The Capsule Wardrobe...

...because I can't dress myself. Honestly. For years I tried to rock a "Bohemian" look with clearance, thrifted, or outdated hand-me-downs from my mother (from the 90's...my mom is actually a pretty stylish person), but I usually came out looking like I'd lost a battle at Savers. I'd hit a sort of stride in fashion a few years ago, but the cycle of pregnancy, postpartum, and nursing took a toll on how my clothes fit and what I needed. I found myself passing over the same tops and pants day after day because they weren't flattering, didn't match anything, or weren't easy to nurse in.

The idea of a capsule wardrobe always appealed to my love of minimalism, but in practice it has made it easier for me to put together a reasonably coordinated and nursing-friendly outfit very quickly. According to everything I've found by Googling "capsule wardrobe," the best way to get started is to completely empty your closet and dresser.

Yikes! I'd never realized how many clothes I had. This wasn't even counting the collection of maternity clothes and clothes-completely-incompatible-with-nursing I had stored in the basement. I'd never really considered myself a hoarder, but here was the evidence.

Most of the resources I found about capsule wardrobes recommend having several capsules based on season and occasion, and exclude workout clothes and loungewear. Since I almost never wear my "work clothes" pieces outside of work (black slacks and blouse, the universal musician's uniform), I put them aside on a single hanger and moved on. I also decided to put all of my workout/pajama type clothing in a single drawer of my dresser, and all of my out-of-season clothing in another. That way, I wouldn't have the visual clutter of clothes that I wasn't going to be wearing in my day-to-day outfits. Then I filled bag after bag of clothing to donate to St. Vincent de Paul. From there I realized I could use a few nursing-friendly short-sleeve tops (my nursing-cami-under-short-sleeve-top system only works up to 70 degrees), so I picked up three stretchy v-necks from Target in gray, navy, and dark green.

What remained, I (eventually) photographed and uploaded into Stylebook, an app for the organizationally obsessed. And here is my late spring/summer/early fall capsule wardrobe thus far.

Everything that doesn't need to be hung up fits in a single drawer, so it's very easy to visualize my options for the day.

I may have sort of "half-fast" the photographing cropping of some of the images (beige, gray, white, and striped clothing don't fare well in the auto-crop feature) before I started looking for retailers' images of some of my clothes. I also haven't photographed most of my jewelry, but at this point I'm not sure it matters. Most of my necklaces are in the Graveyard of Jewelry Destroyed by Sir Toddler, so I don't wear any except for special occasions.

One of the neat features of Stylebook is that it allows you to put together outfits (or "looks") effortlessly, that look like professional graphic designer's work. It makes my outfits look a lot cooler than they are in reality.

Outfit I wore on a cool beach day.

What I wore for an anniversary date with Mr. Husband.

My everyday look. Sometimes I change it up with the Saltwaters or my stylish 6-year-old running sneakers.

The "look" features is actually deceptive, because...

...sometimes all of those outfits are in the wash.

Have you ever tried a capsule wardrobe?

Cloth Diapering: Two Years In and Counting

Long before I had children, I thought I wanted to use cloth diapers. Although my Yankee background is far from crunchy, any way that I could avoid using disposable products and save money seemed pretty appealing to me. When I was pregnant with Sir Toddler, I started doing my research and got some sticker shock with the fancy All-in-2 pocket diapers. I also didn't know anything about those fancy online baby registries, so I just registered for some prefolds at Babies R Us and went from there. All things considering, it's worked out for us.

Our diaper pail is nothing special. It's just a step can I picked up at Marshalls with a removable plastic liner, complete with a half-ripped-off label and broken child lock. I later drilled some holes in it to aid ventilation. When the liner gets stinky, we give it a wash with dish soap and spray it with hydrogen peroxide.

Baby diaper: Econobum cover, OsoCozy Size 1 prefold, Snappi (not pictured)

Toddler diaper: Flip cover, Econobum prefold

We inherited a dresser with the changing table space on top from the kids' older cousins. I know that some parents prefer to just change anywhere, but with cloth diapers I find it's helpful to have a centralized location to dump the dirties.

Our basket of diapering miscellany. I keep the peri bottle full of water for wetting washcloths ("wipes"), and we also keep disposable wipes since my husband prefers to use those for toddler poop.

Drawer full of covers, swim diapers, washcloths, and hemp inserts for nighttime.

Another drawer full of prefolds. It was the diaper drawer when we just had 1 in cloth.

Since Lady Infant often needs diaper changes when Sir Toddler is asleep in the nursery, we have a secondary basket of supplies in our bedroom. We just drag the plastic liner of the diaper pail over whenever we put him down for his nap or bedtime.

Lady Infant models the "jelly roll" fold with the Snappi.

And the cover.

Sir Toddler's cover with the newspaper fold tucked in.

