Clementine Art

A short and sweet post...

I just discovered Clementine Art. Since my 1 year old eats the crayons more frequently than he colors with them, I thought these might be good for us. The supplies are all natural, environmentally friendly, and non-toxic. They are designed to be open ended to encourage creativity in your child. 

Greasy Shirt

In my haste to finish cooking supper a few weeks ago, I spilled beef broth on my iRead shirt (Wednesday's are "Drop Everything and Read" day at school). I didn't have time to clean it that instant, but threw it in the wash over the weekend and it came out stained. I did some Googling to find an eco friendly way to remove the stain with stuff I already had in the house. My first attempt was to use corn starch. I sprinkled some on and let it sit overnight. When I washed it later, I forgot where the stain was located and held up the shirt to N saying "it's gone!" He says, "No it's not." The stain was about 2 inches above where I was pointing.

So next I tried hand washing it in our Seventh Generation dish soap. It worked! No more stain! 

Formula Warning

 Back in August, I had to start giving A formula to get him enough to eat due to a dwindling supply. I discussed my search for an organic formula here. I decided to go with Baby's Only organic dairy formula by Nature's One. You may have noticed Nature's One made the news recently, and not in a good way. The first ingredient, brown rice syrup, has been found to have dangerously high levels of arsenic. Nature's One is responding that they use reputable third party distributors and will test all their products for high levels of arsenic. Thankfully, A has moved on to whole milk. We had 2 cans of formula we were going to finish up, but I guess we won't. The news seems inconclusive right now, but until you know for sure, I would avoid products with brown rice syrup, especially if it's one of the first ingredients. My second go-to formula during the time A was using formula was Earth's Best Organic Formula. This would be my suggestion, as A took it well and didn't have any problems transitioning between the two. 

Dryer Balls

Yep, the title of this post is Dryer Balls.

I used to love line drying clothes, but when our little guy came along I just couldn't make the time. Since then, we've been using the dryer without fabric softener sheets. It's been fine, but in the winter I find our clothes a little static-y. I learned that wool dryer balls can help prevent this. By drying clothes with dryer balls (some people use tennis balls), you can reduce the amount of time required to dry, naturally soften laundry, and reduce static.

My original plan was to make my own. When I started shopping for wool yarn, I discovered already made organic wool dryer balls for cheaper from The Willow Store. So I bought some, and tried them out tonight while drying A's diapers.

They are obnoxiously loud (but our dryer is directly below our living room), but they did the job. The diapers came out dryer and softer. I'm looking forward to seeing if they help dry our clothes faster, but laundry day isn't until Friday night. 

My Prius Buddy!

The absolute highlight of my week is that my brother got a Prius! My republican, conservative, military "all man" brother got a Prius! I'm practically giddy with "I told you so" attitude. He claims that it has nothing to do with being green, but I know I'm rubbing off on him. He says it has everything to do with the cost of gas. He figured that with how much he and his wife drive, he'd safe over $1800 a year! I told him he'd have to burn a lot of plastic chairs to compensate for all the good he's doing on this planet by driving a Prius.

I'm so thrilled to be such a good influence on my family :)