I’ve never been a traditional/do things by the books kinda girl. I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum- so having a traditional diaper bag never even crossed my mind. I just naturally try to figure out unique and different ways to do things and have fun thinking outside the box. With Charlie, I got a neutral backpack similar to this one from Amazon so it was a good fit for both me and Blake and he could feel like it was his diaper bag too. And as every first time parent does, I had that thing packed perfectly all the time and used every inch of space with things I probably didn’t need.

With babe number two, you learn a thing or two and realize what the essentials really are. I wanted to streamline and downsize a bit, and although I loved not having a traditional diaper bag with Charlie, I realized that with Tessa I did want to have everything a bit better organized.

So I did some research and found this diaper bag organizer/insert by ToteSavvy that you can put in ANY bag. GENIUS. Now you can have all the organizing benefits of a real diaper bag and the protection from the wipeable material but still use your bag of choice. It comes with a changing mat, three large pockets and two small pockets. It was the perfect size and amount for diapers, wipes, bottles, a bib, a snack, pacifiers and a change of clothes, which I found to be the essentials for daily out and aboutness.

I’m a leather bag kind of girl and one of my favorite small business leather bag makers is ETWAS in Brooklyn. Blake had gifted me one of his canvas bags for Christmas several years ago and I just adored it. So I knew I wanted a smaller version of that bag for Tessa’s diaper bag that I would also then have just as a beautiful bag when I no longer needed it for baby purposes. WIN/WIN. Has anyone else done something like this?