Monday, October 29, 2007

The second flake has fallen!

I finished another diaper tonight. This one has a fuller bottom and crotch area. I messed up the sewing part on one of the wings, but other than that it looks pretty darn good. Wish I could post some pics of it.

The soaker is beautiful! I put the outer print of the diaper on the back of the soaker so it matches. LOL I also added another layer of hemp fleece to the body of the diaper so there is well over a 1/2 a yard of hemp in this one diaper. The front side of the soaker (part that touches the baby) is topped with yummy bamboo velour.

I put one of the snaps on backwards so Shaun had to assist me in removing it. Between one of the wings not getting sewn well, the backwards snap, and my camera issues I'm feeling a little stressed so hopefully tomorrow will go smoother.

I have one more tester diaper to do for Ben and then I'll start taking my real tester diaper orders. I was thinking of making the rise longer but with the fuller coverage backside I don't think it's needed. I can't wait to get our newest diaper on Ben's cute little hiney.

Editing to add pictures....

The second flake - A Charlie Brown diaper
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Inner
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Outer
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Frustrated

My camera won't download pictures with the printer software loaded in. So I tried taking my memory card out and plugging it into the front of the computer tower...since there's a card reader right there. I put the card in and a green light comes on saying the card is there....but the computer doesn't recognize the card actually IS there and keeps giving me an error message saying that I need to put a card into the slot before it can read it. *slaps forehead*

So tonight I tried to get the pictures of the diaper I just finished to download, didn't work. I put batteries in Billy's camera to see if I can take pics with that and download them....but all the batteries I have are dead. Well except for the two in MY camera but Billy's takes 4. *slaps forehead again*

Now I just figured I'd put the memory card back into my camera to see if I can get it downloaded onto a photo disk at CVS tomorrow....and now my camera will no longer read the memory card and says there is a "memory card error". AHHHHHHH!!!

The pictures I took better still be on that card. My Halloween gift exchange pics are waiting to be downloaded as are several pics of the boys. I'm going to cry if they're gone and the memory card is no longer usable. One step forward....two steps back.

A list of the electronics NOT working at our house:
* Boys dvd/vcr
* Living room dvd/vcr
* Boy's tv and vcr remotes
* Billy's camera (hopefully JUST needs batteries)
* My new camera (won't work if we keep the printer plugged in and software installed)
* 2 other digital cameras that I have boxed up and put away. One lasted almost 4 years (I think that's a record as far as digital cameras are concerned) and the other one whole year.
* The washing machine is not spinning well.
* The one light in our bedroom will no longer turn on.

Hyenacart

I applied for my hyenacart this morning. I won't be ready to do a stocking for at least a month...if not two, but I figured I'd get the name reserved and start trying to figure it all out now rather than waiting until the last minute.
www.hyenacart.com

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Snowflakes

Here's the first flake! It's not perfect, but totally functional. I need to work on my snap placement and figure out how to make them hidden snaps...but overall I'm very happy with how the diaper came out. I can't wait to try it on Ben tomorrow. I may need to adjust the crotch width, but other than that I am pretty darn close to what I had envisioned. Trim and absorbent.

The diaper body is lined with hemp fleece and the soaker is made out of hemp fleece and bamboo velour.

Because I still can't get my camera to download pictures, these crappy scanned ones will have to do.

Front
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Back
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Front with wings open
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Inside, snap in soaker
Please ignore the stray thread. LOL
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Business Update

Fabric Previews
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I have the McDonald's print diaper body cut out, and the crotch area looks awful narrow. I wanted them trim, but I hope it's not too trim. I'm going to finish this one diaper tonight so I can try it on Ben and tweak it before finishing the others.

We're leaving to go to a church Harvest Party right now. After the party we are having dinner at my parents and then it will be back to the grind.

Business Update

I'm cutting and sewing today! I have 3 soakers cut out and waiting to be pinned and sewn. I'm going to finish cutting out the diaper bodies before I do that though so I can figure out how I want to snap them. I hope I get quicker at this. By this pace....3 diapers are going to take me 3 days. My goal is to have 3 finished and pics uploaded by Tuesday evening so I can start taking testing orders. I have a short list from Ben's Born In May 06 board. That should give me a few mediums and larges tested. I may need to hit the Diaperswappers.com board to get some smalls tested.

I'm also working on a new logo and have a new name. I plan to announce it with my previews so it's a secret for now.













It starts with an "S" and ends with "nowflakes".
:-D

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Business Update

It's HERE!!

