My Life Hacks

Between building with play doh, reading stories, making meals, snacks and tidying up at least three times a day I’ll admit, free time is something I don’t have a lot of.

But when I do have a moment to myself my new guilty pleasure starts with a ‘P’ and ends with ‘interest’ , as is the case for many women I know.

Not only has it made me realize my love of all things ‘do it yourself’ but it’s also helped me to save some money (something very important since we’re currently living on a single income and I still want more and more ‘stuff’).

This blog highlights three of my recent DIY projects as well as two ‘life hacks’ that saved me money and my sanity.

DIY’s

1. DIY crib rail covers: As many mommies know, babies and toddlers with teeth usually always leads to bite marks on the crib rails. I saw a bunch of items to remedy this but decided instead to make my own. All it required was a piece of fabric cut to the length of the crib, cut outs where the rails were located, tie and voila!

2. DIY striped curtains: I got tired of looking at the girls plain white curtains (since we never found out their gender before birth I stuck with neutral curtains). So I checked out Pinterest for the most inexpensive yet effective way to use what I had and guess what I discovered?…paint! I measured and taped out lines to divide up the white and the cotton candy pink paint that I bought from the dollar store. The most expensive thing I had to purchase was the fabric medium that you mix with the paint to make it washable and a bit more pliable. I also bought some inexpensive black out backing, sewed it on and done! The girls even clapped when they saw their new curtains.

3. DIY welcome sign: I got tired of searching around for a specific welcome sign. All of them were either too small or just not my style. So I decided to make one myself and it ended up saving me a tonne of money. All I needed to purchase was a large piece of pine from my local hardware store. I used paint that we already had and made my own stencil. The finished product is exactly what I had hoped for and I change up the decorative ribbon on it depending on the season.

Life Hacks

1. Diaper genie refills: I love my diaper genie, but I hated spending so much (especially with double the diapers) on the refills. A friend of mine sent me a life hack that a dad had discovered and I gave it a try. You’ll need to keep one of the diaper genie refill rings, purchase some no name recycling bags (the small size is a perfect fit for the diaper genie) and a big elastic band. Basically all you do is attach the opening of the bag around the refill ring with the elastic band, pull it back down through like you would with a regular refill and you’re done! The bags cost under $10 for about 50 of them, now that’s a lot of savings!

2. Bath basket: I kept seeing these very handy bath rings that friends in the US had for their babies. I soon discovered they were discontinued and recalled in Canada so I had very little chance of finding one…let alone two. So I improvised. I found one of our plastic laundry baskets downstairs (it’s on the larger side) and I placed the twins in the basket in the tub facing each other. Don’t get me wrong, this DOES NOT act as a baby-sitter in the tub! But it does help the babies sit up a bit better while not sliding all over a big bath tub. The cost of this life hack…zero dollars but priceless if you ask me!

These are the most helpful, money saving things I have discovered, but I’m sure I’ll be following up with another similar blog with more down the road.

Happy DIY’ing!