Zephyr Hill

A Family Blog

6 Essential Tea Party Tips

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Looking for a fun, creative way to celebrate this summer? No matter the occasion, an afternoon tea party can be the perfect answer to a party planning conundrum. Tea parties work for baby and bridal showers, birthdays, retirements and anniversaries. They are also a fun way to get your girl friends together for some relaxation,  The Basics: Tea Pot and Cups You might need to do a little bit of shopping for your tea party if you don't already have a tea service. But it doesn't have to be Continue Reading

3 Things I Learned After Hand-Washing Cloth Diapers

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The Flats and Handwashing Challenge ends tonight and the big question is - what did I learn? Basically, these three things: How to hand wash diapers - Or anything else, for that matter. It's a good skill to have and it just goes to show that cleaning doesn't require a degree in rocket science. It takes time, common sense and a little bit of trial and error. Our wash routine took about 45 minutes total plus 5+ hours for drying on the line. I have to admit it would be difficult to do this Continue Reading

Flour Sack Towels vs Flat Diapers

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Since we're using only flat diapers this week, I thought a post which compared the absorbency of "flour sack towels" (or FST, as they are often abbreviated) against other flat diapers would be helpful. First of all, here's a simple absorbency scale I made based on our experiences over the years of using many types of flat diapers. Do you agree with the rankings? Flour sack towels aren't really diapers, of course. But they are a simple and cheap way to get started with cloth because you Continue Reading

How to Hand Wash Your Cloth Diapers: Photo Tutorial

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I had this idea that washing diapers by hand was really hard or complicated. I'm discovering that neither is true. We mothers know how to get things clean, and that's all you've got to do when hand washing diapers. It's a simple matter of rinsing, washing and wringing them out when done. You do have to set aside a lot more time, though. Here's the routine I've used this week, which closely follows the guidelines at the Cloth Diaper Geek blog. Yes, I used the bucket-and-plunger method, BUT I Continue Reading

Kitchen Towels and Kawaii: Flat Diaper Challenge

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If you saw yesterday's blog post, then you'll know I'm taking the Flats and Handwashing Challenge this year. We're diapering Ingrid in flats-only this week and laundering/drying them by hand. Today I want to show you the stash I put together. My goal was to use the most affordable options I could find, without having to make or sew anything, or buy costly accessories. In this way, I felt that I could more strongly make a case for cloth diapering even if you have a tight budget. Here are Continue Reading