It was my sister-in-law who came up with the idea: Why spend all that money on disposable diapers that just end up breaking down in a landfill for the next 500 years? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use nature’s bounty to diaper our babies? This fall is the perfect time to start carving your own diapers out of pumpkins. Simply choose an appropriately-sized pumpkin, carve out the top, scoop out the seeds, and cut out two leg holes. This DIY diaper requires no sewing.

Check out my niece sporting her all-natural homemade diaper:

While gDiapers claim to be compostable, they still contain SAP–a petroleum product that doesn’t really break down. A pumpkin may not have the wicking and absorbing powers of an ordinary diaper, but it is 100% natural and biodegradable!  No other diapers can compete with that.

Babies in pumpkins work for me. For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head on over to We are THAT Family.

First, take a square piece of paper and fold it in half. I usually just start cutting out the spider freehand, but if you prefer, draw the spider on the paper first, like this:

Then cut out everything surrounding the spider’s body and legs, leaving a border around the edge.

Open it up and there you have it: A creepy paper spider to hang up for Halloween. Tip: If you want the spider to be a black widow, cut a diamond shape out of the abdomen and tape a piece of red paper behind it.

I was six months pregnant on Halloween a few years ago. Of course my main concern was how will I find an eco-friendly maternity Halloween costume?! After considering dressing as a compost bin, a rain barrel, or a Hybrid car, I found the perfect thing at the dollar bin of my local secondhand maternity shop: a 1980s-style yellow maternity jumper. Because I’d dressed as “Eighties Girl” for the previous two or three years, I knew “Pregnant Eighties Lady” was just the costume for me.

So figure-flattering!

The best part is, I still have this romper, which I use as a painting smock. Also, as soon as one-piece floral jumpers come back in style, I’m all set. I could probably gain up to a hundred pounds and still fit in it, so there’s really no reason why I shouldn’t hang on to it forever.

Stay tuned for more maternity Halloween costume ideas next week!

This post is a part of Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family.

Don’t feel like making dinner tonight—and don’t feel like getting takeout, either? Tonight I made dinner for two with fifteen cents’ worth of macaroni and some key ingredients from my garden. (Let’s conveniently forget the two-hundred-something dollars I spent on gardening supplies last spring and assume that that the tomatoes and basil were free.)

 Macaroni and Tomatoes for Two

4 oz. small macaroni
two ripe tomatoes, chopped (I used one red and one golden tomato)
a handful of basil, chopped
one clove of garlic, minced
salt
olive oil (a couple tablespoons)

1. Make the macaroni according to package directions.
2. Chop everything up and put it in a cereal bowl.
3. When the macaroni is cooked, drain it and mix it with the sauce. Then divide into two bowls (one of which was used to hold the sauce). Top with parmesan if desired, and enjoy your 7.5 cent dinner!

Note: Okay, I just realized I didn’t calculate the cost of two tablespoons of olive oil and a clove of garlic. If someone can do the math for me, I’ll add that to my total expenses.

This post is a part of Works for Me Wednesday. For more WFMW ideas, head on over to We are THAT Family.

You may have already read my post on making a dashing doll dress out of a frazzled old sock. My creative endeavors did not stop there: I went on to make a doll house out of a cardboard box and an Ikea catalogue.

My daughter and I spend one Saturday morning cutting up little chairs, beds, and even whole rooms out of the catalogue, then pasting them inside the box. We even found an outdoor scene to glue onto the outside of the box so that the dolls would be able to entertain outdoors. Audrey actually does play with the box, too, setting her little dolls inside and creating stories for them.

So if you want a little project that requires no new materials and almost no crafty skills at all, give this a try!

For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head on over to We are THAT Family.

If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or just trying to survive the summer (just one month left!), then you know the importance of staying hydrated. With this in mind, we recently divulged our recipes for homemade iced tea and lemonade, asking our readers how they quenched their thirst.

Emily had this to say:

I’ve been nursing for 2 months and am thirsty all the time! I get tired of plain water, and even iced tea. My new favorite beverage is infused water. I just fill a pitcher with water, toss in some combination of sliced lemons, limes, oranges, strawberries, cucumbers, or sprigs of mint (mixing and matching flavors adds variety), and stash it in the fridge.

Brilliant! I don’t mind drinking plain old water, but I know there are people who don’t have clean-tasting tap water, don’t like tea, and don’t want to spend money on other beverages. In addition to the ingredients Emily listed above, I’ve tried watermelon, basil, and lemon balm. Any other ideas for infusing water?

This post is a part of Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by We are THAT Family.

Here’s a quick tip: Don’t waste your time reading the labels on plastic baby dishes trying to figure out if they’re made out of “good” plastic or “bad” plastic. Just use ordinary glass custard cups for your baby dishes. They’re nonporous and don’t leach chemicals into food. They can also go into the refrigerator, freezer, microwave, and oven.

When my daughter was a baby, we fed her from these tempered glass bowls with a spoon. We found a set that came with lids and sent her homemade baby food to daycare in them. Now we all use them for snacks or as prep bowls while cooking. I also use them to make custard every once in a while. In all my years as a custard cup enthusiast, I have never broken one.

I favor baby gear with a long lifespan. I’ve had a set of custard cups since before my baby was born, and we’ll be able to hand them down to our grandchildren. Now that’s an inheritance to look forward to!

For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head on over to We are THAT Family.

