Making Good Use

Button It!

I have a bit of a 'thing' for vintage buttons.  They are so pretty, there are so many different sorts, and they are so darn cheap in charity shops.

I have what is probably an obscene amount of vintage buttons and recently I acquired a few more when I did a trade with Carleen in Canada.

These are just a very small selection of the beauties I received from Carleen - check out her etsy shop - www.creationsbycarleen.etsy.com.  They are sitting on top of a wonderful book which mum bought me recently - A Passion for Buttons! by Stephanie Bourgeois.  This book gives loads of inspiring ideas for making jewellery from buttons, and is beautifully illustrated.

These are my favourite buttons of all time

Although they don't photograph too well, they are heavy glass buttons with silvered backs so they sparkle and gleam in the light.  I don't know what I am going to use these for - perhaps I'll just keep them and admire them on their card.  Can you believe these lovelies were only £1 in the charity shop - I was mighty pleased the day I found them I can tell you.

I use vintage buttons a lot in my crafting - small ones in the centre of my corsages

and larger ones on bags, knitted hats and also on my own plain T-shirts to liven them up a bit.

I like the way buttons add a bit of interest to a plain top without being too 'bling'.

Having been inspired by my new button book, I've also been making some button hair grips.

I love the way these buttons remind me of shiny boiled sweets. 

Soya Pate

I wanted to share with you one of my favourite recipes of all times - Soya Pate.  I first encountered this wonderful dish about 20 years ago when I did a vegetarian cookery evening class and the recipe for this pate was one of several pates and spreads we made.

I really enjoy this pate as a light lunch dish - today I had it with herb tortillas, but it is equally good with crusty brown bread, on toast, in a sandwich, or even as a filling for a jacket potato.

It may not look the most appetising of concoctions (there is a bit of a resemblance to estuary mud), but believe me it is really tasty. 

Soya flour - 3 heaped tbsps, juice of half a lemon, 1 clove of garlic crushed, 1 tbsp of Tamari and half a tsp each of basil, thyme, cumin and coriander. 

Mix all the ingredients together well and add cold water to make the right consistency.  Will keep for 3 - 4 days in the fridge (I should be so lucky, I ate the whole lot this lunchtime).

This is a lovely cheap lunch dish to make, which uses store cupboard items (essential when you've been away from home for a week and have bugger all in to eat!!).

Softies

Just thought I would share with you a few pictures of Flossie the Floppy-Eared Rabbit which mum has just finished knitting.

Flossie is a thoroughly modern girl with her ankle strap red shoes, pink sleeveless top and daringly short skirt.  In fact, Flossie needs to be careful how she sits or else everyone will get to see her underwear!!

Flossie is very happy living with Grandma at the moment, but could well be moving to live with DN or with his little friend who has a birthday very soon.

This little fella is a very versatile dragon glove puppet that I found in a charity shop on Saturday.  When being played with by DN he can be a dragon, a monster, or a Dr Who alien.  He is a beautifully handmade puppet in green and orange felt, with lovely embroidered details to his face.

In the same charity shop I also scored these two lovely vintage egg cosies.

This rooster is made in felt and has those glorious clashing 1970's colours of orange and turquoise. 

But my favourite is this little cutie.

I think this one is from the 1950s / 1960s or possibly earlier.  The material is felted wool and the little glass eyes are full of character.  There is a label on the inside saying 'Happy Thought' - what a great name for a soft toy manufacturer.

Raining Cats and Dogs

We've all been out today for a trip on Thomas the Tank Engine.  It proved to be a very enjoyable but somewhat soggy affair as the weather has definitely taken on monsoon proportions.  I shall be most upset if they start issuing hosepipe bans in the next couple of months after all the rain that has fallen on the West Country in the last week.

This is a picture of Thomas as he was changing direction in order to pull all the carriages back to the station.

