daisytheclothbummum did not create this poster. It belongs to an unknown source and has just been shared for information purposes.

Ah…

Yes…

I’m a little bit daft, aren’t I?

This is one of them.

Picture the scene, if you will…

We decided that Little Master Monkey Clothbum’s room was a tad on the boring side. Ok, it wasn’t too bad – plain soft green walls, white curtains, beige carpet and decorated with The Very Hungry Caterpillar sticker and canvases that I’d made. It was nice, but we were getting bored of it.

So, we went shopping and found these wonderful stickers at Jojo Maman Bebe. The pack was their Giraffe height chart one and came with two gorgeous giraffe stickers, some branches/leaves and some very cute little birds.

Mr Clothbum kept Monkey busy whilst I got sticking. Stickers are so fab as they not only brighten up a room, but they cover a multitude of sins.

Those pesky holes where you started to try and put up shelves…it’s now a pretty tree!
That dent where the toddler keeps slamming the door handle into the wall – covered up by a giraffe’s head!

That strange black mark that just appeared one day and you haven’t got a damn clue where it came from – suddenly transformed into…

Well, into this…

Yeah. I didn’t really register the white mark. That white drip of paint that was very near the black mark.

So…

So now we have a bird having a poo in the nursery.

Well – I suppose it’s original and a talking point.
And aren’t the stickers gorgeous?!

Yep. I’m a bit daft sometimes

daisytheclothbummum bought these stickers herself (well, hubby did!) and all words, thoughts and opinions are my own.

It’s definitely food for thought!

My three main answers are:

I always wanted to
They are so much cheaper (I can’t see the point of throwing hundreds of pounds into the bin)
The environmental impact is so much less (Ugh to putting all that plastic into the ground)

So, when Ecover contacted me about their ‘Message in a Bottle’ campaign, it really caught my attention. I’ve always used Ecover products around the house (not exclusively, but I do love them) and as someone who has ridiculously sensitive skin, their natural plant-based ingredients really do make a difference to how itchy I can get when using products.

But what I particularly love about Ecover is the way in which they package their products. They have come up with a really clever way to turn raw sugarcane into a 100% recyclable, renewable and reusable petrol-free green plastic, which is rather damn amazing stuff. It makes me shudder to think about just how many plastic bottles, containers and bits of packaging I throw away every week so having products that can help to reduce that impact on the environment is a great thing, in my opinion.

I’m one of those people who do the whole recycling thing. We have our main bin and then all the other boxes and bags. But there are so many people out there that just can’t be bothered. Whether it’s due to lack of education or just not actually stopping, thinking or caring, I was quite shocked to learn that only about 30% of plastic bottles actually go to UK recycling plants and only 50% of all bottles used are actually collected for recycling in the first place. Shouldn’t the bottles be made of a plastic that can actually be recycled? You’d think so, wouldn’t you – but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Have a look at the ‘Message in a Bottle’ Campaign to find out more. It’s such a great idea and something that I hope more manufacturers will take onboard in the future to help lessen the impact of their products on our world. Thank you, Ecover, for making such a great and inspiring start!

Cleaning the seas, one bottle at a time. Visit The-Splash for more information and to read our pledge.

daisytheclothbummum was not paid for this blogpost. All thoughts, words and opinions are my own.

Mr Monkey Clothbum has picked a winner!

As you can see – he had lot of fun!

I wrote out all the names of people whose lovely friends/family had nominated them via the blog, Twitter and Facebook. There was a LOT of you! Then I folded them up and Mr Monkey had great fun picking a name out of his sorting toy.

Well done, Beverley Graham! You were nominated by the lovely Katie and I’ll be contacting her to get your details so that I can post you out your prizes!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered. I really hope you all had a wonderful Real Nappy Week 2013!

Thank you also, again, to the lovely Eve at Baba+Boo who has donated one of the lovely nappies that our winner will be receiving!

I have a funny feeling that if we do it later he’ll just rip the names up as he’ll be too tired…

Apologies . At least it draws out the suspense for a tad longer!

Just a quick message to let you all know that the giveaway closed at 5pm so Monkey and I will be doing the draw ASAP.
The winner will be announced over the next couple of days, so keep an eye on the blog.

Thank you so much to everyone who has nominated someone.

Just a little quickie to say that if you haven’t already signed up for The Great British Nappy Hunt, you really really should get on with it today. There’s not one, not two, but three hunts going on today with some fabulous prize bundles to be won. They’d make someone a brilliant starter pack or would be a fantastic addition to any cloth nappy stash or nappy library stock!

Go on! Get out there and get hunting for that naughty little Billy!

Argh! I must apologise for a lack of blogpost yesterday. I had one all written up and queued it up on one of those automatic system thingies which meant, in theory, that the post should have uploaded itself for you all to see yesterday.

Well. It didn’t, did it… Utterly rubbish. Ok, ok, I know that means that I probably didn’t set it up correctly but it’s much easier for me to blame the technology, so that’s what I’m going to do! Bad technology.

