Happy December!

I can't believe it's December already! Happy 11 month birth anniversary C!

Whew. We've had a crazy week. Last weekend we went to Somerset Dam with friends for one of their 30th birthdays and it was great fun. Being at the lake made me really miss tubing and spending all summer on the boat. We decided to head home late Saturday night instead of spending the night because C was having a hard time sleeping and it was just too exhausting for Brett and me. That meant that we woke up at home on Sunday and got to go to the market!

View of the lake from our rented house

Sunday was nice and peaceful until C started to get sick enough for us to call the doctor and have them send someone out to see her on Sunday evening - it's wonderful that they still have doctors that do house visits! The doctor looked her over while she slept (awesome!) and said she was fine but maybe a bit dehydrated/constipated, the next morning she woke up and was completely healthy and fine. We don't know what it was but she's still healthy and happy.

The rest of the week wasn't great either because I was ill but we had Debbie here, Brett's mom, which was a wonderful break for Brett and me and C got to spend lots of time with her Grandma.

Yesterday made the entire week much better though because it was Brett's sister's graduation! We got to see Kahlee walk across the stage and spend time with lots of family.

Congratulations Kahlee! 

We've got another big weekend planned because a friend is coming into town so we're heading to the Sunny Coast tonight and plan to stay all weekend. So hopefully we'll get to see the beach and relax a bit after a crazy week.

Most of the week I didn't feel like doing much of anything really but I did manage to put a few new things in my etsy shop (so go check them out!) and I made a batch of shea butter soap, which is my favorite soap so far! I haven't decided if I'll put that in my etsy shop because I like it so much and want to keep all of it!

C is walking all over the place and loves every minute of it. She's just started showing us where her nose is by pointing and she had her first encounter with a fly.

 Enjoy your weekend and Happy December!

Castile Laundry Stain Stick

Venus of Willendorf (kind of like a fertility goddess; I just recently bought this soap mold and was really excited about using it!)

I'm very excited to be posting about a new soap that I've recently made. It's a "castile" soap because the fat in the soap is 100% olive oil and it's a "laundry stain stick" because I rub it on stained clothing before washing and it does an AMAZING job at removing stains. I'm also going to start using it in my laundry soap and liquid dish soap.

I got the idea to make a bar soap specifically for laundry from another blog while I was doing research into soap making. I think this soap recipe works really well on stains because of the lowered amount of superfatting (from 5% in my body bar soap to 4% in this soap)--basically I used a smaller lye to fat ratio because I won't be using this soap on my skin, just on clothing and dishes.

I used my new soap mold (see above) for the laundry stick because I was really excited to see how the soap would look. I rubbed the soap on some clothes the other day and was amazed at what the stain stick actually got out of the clothing.

I was so excited about the results that I listed some bars of soap on my Etsy page! And because I've been on such a homemade-beauty-products kick (I've also recently made deodorant and lip balm) I've also listed some homemade lip balm. I think I will actually end up changing the name of my shop soon too...

Also, I've just started a Facebook page for my shop, you can get to the page by clicking here.

In other exciting news, C has recently started walking (today actually) and said her first words yesterday! She said "buh-bye" to my friend Kat as she was leaving our house yesterday. We weren't actually sure if that's what she meant or even said but then she said it about 5 more times while waving so we're definitely counting it!

We spent the weekend up on the coast, actually only Friday night and Saturday morning, and went to the beach. The water is warming up wonderfully again and it was great to take C to the beach.

All is well here and I hope the same is true for you!

xoxo

NappiesByNicole--First Order!

I just have to do a little shameless plug because on Monday I shipped out my very first order! And it was a custom order! I can't believe how exciting it was to make and ship my very first order from NappiesByNicole!

I got an email early last week asking if I would be able to make a "boy" colored tie dye nappy based on this set: 

and was more than happy to oblige. 

So I ran around on Wednesday gathering supplies to tie dye, then worked all day Thursday on the nappy/singlet set. I posted the custom order on Friday, she ordered and paid for it and I shipped it out yesterday. 

Here's what the order looked like all finished and ready to ship: 

I'm feeling even more positive and excited about selling on etsy now that my first sale is out of the way! 

NappiesByNicole

We decided long ago that we would use cloth diapers for our baby. We knew we'd love cloth diapers for a few reasons, namely it would save us LOADS of money in the long run and we wouldn't be throwing away 10 (or more) diapers a day.

Originally we started out with about a dozen pre-folds and I made a few water proof covers from PUL fabric. Then I became interested in making pocket diapers. After I began making them I started thinking about maybe selling them as something to keep me a bit more occupied while I stayed at home with Chuck (not that I don't have enough to do...)

Anyway, I FINALLY opened a shop on Etsy! Here is the link. It's been open for about two weeks now and I'm slowly adding more items all the time. I'm really enjoying making things to sell but business is still slow. I'm hoping to get about 15 items in the shop and then do a bit of advertising.

Everything else for us is good. It was so busy there for awhile that I thought we'd go crazy but I decided that I couldn't work and bring C to the office so we're on hiatus for awhile. I'm still going to be doing a few things from home when they need it which will be nice but for now I'm strictly a stay-at-home parent (with a new home business!).

C is getting so big. We've recently changed from Baby Sensory to the class one level up because she's nearly walking. She LOVES the new class. It's much more free form and she can crawl around on everything. They even have a trampoline that she loves to crawl all over.

Work is very busy for Brett but he's still enjoying it. We've been going to the beach quite often because it's been so hot here the past few weeks. We've been contemplating moving out of Brisbane next year when our lease is up because we would love to be closer to the coast and Brett's family. We'd probably be moving about a half hour out of Brisbane, still on the train line, so Brett could easily caught the train to work.

Hope you're all well.

xoxo

This is her favorite new face. She knows she's funny.