I have a feeling I’m going to lose this battle, but here it is: I don’t like the idea of giving food as a gift for new parents. Joy loves the idea so much that she wrote a post with food ideas, and the comments were overwhelmingly positive. It seems that almost everyone enjoys giving freezable meals to worn-out parents and that worn-out parents enjoy receiving them.

Here I was, whipping up nutritious dinners just moments after giving birth.

Not me! Why not? Well, that takes us back to another classic Green Baby Guide Battle: I don’t like to buy food in bulk and prepare big batches of meals to store in the freezer. Joy does. Casseroles and other “frozen delights” just don’t appeal to me. Yes, I realize they are quick and convenient, but every time I’ve frozen something ahead of time, I find I am loath to defrost it and heat it up for dinner.

Another reason I don’t like getting food as gifts is because I am a bit particular. (For starters, I don’t eat meat.) I think my friends and family know this. Maybe that’s why I didn’t receive any tuna casseroles or beef briskets as gifts when our baby was born! The only food I remember getting were whole grain cinnamon rolls without frosting, made by my aunt. Now it just so happens that I love these particular cinnamon rolls and hate anything frosted, so I was very happy.

Here’s the last reason I disapprove of the whole freezer food phenomenon: I like to cook! Those first few weeks and months with the baby actually afforded me more time than ever to whip up tasty lunches and dinners.

I like the basic idea behind freezer food as gifts: Friends and family come together to help out a family going through a major life transition. So why am I even writing this post? Before I gave birth, I was told I’d barely have time to take a shower or brush my teeth, let alone concoct flavorful dishes from scratch. I dreaded the thought of weeks on end of freezer meals and was happy to find I was able to carry on as normal in this one small corner of my life. As I said . . . I’m pretty sure I’m alone on this one!

This post is a part of Works for Me Wednesdays over at We are THAT Family.

This post originally ran in April of 2008. Now that We are THAT Family is hosting an “organization edition” of Works for Me Wednesday, I thought I’d rerun it. (Edited to add: Actually, it’s the “back to school edition.” I am NEVER going to get this right! Maybe next month. . . .) How do you keep your baby clothes from bursting out of the drawers?

Do you have hundreds of miniature socks, pants, and pajamas oozing from your closets?  Before my baby was even born, I found myself with more baby clothes than I knew what to do with.  My daughter never even wore half of the adorable little outfits I’d folded and stored in her dresser.  Many of the clothes never fit (short-and-wide onesies didn’t work on her tall-and-skinny frame, for example) or weren’t appropriate for the season.

The clothes my daughter wears fit into two drawers on her dresser.  (The third drawer is reserved for cloth diapers and diapering paraphernalia.)  Everything else gets relegated to the dreaded basement.  Although I’ve written about the ersatz landfill that my basement has become, I’ve managed to keep the baby clothing archives relatively organized.

Limiting my daughter’s garments to just two drawers helps me weed out the old and make room for the new.  I can usually find what I need because I don’t keep all of her clothes–outgrown, unsightly, off-season, or impractical–in a closet.  If the clothes aren’t in the two drawers in my daughter’s nursery, they’re in one of the following labeled boxes:

Outgrown (keep).  Once she’s outgrown something I want to hang on to, it goes here.  If I were super-organized, I could subdivide this category by size, so if I had another child, I could easily find what I needed.  Too bad I’m not super-organized!

Too Big.  At my baby shower I received clothing in sizes ranging from newborn to twenty-four months.  Anything that doesn’t fit her right now goes in the “too big” box.  Now that my daughter is over two years old, she has fewer items in this stash.  When she was smaller, I kept her too-big clothes organized by size.  It gets a little confusing because you’ll find that your kid will fit in all sorts of sizes at one time.  My daughter can fit in everything from three to twenty-four months!  (Don’t the pants in this photo fit like a dream?  No?  Okay, into the “Too Big” box they go.)

Giveaway.  Clothes that my daughter outgrew or never wore for some reason might go in this box or the next box.

Sell.  I live next to a bustling consignment shop, so I try to store the nice clothing I don’t want to keep in a “clothes to sell” box.  Once I have forty items (the limit at my shop), I take it over and get credit to spend on secondhand clothes and toys.  If I were super-organized, I’d subdivide this category by season–no consignment shop wants a heavy winter coat in June or a Halloween costume in December.

As a part of my cleaning efforts, I’m going to rifle through my daughter’s wardrobe, arrange everything in the correct boxes, and make a trip to the consignment shop.  With my store credit I’ll fill in any holes that may exist in Audrey’s wardrobe.  I think she needs a summer-weight power suit for casual play dates and some understated accessories to celebrate summer.

The recipe couldn’t be simpler, with just three ingredients: water, lemons, and sugar. Still, most people resort to the canned or even powdered version of this classic summertime refreshment. Start making it homemade, and you’ll not only save money, but the packaging that comes along with the premade juices. Also, most frozen juices contain high fructose corn syrup, while the homemade version contains nothing but sugar. (Okay, sugar is not exactly a health food, but it is better than corn syrup.)

How to Make Lemonade (whether life hands you lemons or not)

4 cups water
1 cup lemon juice (about four lemons’ worth-or use lemon juice from concentrate)
½ cup sugar (or 1/4 cup honey)

Stir until sugar or honey is dissolved and sweeten or water down to taste. Enjoy!

Making lemonade from scratch works for me! For more WFMW tips, head on over to We are THAT Family.