So, yes, did any of you manage to get out to one of The Great Cloth Diaper Change events? For those of you who don’t know what this is, click on the link to find out more and keep an eye out for it next year. Annoyingly, I couldn’t go this year due to a really important appointment, but I plan on running one next year – which will be rather cool!

Having a mass nappy change is such a great idea as it brings instant attention to just how funky cloth nappies are and just how simple they are too! I’ve seen lots of lovely photos of the one that was done at Glow, Bluewater yesterday and it looks as if it’s a lot of fun!

So, the theme of today is ‘Real Clean’

Most people that I’ve spoken to cloth nappies about (ones that either are thinking of changing or had never really considered them before) seem to have one thing that either completely or slightly puts them off – the cleaning aspect.

People have the impression that it’s hard, that you’re going to be touching poo and that it’s a lot of work. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Cloth nappies are such a breeze to use and to wash and, in fact, seem to create less washing than using disposables. You see – you don’t get those explosive nappy leaks. You know the ones! Those horrendous moments that are suffered by disposable nappy users where the baby has a poosplosion, the flimsy paper nappy can’t cope and the baby and clothing ends up covered in poo.

I can safely say that I’ve NEVER had one of those! Cloth nappies are fab for containment, so I have never had to wash poo-covered clothes. Brilliant.

So, how do you wash them? I’ve written a blogpost about it HERE but it’s just so easy.

Take off the nappy.
Put any poo down the loo and either bin or flush any paper liner (some can’t be flushed, be careful!)
Separate the components of the nappy (take any inserts out of pockets)
Put them into either a nappy bucket that’s lined with a mesh bag or a wetbag (this is dry pailing)
(NOTE – THERE IS NO NEED TO SOAK YOUR NAPPIES. SOAKING WILL ACTUALLY RUIN THE WATERPROOF OUTERS AND IS A PRETTY OLD-FASHIONED AND UNNECESSARY THING TO DO!)
When your bucket or wetbag is full, pop the nappies (with the mesh bag, or wetbag) into the washing machine (shake them out of the bag into the machine)
Wash with about a third/half of your usual washing powder with NO CONDITIONER IN IT AT ALL (non bio is best for sensitive skin) I use a drop or two of tea tree oil as well.
Wash at 60 degrees (I do a prewash) for smaller babies and then, well it’s up to you. I alternate my washes so sometimes it’s at 40 and sometimes it’s at 60.
Take out and dry. Obviously tumble drying is expensive and also not really needed. Get them out on the line when it’s sunny and the sun will help to bleach out any stains.

That’s it.

It takes you about 3 minutes to put on a wash and then about 10 mins max to hang them out at the end. That’s less time that it takes for most people to even get ready to go to the shops!

Have you got your nappies out on the line today? It’s such a glorious day here and mine are brightening up the garden right now!

Happy Real Nappy Week Sunday, everyone!

Ooooh! Remember you’ve got until 5pm today to enter my GIVEAWAY!
What are you waiting for? Nominate a friend today!

daisytheclothbummum wrote this post immensely quickly and is aware that there are probably some dreadful typos in it. It’s Sunday. I’m half asleep. Oh well!

Before I even start, I must apologise for the really brief nature of this blogpost. I’ve been out all morning promoting cloth nappies to all the lovely people who came along to my nappuccino and this afternoon I…

Erm…

I could lie to you right now and say that I’ve been doing something of value,
something worthy…

But…

The honest truth is that…

Monkey and I had a MASSIVE WHOPPING GREAT BIG NAP!

We obviously needed it and I feel miles better for having it! But the downside of all that lovely sleeping (and ignoring of all household duties) is that it’s now bath and bed time and then I have a load of stuff to catch up on!

So, today’s Real Nappy Week theme is – ‘Real Future’

Now, I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination and I really don’t have all the facts and figures to hand (see the wonderful post by Go Real to find out lots more info) but what I do know is that the idea of throwing away lots and lots of disposables full of toxins, chemicals and plastic has never appealed to me at all.

I mean – come on – it’s hideous. I see just how much waste some of my friends create from solely using the things and it’s pretty dreadful stuff. We had to use disposables for two weeks after Monkey had an operation last year and, to make it worse, we had to double nappy him as he had a catheter in. The amount of waste we created was shocking and it made me so glad that I use cloth.

If we want our children, grandchildren and other descendants to have a planet that is worth living on then we really need to do something. Not just about disposable nappies, obviously, but it’s a massive waste issue and one that we can all take an active role in doing something about. Thirty odd years ago, disposables weren’t even an option and now they are the ‘norm’. Our society has gone and got so lazy, so throwaway and we need to wake up and take responsibility to ensure that there’s a future and a planet worth having.

24-30 ish cloth nappies that can be reused on other babies vs thousands (around 4000) disposables per child. It’s a no brainer, surely?!

OH! A quick reminder to enter your friend into my GIVEAWAY! It closes on Sunday so get your skates on!