No-sew Fabric-covered box

Being my frugal self, I tend to store toys in cardboard boxes. They work great, but aren’t terribly attractive. Here are the results of a recent attempt to beautify the playroom. If you want to be super-thrifty, use a water-soluble glue so you can peel off, wash, and re-use the fabric once the box wears out. I can guarantee that I’ll at least consider doing that…

MATERIALS:

• Cardboard box
• Fabric
• Craft glue
• Duct tape (optional)
• Scissors to cut fabric
• sharp knife or exacto blade

Steps:

1) Cut flaps off of box.

2) Figure out how much fabric you need to cover the outside and inside of box and cut two pieces – one for the outside and another for the inside. The fabric should overlap each edge 1-2 inches.

 

3) Put craft glue on bottom of box.

4) Center fabric on inside of box and press into glue. Add glue to top inside edges of box.

 

5) Attach fabric. You could trim the corners before this step, but then you risk fabric fraying. We left ours intact, which is why it bunches a bit in each corner. I think it looks good that way, but this might bother a perfectionist.

6) Secure liner fabric to the outside of the box either with craft glue or duct tape. We used duct tape (I love duct tape), but failed to get a picture thanks to “must remove duct tape from all surfaces” Johnny.

7) Center the piece of fabric for the outside of the box. If you want you can glue the fabric to the bottom; we skipped this step but it might help keep the fabric in place.

8) glue outside fabric to the inside of the box, tucking under the edges to prevent fraying. Glue the sides first, and then fold in the extra fabric on the ends before gluing the edges. Any extra fabric that you don’t catch this way can be tucked in after gluing.

9) Add toys. Or three-year-olds.

 

These boxes would be even easier to make if you skipped the craft glue and went straight to duct tape. I didn’t do this because 1) we only have the traditional silver duct tape and none of the pretty colored stuff and 2) for some reason Johnny has an irresistible urge to remove duct tape from surfaces. Maybe it’s the challenge of peeling it off?

Fluff Talk Thursdays: Show Your Stash

 

My stash, from left to right, top to bottom:

• Lily’s small-size Huggabuns diapers (this particular version is no longer made) with liners underneath
• Bumgenius 3.0 snapped to fit Lily with liners (also snapped to fit Lily) underneath
• Johnny’s medium-size Huggabuns diapers (also no longer sold in this incarnation) with liners underneath
• Imse Vimse training pants for Johnny with home-sewn cloth wipes (see this post for instructions) underneath
• Lily’s home-sewn newborn cloth diaper covers (see this post). We used wipes as inserts for these, and she already outgrew them being the fast-growing child that she is…

The Bumgenius 3.0s are my favorites, but I only have three. They also don’t really fit Johnny at 20 months and 26lbs, so they aren’t the ideal one-size diaper in my mind. I would love to try out some one-size FuzziBunz or Smartipants but we have a decent stash of sized diapers that work just fine so I can’t justify the expense. Thirsties diaper covers also look lovely, although I always prefer snaps over velcro (ironic given that I put velcro on the diapers I made, I realize, but I didn’t have any of those fancy diaper snaps). I also want to try my hand at sewing an RRP diaper and one of Katrina’s fleece soakers – once I figure out how to use my sewing machine with three children in tow, that is!

And while we’re on the topic of sewing, if you’ve always wanted to learn but didn’t get the chance, consider joining Valerie from the Frugal Family Fun Blog’s FREE sewing workshop here – you have until August 31st to sign up!

Fluff Talk Thursdays: Why Cloth?

When my oldest daughter Emma was born, a couple of my friends were trying to use cloth diapers with their babies. I admired their eco-friendliness but stuck with disposables. We were living in a tiny (under 400 square feet) apartment. We had a washer but no dryer, and I couldn’t face the idea of having stacks of cloth diapers hanging to dry along with all the rest of our clothes. Seeing my friends’ diapers did clear up a couple misconceptions I had, though. I learned that cloth diapers can be adorable, and that you no longer have to rinse them out in the toilet.

When we moved back to the US and into a much larger apartment with a washer AND dryer, I started thinking about trying cloth. Emma’s disposables were always leaking, we were going through tons of disposables, and she kept getting diaper rashes. When I found a good deal on user-friendly pocket diapers we took the plunge and bought a dozen. To my surprise, they leaked less frequently than Emma’s disposables and her diaper rash disappeared. They were more bulky than disposables, but since Emma was a thin baby this was a good thing – her pants would finally stay up! Three years and two babies later, we’re still using the same cloth diapers, although I’ve added more over time and am finally learning the art of making my own cloth diapers.