I opened the front door to put a small package in the mailbox, for the mailman to pick up and sitting on my front porch was the SNAP PRESS box. It arrived a bit damaged, but is still workable so it's not worth complaining about imo. Just a bit of missing paint and a bit of rust. I bet you'd be rusty too if you had to take a ride from Kansas to Maine with your bum exposed.

The hemp fabric is perfect and the snaps are all there! Now I just have to figure out how to use it..and keep Ben from teething on it. It was made in China after all. ;-)

I'd post a pic.....but it's so heavy it would break the scanner for sure. Shaun's off tomorrow so I plan on having him help me pull the tower out unplug the printer and re-install the camera software so see if the printer software kicked it out. The Canon website said it's possible...so who knows.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Business Update

Poly-mailers are here!

Still waiting to see if the snap press arrives today or not. I was hoping it would be here this morning, but here it is...almost 4pm and I'm still waiting. Fedex hasn't updated their tracking information since the 24th...so it's still somewhere between Kansas and here....I guess.

We are waiting on:
Snap press, dies, snaps, and hemp fleece (shipped 10/23)
Kumquat Fabric (shipped 10/23)

5:57 UPDATE
No snap press yet....but the beautiful Kumquat Fabric arrived!!
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26wks

On Wednesday I hit the 26wk mark. Only 96 days from today, until my due date! Garrett is growing well and very active. Billy saw my belly moving yesterday and said it looked like an elephant dancing in my belly.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Business Update

Elastic is here!!

*picture to come....it's still stuck in the camera*

I had some already, but figured I should order more. It goes quicker than you would think. I checked on the snap press order and it left Kansas this afternoon with an expected delivery date of 10/26.

We are waiting on:
Snap press, dies, snaps, and hemp fleece (shipped 10/23)
Kumquat Fabric (shipped 10/23)
30 Poly-mailers (shipped 10/23)

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Scanning fun!

Me in Kindergarten
5 1/2 years old
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My parents...in the late 70's
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8th Grade Graduation
Nana, Mom, Me, Abbie
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Christmas 2003
Billy was 14 months old, Logan was 4 years 10 months
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Logan at Billy's baby shower in Jan 02
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Crossstitch sampler done by Nana for Logan's nursery
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Me at Duck Puddle Campground in the early-mid 1990's
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Business Update

I ordered some poly-mailers since shipping diapers with bubble envelopes is expensive. I got 30 poly-mailers for $7.50 and it costs a $1 or more a piece for the bubble mailers at Walmart.

We are waiting on:
Snap press, dies, snaps, and hemp fleece
Elastic (shipped 10/22)
Kumquat Fabric
30 Poly-mailers (shipped 10/23)

Monday, October 22, 2007

Business Update

My diaper business is tentatively named "Honey Bums". I'm not sure I loooove it and I'm having a hard time coming up with a logo, so I'm taking suggestions. My other thought was "Laurel Designs" but there are a LOT of Laurel Designs already out there. *sigh* One other idea I had was to use the boys initials "LBB/Little Boy Blue" but I think it's too similar to another popular diaper out there, the Elbee.

In the mail was a yard of PUL that I got off diaperswappers.com's fsot section.

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I'm going to make Ben and Garrett all-in-one's (with detachable soakers) out of it. I'm only going to be selling fitteds to begin with and will branch out into the all-in-one business once my fitteds get tested.

We are waiting on:
Snap press, dies, snaps, and hemp fleece
Elastic (shipped 10/22)

Kumkuat Fabric

My parents surprised us with an anniversary gift on Saturday. A printer/copier/scanner!! Something that we really needed. It is my new baby...I'm been hunting the house all morning looking for pictures and stuff to scan. I'm so excited to be able to get Logan's baby pictures into a digital format so I can work with them in my Paint Shop Pro program. Of course printing shipping labels from paypal.com will hopefully be taking up most of my ink.

The Family

October 15th, 2008
Ontop of Cadillac Mountian for Billy's 5th birthday.
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Melissa with Garrett at 25wks gestation (28), Shaun (32), Logan (8), Billy (5), Ben (17 months)

Mrs. Missy Muffet

Missy Muffet is what my late grandmother called me. She passed away years ago, but Missy has stuck and all of my close friends and family know me as Missy. To the online community I'm "melissalaurel" and to my 3 (almost 4 boys) I'm "Mom" or "Mama". I'm not very creative so Mrs. Missy Muffet it is.

Little Miss Muffet
Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider, who sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.


I'm starting this blog to:
1. Keep everyone updated on what the boys (including my hubby Shaun) and I are up to
2. Tell about my life as a mom of all boys
3. To track my transition from SAHM to WAHM
4. Advocate for Cloth Diapers
5. Ramble on about whatever the heck I want to.