The Thomas trips are held by a local private railway which is all run by volunteers.  They have about four or five miles of track which they have relaid themselves, and they restore and run the old steam engines on this bit of line most weekends of the year.  The visit of Thomas the Tank Engine is an eagerly awaited twice-yearly event.

Scarily, I am just about old enough to remember going on steam trains for real on this track when it ran all the way into Bath.  With breath-taking short sightedness this line, and many many others across the UK, were axed by Dr Beeching in the 1960's.  If only the government of the day could have seen what damage the internal combustion engine would cause to the planet a mere forty years later, perhaps they would have thought twice about getting rid of so many wonderful (and well used) little branch lines.

The biblical proportions of the rain didn't deter the crowds (we are British after all, so well used to getting soaked on days out), and DN was very well equipped by wearing his Thomas the Tank Engine wellingtons.

The Frugalista's Bible

This book was a huge inspiration to me.  I bought it for my mother about six years ago, this coincided with me going from full time work to part time, and The Complete Tightwad Gazette gave me an enormous number of ideas and suggestions about ways to save money.

The author, Amy Dacyczyn, refers to herself as the Frugal Zealot, and the subtitle of the book is "Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle" and, in the words of a famous TV advert, this book does exactly what it says on the tin.  Granted the book is now a little dated, having been published in 1998 (no mention of the internet for example).  Also, being an American publication not all the ideas are perhaps instantly obvious to a British reader.  But, in general, this book is wonderful.

The book is the amalgamation of six and a half years of The Tightwad Gazette newsletter and there are legions of tips on saving money on pretty much any subject you can think of, from food to clothing to DIY to travel. 

I always enjoy reading the chapter on 'Dumpster Diving', a sport which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist in the UK - but how I wish it did.  Amy's descriptions of 'Power Yard-Saling' sounds wonderful to me too - we don't have yard sales in the UK and most car boot sales are all on at the same time each Sunday.

I don't have a copy of this book myself but always enjoy having a leaf through it when I'm staying with my mother.  I don't know what it is about it but a quick read of The Complete Tightwad Gazette always gives me renewed vigour to be as frugal as possible. 

I've just had a quick check and the book is easily available on Amazon.co.uk.  It may still be available in public libraries too.  If you really want to save some money this is the one book you should read (and no, I've no connection to the author or the publisher). 

Material Girl

Mum had scored some wonderful pieces of vintage thrifted material for me.

There are three pieces of upholstery weight fabric and two pieces of lovely navy and white cotton.  I particularly like the pink circles fabric and the Charles Rennie Mackintosh print in red and gold.  I'm not sure what to do with these treasures but no doubt a bag or two will be made to begin with. 

I think I'm correct in saying that mum got all these pieces of fabric from the local Salvation Army charity shop.  We called in there this morning and I managed to score a bag load of wonderful items.

There are two excellent vintage pillow cases - probably destined to be the lining in a couple of bags.  Four balls of the most lovely shade of eau de nil green mohair wool - probably will end up as a few knitted cloche-style hats for the winter.  Four balls of mauve / pink variegated pure cotton chenille wool - not sure what that will become.  A huge pile of new tapestry wools - probably will go on to ebay, and some wonderful linen fabric that they were wrapped in which I will keep for myself.  There is an unopened pack of 2 inch wide bias binding in mauve, two tiny blue flower-shaped buttons, two 'cover with your own fabric' buttons, and finally a reel of orange thread.  The total cost for this little haul - £2.60!!  Absolute result. 

A Chip Off The Old Block

Mum and I have had a wonderful day with my darling nephew (DN).  This is a picture of some of his toys neatly laid out before he arrived (and being carefully guarded by Lily).  They are all second hand. 

DN doesn't distinguish between the fancy new toys he has at Christmas and birthday and the second hand ones he gets most of the other time.  I'm sure the day will come when he realises some of these things have been pre-owned and when he does I hope mum or I can convince him that because something is second hand it doesn't mean that it isn't just as good and just as much fun.