I’m not a perfect cloth diapering mom. We still buy disposables, just in much smaller quantities. I use them at night (I have found a non-leaking solution with cloth diapers, but not a version that keeps my kids asleep through the night), and if we’re going to be out for long periods of time. But the rest of the time my kids wear fluffy cloth diapers. We have a big enough diaper stash that I only wash diapers 2-3 times per week, and Emma gets to practice her folding skills with our cloth wipes. I’d like to try my hand at making fleece soakers - anyone have a pattern they recommend?

Cleaning Tips

First, a link to 66 All-Natural Cleaning Solutions (found via my wonderful sister E). This list of ways to clean using basic household ingredients included several ideas that were new to me.

Then, a few favorites from our house not included in the above list:

• Use a regular rubber eraser to get crayon off of floor tiles and walls.
• Baking soda (coupled with some elbow grease) to get soap scum off of the bathtub.
• When kids want to play with toys that come with many small pieces (blocks, beads, legos), put a blanket or sheet on the carpet and have them play on top of that. At the end, gather up the corners of the blanket and all the tiny pieces go into a pile in the middle for quick and easy pickup. I mentioned this idea to my mother and she pointed out that for even quicker cleanup you can designate a sheet for each toy and put the entire sheet (with the toys inside) in the bin at the end of playtime. Or you can get crafty and make special play mats for all the toys with nice ties to close them up. Maybe I’ll do that someday, but for now Emma knows that toys with small pieces may only be played with on the fleece Monkey blanket.

On the topic of crayon on walls, yesterday Johnny stopped coloring on his coloring page and started coloring on the wall. I told him he couldn't color on the wall and took him back to his coloring page, where I started commenting on how pretty his coloring was. He took my hand, walked me back to the wall, pointed proudly, and said, "Pretty wall!" Looks like we have a ways to go before he gets the whole coloring boundaries thing...

What are your favorite tried and true cleaning tips?

Picnic Table Talk: Staycation

In our eight years of marriage, Mike and I have gone on only two vacations that didn’t involve visiting family, attending weddings/reunions, or some type of work commitment (I wish we could go along on Mike’s work trips, particularly last summer when he “had” to go to Hawai’i for a week). The vacations? A three-day visit to a small Scottish town to celebrate our three-year-anniversary (we were living in Scotland at the time) and our less-than-48-hour honeymoon way back in 2001.

Fortunately, we always have a wonderful time visiting family, and we’re pretty good at staycations. We love finding local ways to have a good time, especially when these things are free. We spent several years as (by Western standards sometimes nearly literally) starving students and now live as a family of nearly-five with many student loans and a house that (lately) has been exceptionally fond of falling apart, so free is good. Here are a few staycation activities we’ve enjoyed so far this summer:

• A free family outing to the Boston Museum of Science last Friday, courtesy of the Highland Street Foundation’s Free Fun Fridays.
• A day out at Davis’ Farmland – not free, but we got discounted tickets through a friend and the kids had a fantastic time.
• Several trips to the Discovery Museums in Acton. We bought a membership last year and have gotten more than our money’s worth over the past twelve months. I do wish I had started bringing my kids to the science museum earlier – I assumed they were too young but took them there last week and it turns out they PREFER the science museum over the children’s museum (much to their super-geeky father’s delight, and well-timed since he had been expressing concern over their lack of geekiness relative to himself).
• A potluck BBQ for Mike’s coworkers and their families in our backyard (they don’t fit in our house)
• Our town’s 4th of July parade
• Celebrating my birthday with family
• Celebrating our 8-year anniversary (dinner out without children – quite the treat in our home!)
• Play dates and get-togethers with friends
• Playing outdoors

And some activities we’re looking forward to:

• More play dates – including a trip to the zoo with friends this Friday (free, thanks to the friends’ zoo membership!)
• Visits from family members throughout the summer (thanks in large part to the pending arrival of Baby #3)
• Mike’s birthday
• Playing outdoors
• Visiting local farms and our town’s new Farmer’s Market
• Birthday parties for a couple of Emma’s friends

Last, (hopefully) quite small, but most definitely not least, the arrival of Baby #3 – ideally within the next 30 days! I even washed the baby clothes and packed a hospital bag last night…

Another maternity skirt

I made this skirt using the same techniques from this tutorial that I used to make my other maternity skirt, although I added a bit more of a curve to the front of the skirt and made it slightly more fitted.

I sewed this skirt entirely on my serger. It was nice to only get out one machine instead of two, particularly since half the challenge of sewing at my house is keeping Johnny from trying to use the sewing machines.

While I have written about my love of my serger before, I don’t think I’ve mentioned a favorite feature: its ability to quickly sew a blind hem. Here’s a photo to illustrate (done using stitching to keep the hem from looking blind…) I’ve never enjoyed hemming, so this is a wonderful feature to have on my new machine!

