My 10 day cleanse: Day 1

So my sister in law is super awesome and athletic and totally into healthy crap and has been trying to get Jared and I to try some Advocare products for a while. She drinks an energy drink from them called Spark and she has also done several cleanses and other products that promote health and weight loss. We never really wanted to spend the money or take the plunge and give up all our junk food and treats but finally hubby realized how much his weight was getting out of control and wanted to do a cleanse. I decided to do it with him so we could both just get on a more healthy track together.

The advocare cleanse is ten days days. It includes a fiber drink, herbal cleanse pills and probiotic restore pills. During the course of the cleanse you must eat eight to ten servings of fruits and vegetables a day, low sodium, low fat and lean foods in their most natural state.

After a $300 shopping trip to Costco on Thursday, we started the cleanse Friday morning.

Day one you drink your fiber drink and take three herbal cleanse pills. I mixed Jared his fiber up bright and early before work and had him take the pills at that time. I sent him to work with a V8, two mandarin oranges, an apple, a bag of carrots, some grapes and a can of tuna with a little salt and pepper and garlic powder. I probably should have sent more with him because that was his breakfast and lunch but oh well.

For myself for breakfast I scrambled some egg whites and topped them off with salsa. I ate a mandarin orange and some grapes. Later in the morning JR and I shared a sliced apple.

For lunch I had some tuna as well. I was going to eat it plain just like I had prepared Jared's but then I decided that since I actually like veggies I would doctor it up. I added chopped celery, yellow peppers and tomato and ended up wrapping it in lettuce like a sandwich. I ate carrots as well.

Jared said he was hungry after work and I thought he would want a snack but he ended up taking a nap. For dinner I made salmon with just a little Johnny's Seafood Seasoning and in another pan cooked up some mushrooms, carrots and green beans om a little bit of margarine with onion salt and garlic powder.

Jared said he didn't know if it was just because he was hungry or what but that meal in particular tasted awesome. I thought it was just good food in general.

I wish I had taken a before picture...

I bought four new tank tops on sale the other day but my tank top drawer was getting a bit full so I decided to clean it out. What I got was a paper box full of 30 tanks tops to send to the Youth Ranch. I think I kept about three of my old ones and that's it.

I wish I had taken a before picture of the drawer! I couldn't even close it!

I think I may have a tank top hoarding problem.

I added the box to the other clothes I have to donate.

These other boxes have been sitting in my room for at least a month now. I guess there really isn't a point to cleaning out your old stuff if you don't get rid of it...

Once again, did you notice the line through the top picture? I need another camera. Bad.

I think I'm in love.

Came across this today...

THE MOST AMAZING CRAFT & SEWING ROOM EVER!

You can find the whole scoop on this woman's sewing room here.

You will DIE when you look at all the little details she uses in her space, like using pipe straps from the hardware store as drawer pulls for her bins...

Or how she keeps her thread and matching bobbins together with a golf tee with a little daisy glued to the top...

Basically I could go on and on and on but I will let you look for yourself. Prepare to drool.

I basically need this. Not want, NEED!

I have this crafty spirit inside of me waiting for a space like this so I can go crazy!!!

Just can't get enough.

Like really, I can't get enough.

Sometimes we put little man to bed in just a t-shirt.

It's so yummy to wake up too. Love being his mommy.

Project: Burp cloths and Diaper Cake

So my friend was having a baby shower and I have given her several things, such as JR's infant car seat and stroller and his bumbo, but I wanted to do something else for her as well. She is using cloth diapers but is open to a few disposables as well and since I had some already rolled up diapers from when I was making a diaper cake a while ago I decided to make one for her. My main problem was that I only had enough diapers for two tiers so I decided to make some simple burp cloths for the top.

I have seen several variations for these diapers using different ribbons and such but I really only had time to do something simple and I am still an inexperienced sewer so I stuck to simple fabric rectangles.

Here is what you need:

1. A package of Gerber cloth diapers (they come in a 12 pack)

2. 1/4 yard of six different coordinating fabrics...

(this will provide enough to make two cloths from each fabric)

3. Thread

4. Scissors

5. Iron

Here is what the cloth diaper package looks like along with the fabrics I used...

You can pre-wash and shrink your fabric and diapers but make sure to iron them. When you get the fabric it will be in a long, skinny strip. Fold it in half and cut it at the fold. These will be your two strips that you sew onto the diaper. Take one strip and fold the shortest edge over 1/2 inch and iron it, then do this to one of the longer sides. At this  point I lined my straight-edge-measurey-thingy (you know, the one that comes with your standard rotary cutter and mat in a kit?) up along the long folded edge and then flipped the fabric on the other side over the top and then slid the straight-edge-measurey-thingy out and ironed again. I could have just measured but this seemed easy and it was the perfect size.

This is what it should look like (yes, you leave the very end unfolded)...

Trim your corners...

Take a cloth diaper and center your fabric in the middle of it and pin at the corners. Be aware that the ends of the diapers are very uneven so just line it up best you can but they won't be straight. In hind sight I would have folded the long edges first and the short edges last and flipped them over the end of the cloth diaper. Oh well. 

Make sure you pin your fabric RIGHT SIDE up because this isn't something you are flipping. Pin everything but that unfolded edge you left at the end. The reason you leave this edge unfolded is because the cloth diapers can vary in length. When you get to this end fold it to the correct length and pin it too. Then you are ready to sew. Just start at one corner and go around the edge or the rectangle, backing up and sewing each corner a couple of times.

They come out looking like this...

And the back looks like this...

And if you centered it well when you fold the two cloth diaper sides together on the back it should look like this...



You could fold them in a stack like this and tie a cute little ribbon on them. But of course I used them for my diaper cake.

Diaper cakes are easy.

What you need:

1. Diapers

2. Rubber bands

3. Elastic head bands

4. A couple of bottles

5. Decorations (binkey's, blocks, theme oriented items)

Step one is to take all your diapers and roll them and wrap them with a rubber band. You can use bigger diapers for the bottom tier and get smaller as you go up or use all the same size like I did.

To begin assembling set your bottle in the middle and one of your elastic headbands around it. Start putting the rolled diapers around the bottle. They may be hard to keep up at first but once you get enough in there the headband will help hold them up. I like to stuff mine as full and firm as possible. If you want your cake to be smaller, just tie the headband tighter once your circle is the right size.

Since I used smaller diapers the bottle sticks out high enough that I could start building the second tier right around it the way I did the first. If you use bigger diapers you may need to use another bottle for the second tier. Since the second tier is obviously smaller I did end up tying off the headband on this one to make it firm and tight!

I rolled my burp cloths in the same manner as the diapers and assembled them around another bottle but used a regular rubber band to hold them.

One of the fabrics I used was a remnant sold to me 50% off and I used strips of it to tie around those unsightly headbands and I tied a ribbon around the burp cloths right over the rubber band.

Then you can start adding your decorations. I went simple and just used fabric lollipops.

For the top I ended up using some fun pinwheels!

So cute and fun! Do you guys like?