave it. The inspiration for the owls was found on pinterest, but the link went no where :(

Ikea Spice Racks turned book shelves. Organization, 
Functional Use of Space and it makes it so much 
easier to SEE the books! Inspiration here.

I LOVE letters and so does Beth. So I wanted to add letters somewhere. Luckily I just happened to name my children A & B names. Worked great! Complete with a newborn picture and current picture of each of the girls! Inspiration here and here.

HELLO Storage. This closet was a disaster! Inspiration here, here, and here.

Labeled bins for everything! 

Coat racks! Super simple 1x4s, painted with $0.88 coat hooks. Awesome! No real link for inspiration on this one, I think it was pretty easy to figure out!

Shoe organization? SURE! I love keeping a few pairs of 
shoes out for the girls to grab quickly!

 The $10 Craigslist chair stayed, I love it actually. I made a window seat cushion and a few pillows. I've wanted to do this since we first moved in!

 I loved this fabric that I found on sale at JoAnn's.

Well, that is it folks!  Here's the break down:
At the end of the day, it took about 3 months it cost about $250.

The vinyl (tree and words) was the most expensive part of it at $100, but it was REALLY worth it.

The photos I printed at Costco for $10, the frames I bought at Idaho Youth Ranch, for a whopping $1 a piece, and painted them with a $3.50 can of spray paint.

The fabric for the pillows and window seat cushion and foam for the cushion was under $20.

The coat rack project was about $15.

The storage in the closet totaled about $50. I built and painted the storage unit, and bought the storage containers on walmart.com, 6 for $20. Done.

The yarn light fixture and new wiring was about $10. It was super easy, just messy!

I'm happy to finally have this post up! I'm excited to move onto other parts of the house and I can't wait to show you!

Until Then, Happy Blogging!