These are his cuddly toys patiently waiting his arrival.  They are also all second hand or hand knitted by Grandma.  The green alien in a purple suit is the newest addition and is proving very popular as DN is going through a serious Dr Who phase at the moment. 

Most of DN's clothes are also second hand, but I wonder how well that will work when he goes to school.  Will he then insist on the latest trainers, or T-shirts with the latest superhero on?  I hope he won't but maybe I'm being over optimistic.  But until that day it is lovely to see a little soul who doesn't have a problem with things that have been pre-owned.

Lily Pilly Pom Pom

I'm staying with my mum for a few days in the West Country, so I thought I'd show you some pictures of Lily a.k.a. Lily Pilly Pom Pom a.k.a. The High White Half Wit.

Lily is a Maine Coon cat with gorgeous long fur and a really bushy tail.  Legend has it that the Maine Coon was a cat crossed with a racoon - hence the name - and traditionally they are kept as farm cats in their native Maine.  Lily, however, is just a very pampered pet. 

She is really beautiful to look at but my goodness me she's not the brightest button in the box, hence why she is often known as the High White Half Wit, (she's high white because of having so much white fur, Maine Coons usually have more pattern to their markings).

Lily, however, does have one very useful asset - her huge ears.  My mum is a bit hard of hearing these days and Lily does a wonderful job of letting her know if someone is knocking at the door of if the phone is ringing.  She runs and finds mum and then runs to the phone or the door - whichever one needs mum's attentions.  So sometimes she is also known as the 'hearing cat for the deaf'.

Dough and Bread

I've had my trusty breadmaker for the past three years, and as I make a coupel of loaves of bread every week, it's seen a lot of action.

I got really fed up with buying bread because there was always a nasty vinegary smell to it when it was being toasted.  First of all I assumed there was something wrong with my sense of smell but, on closer inspection of the ingredients, it appeared that vinegar was indeed being added to the bread.  Apparently it is some sort of preservative!! 

Now we have fresh bread whenever we need it and I've found that the homemade bread keeps just as well as shop bought, that's if there is any left after a day or so.

The flour was a welcome discovery at my local bakers.  It is a larger bag than anything I can buy in the supermarket so works out cheaper.  And, even better, it comes from Maldon - which is about 20 miles away - and has not travelled half way across the world from some Canadian prairie.

The Box of Delights

Every week we have a box of organic fruit and vegetables delivered.  This makes my life a whole lot easier as it would be nigh on impossible to buy organic produce in the small town where I live.  The alternative would be a trip to the nearest Sainsbury's or Waitrose, both of which involve a hefty bus fare, and then I'd have to lug it all home in ye olde shopping trolley.  Instead, every Thursday afternoon a wonderful box of fresh organic fruit and vegetables is delivered to my door.

This week the box contained: a huge cauliflower, tomatoes, mushrooms, leeks, a large red pepper, a large courgette, apples, pears, kiwi fruits, a small mango, and the usual staples of potatoes, carrots and onions.

I enjoy cooking and we have an evening meal cooked from scratch each day.  Being somewhat frugal (slight understatement there) I really hate to waste anything so we have discovered some wonderful, and hitherto unknown veggies.  Celeriac (tasty mashed with potato), kohl rabi (great just peeled, cubed and boiled), and fennel (wonderful sliced with grated carrot, spring onion and raisins as a side salad).  In a bid to 'waste not, want not' I've also got into the joys of homemade veggie soups.

This weekly delivery has so many advantages for me - the same goods are cheaper than I could buy them in a supermarket, less time spent shopping (so more time for crafting), no lugging in heavy bags of potatos, carrots etc etc, ideas for meals just present themselves by looking in the box, and - best of all - I'm not putting more money in the hands of those huge conglomerates which now dominate the British food-buying industry.  All in all, this box of delights makes me very happy (perhaps Bill Bryson was right, the British are easily pleased).