Thrifty Sandbox

MATERIALS:

• 1 underbed storage box (this 74-qt one was $17.00 at Target)
• Sand
• Sand toys
• Warm weather
• Kids

Why I love yard sales

Total MSRP: $135.00

Total paid: $11.50

A few of the Melissa & Doug blocks are missing, but do I really need more wooden blocks to pick up?

Laundry, Babies, and Toddlers: Tips and Tricks

If your kids are anything like mine, they get their clothes (and occasionally mine) really dirty. Fortunately, I was raised by a laundry guru who passed on her stain removal tricks – and I’ve learned a couple tricks of my own. Here are my favorites:

• Pre-treat stains with a Spray N Wash Stain Stick. The great thing about using a stain stick is that you can put it on right when you take dirty clothes off and then wait up to a week before washing the outfit – and it will still work. I’m much more likely to remember a stain as I’m removing the outfit than I am while loading the washing machine with two toddlers eagerly “helping”. I keep our stain stick in my dresser, not in the laundry room. Stain stick works great on getting ball point pen out of clothing. It’s a great way to remove chocolate and other greasy stains, too.
• Add OxiClean to any load that might have any stains. OxiClean is a great way to remove grass, grape juice, blood, and dirt stains from clothing. You can use OxiClean to pretreat clothing by wetting a toothbrush and dipping it in the detergent and then scrubbing the clothing. Just run a spot check first and make sure the toothbrush is well out of reach of children. I don’t do this where my kids can see, either, since I don’t want them using their toothbrushes creatively.
• DO NOT pre-treat any marks on clothing that come from washable markers or crayons. Pre-treating can set the stain from these products, which should wash out perfectly if you leave them alone.
• If a stain doesn’t come out, air dry the item and try again. Putting stained clothes in the dryer sets the stain.
• You can get pretty much anything out of white clothing with regular bleach, just make sure to rinse the bleach out thoroughly. Regular bleach is so toxic that it scares me, though, so I don’t usually have any in the house.
• Stick tiny baby and toddler socks in Mesh Laundry Bags (sometimes called mesh lingerie bags) before washing to keep pairs together.
• If you dry a load of laundry with a crayon, you can get it out by running the load through a HOT wash with a little laundry detergent and some oxiclean. Toothpaste and a toothbrush works wonders at getting crayon out of a dryer drum. It even smells nice. Run a load of rags to remove any remaining crayon/toothpaste before running a load of clothes you care about. I once washed and dried FOUR crayons that my darling daughter had put in her pockets. I hadn’t even thought to check her pockets, as she was only one and I didn’t think she knew what pockets were for…

Have any other laundry tricks to share? I’d love to hear – ESPECIALLY if you know how to get out gel pen. That’s one stain I can only get out through lots of repeat washes!

Play Fridge

MATERIALS:

• Cardboard Box
• Packing Tape
• Pipe Cleaner
• Extra cardboard to make shelves

I’ve wanted my kids to have a play fridge for a while, and I knew as soon as  I saw this box that it would work perfectly. I turned the box wrong side out, cut out a door, and added a pipe cleaner for a door handle. The shelves are made out of a second sheet of cardboard that was being used as packing material.

If I were a detail-oriented mom, I would line the inside so that the original contents of the box were on display. But I’m not, and it turns out that that’s a good thing – Emma was initially upset about my using her box this way (Johnny and I put it together during her naptime), but then decided it was okay because the pictures were still on the inside. She likes the little girl on this box, who she says “looks kind of like Emma.”

Frugal toy storage

If your home is anything like mine, you have toys with small components. I’ve started storing mine in the “toss or re-use” containers made by Gladware and Ziploc. So long as you stick with one brand they stack really nicely for shelf storage. They are relatively cheap, they come in a range of sizes, they seal tightly, and they are clear so you can see which toy is inside which container.

Because they are designed to hold hot food, these containers are made out of polypropylene (recycling symbol 5) - one of the safest plastics.

I also use these containers to store a few pieces from a multi-piece toy set like  our wood pattern blocks (see top container in picture). These particular blocks came in a set of 250. I didn’t want to pick up 250 small wooden blocks every day, so I put together a couple kits of 36 (6 of each shape) in smaller containers. This way Emma has enough to make some fun patterns and to use her geometric shapes play mat, but few enough that cleanup isn’t overwhelming.

What are your best toy storage tips?

Frugal Organization

I have long admired the organization bins sold in Ikea and other stores, but could never bring myself to pay for them. I recently discovered that shoeboxes make an excellent thrifty alternative. I just put them in drawers as they come, but you could cover them with paper or fabric if you want to make them look nicer. I don't have a before picture of this drawer of Emma's, but just picture it stuffed to the brim with clothing. It has all of the same articles of clothing in it now, but there is plenty of space to open and shut the drawer and I can easily find the shirt I'm looking for.