Our wash routine is a cold rinse, followed by a hot heavy-duty wash cycle with powdered Tide. We tried a few other gentler soaps (Country Save and Rockin' Green) but had some major problems with stink because of our hard water. Our washing machine is an HE top loader, and as I've mentioned in previous posts, I don't really love it. It's not great for cloth diapers, or even messy toddler clothes. (Stay AWAY from the Maytag Bravos. The nice repairman who wouldn't take payment for his visit-- because the repairs would be so expensive--said it's better to go as simple as possible with top loaders. It is also the slowest washing machine I've ever used. Thank you for joining me on Consider the Following.)

When we leave the house, we just use disposables. Before Lady Infant made her appearance, I would take Sir Toddler out for shorter jaunts in cloth and store dirties in a wet bag. With two of them, it's hard to fit the requisite number of prefolds in the diaper bag. I also will switch to disposables when either of the kids gets a bad diaper rash--they both have really sensitive skin, and despite frequent changes Sir Toddler has had some nasty fungal and bacterial rashes in the past.  Either way, we have saved a ton of cash using the prefolds at home. Although we've had to replace a few covers (a few accidentally made it into the dryer and it destroyed the PUL) the prefolds have held up really well so far. Sometimes I dream of upgrading to the less bulky AI2 diapers like the BumGenius. However, the simple diapers take a good beating in the washer and the dryer, and will hopefully live on to cover future baby ATPlets' bottoms.

That being said, we're still working out the kinks in our system. I'd like to reach a point where we can move to washing every other day (as we were with one child in cloth) since I have an excess of size 1 diapers, and the nightly wash routine ties up the machine. I'm trying to get the diapers out to air dry more often, but sometimes I don't make it down to the basement to retrieve our diapers until after lunch. And, despite, using the exact same system (prefold + hemp + PUL cover) that we used with Sir Toddler at four months, we are having chronic night leaks with Lady Infant. She is waking us up in the wee hours with her pajamas completely soaked at the tummy. If you have any suggestions for us, post a comment on this webzone.

If you're considering trying cloth diapers, feel free to ask me any questions! I'm not an expert, but I have certainly learned a lot through trial and error over the past two years. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go check on the laundry. *eyeroll*

7 Quick Takes

I've seen a lot of bloggers pen an entry in this format, which works perfectly for my unfocused state the last few weeks. As I type, I can hear Sir Toddler kicking the wall in his crib, which is always a great sign an hour into "naptime."

1. Crafting

I made my first fabric-to-finish project since sewing class in 1998. I used this tutorial and found that the instructions were pretty helpful for even a novice seamstress, even though the materials were missing some important details. Perhaps those details would be obvious to a more experienced seamstress, but they weren't to me. So if you choose to make this, I recommend lightweight cotton twill for the fabric, 1 1/2" D-rings (I used 3/4" and they weren't really wide enough), and 1/2" boning (I used 1/4" and the peek-a-boo window collapses really easily) with or without covering (it's not going to fit in the pocket but you can just peel it off.) Most of my sewing attempts are alterations or made with scraps of fabric, so they predictably come out looking pretty dismal, but for this project it was worthwhile to invest in materials and follow the steps carefully.

2. Don't Do This

DIY personal care ideas pop up on the internet all the time, and I have fallen victim to many in my attempts to be super cheap save money or simplify my morning. There are so many glowing testimonials that I get suckered in reaaaaal quick. Perhaps my blog will save you from any of these heinous ideas.

No Poo/vinegar and baking soda: gave me horrible dry witch hair, except two days before wash day. Then it became unbelievably greasy. If you have lots of fine wavy or straight hair, don't do it.

3. Oil facial cleaning: I gave it the full six weeks. Know what it got me? Loads of pimples. Don't do it.

4. Castile soap/black soap for shampoo/face wash: Loads of pimples AND dry skin AND witch hair. Just buy normal shampoo and face wash.

5. Coconut oil for diaper cream: If your kids have wicked sensitive skin like mine, it's Triple Paste or bust.

6. Maytag Bravos X washing machine. Not on Pinterest that I know of.

Ours is less than 3 years old, and it started to make a sound like an airplane taxiing during the spin cycle. The (very nice!) repairman that came this morning said the problem is most likely a part+labor combination that costs as much or more than we paid for the machine. Don't buy this machine, especially if you cloth diaper. Apparently high water levels wear it out faster (???!!!).

7. I need chopping gloves.

So this happened. Making carrot sticks turned into the stuff of nightmare when the simultaneous screaming of both children distracted me enough to (skip the small print if you're squeamish) actually fully cut off a part of my fingertip. According to the very nice medical staff at the nearest urgent care center, this should actually heal fully barring any infection or re-injury with the help of a little Surgicell. Besides the necessity of having operational hands when constantly changing diapers and children's clothing, and buckling wiggly worms into car seats, it is welcome news that I will still be able to play piano when this is all over. In the meantime, I can be found awkwardly washing dishes with one hand curled inside too-small PVC gloves and not wearing contacts (I haven't figured out how to put them in without poking myself in the eye with my bandage. Waaa waaa). And looking at these on Amazon:

I wish I'd know about these before, that's for sure.

Happy weekending!