Making Good Use

Too Quick to Count as Crafting

In amongst the busyness that is mega eBay listing, packing of items sold, trips to the Post Office, mega amounts of time on the sewing machine (for 'elving' purposes) and the decision to take advantage of today's dry, sunny and breezy weather to take down, wash, dry, iron and hang back up the dining room curtains (I would be ashamed to admit how long they've been hanging without having been washed!!!!) I made a couple of really really speedy crafted projects.

Some of last week's thrifted fairy tale playing cards were stuck onto card blanks using double-sided tape - it took far longer to locate the card blanks than it did to make the cards, which says quite a lot about the state of my craft supplies (and my house in general!)

And some mega-sized plastic buttons that I found in a charity shop ages ago have been turned into some lightweight brooches with the addition of some glued on brooch backs.  A few of these should brighten up my darker-coloured winter jumpers nicely without pulling too heavily on the fabric.  Both these projects were so quick and so simple it seems almost silly to even call them crafting.

Busy Saturday

It was a busy day for me on Saturday, with not one, not two, but three Christmas Bazaar's in the local area.  Whether by design or accident the start times were all nicely staggered and two of the venues were in outlying villages so there was some pretty scenery to admire en route too.  Amongst many many things I found at the three various bazaars there were

Two Redken Time Reset shampoo and conditioner sets - for porous age-weakened hair - which pretty much sums up my barnet well these days.  I paid £1.50 per box and was delighted to have found them.

A generously-sized Matt & Nat shoulder bag, described as eco vegan (!!) for £2.50.  I liked the colour and the fact that it is nicely capacious so I can cram quite a lot of 'stuff' in it.

A little light bedtime reading for 50p.  This book is a whopper and could easily pass itself off as a doorstop.  I quite like Elizabeth George novels and as the original price was £18.99, I considered this an excellent bargain.

A bag full of the most delightful vintage crochet thread which must date from the war as the wrapper on the green spool states it is 'coupon free', many of them are still wrapped in the original tissue paper.  They were 50p for the bag load.

And a bright and vibrant 1960s bag, also 50p.  This was lurking in a bin bag behind the linen stall but I spotted the bright print and asked if it was for sale - it was.  It's got a lovely waterproof lining so will be great for taking to the beach or if I go swimming anywhere.

After all the to-ing and fro-ing to various church / village hall venues, P and I had an appointment to view a house that's for sale.  I was a little suspicious of the estate agent's details as they failed to give any specific sizes to the 'double' bedrooms, nor did they have a photo of the downstairs 'study.'  Hmm, all became clear when we looked round as the 'study' was off the kitchen, had no heating and barely any daylight, was fitted out with kitchen units and was used by the present owner's as a storage area!!  It was plainly a utility room.  The 'utility room' as described by the estate agent turned out to be a cupboard in the hall that housed the washing machine!!  To cap it all off, the back 'garden' was basically a paved yard - which faces north, the fourth bedroom may have accommodated a double bed but that would be the only item it could accommodate (and you'd have to be a contortionist to get into said double bed) the 'en suite' was a shower and loo in a cupboard, there was no bath in the house only showers and the asking price was about 25% too high.  To say I was not happy was putting it mildly. 

Now, I have looked at A LOT of houses for sale in the last few years but never have I come across such flagrant misrepresentation as there was in this house's particulars.  I had a few words to say to the half-wit who phoned me this morning to ask what we thought of the property!!  By the time I rang off I'll bet he wished he'd never asked.  Gordon Bennett, why can't some estate agents just be honest in their descriptions of properties, trying to pass off an unheated utility room as a study is just going to p*ss off anyone who goes to view the place, it certainly peeved me a great deal!!

Kop Ingenting

Kop ingenting means, I think, 'buy nothing' in Swedish (I'm hoping my sister - who is most impressively teaching herself Swedish - will let me know if I've got this phrase wrong.)  So, anyway, this Christmas I'm trying to be as creative as possible with my presents, and whilst I can't claim to have bought 'ingenting' so far, I have bought very little.  There has, on the other hand, been some quite serious crafting (or 'elving' as the wonderful Soulemama refers to it,)  none of which I can share on the blog until after Christmas - though the bottom drawer of my wardrobe is filling up nicely with homemade and thrifted gifts. 

There is also some pretty serious eBay listing going on too as this is THE best time of the year for eBay selling for me.  Most joyously, I've even sold some of my handmade items lately which always makes me very happy indeed.

Tomorrow there are three Christmas Bazaars in the vicinity - two of them in fairly rural locations - so with P as my chauffeur I'll be tootling off to those to see what's on offer.  Next Saturday there are another two and then that will probably be that for another year.

The plum vodka should be bottled up this weekend too, providing I can get hold of a cheap plastic funnel somewhere in the high street.  I'm looking forward to having a small glass of it in the near future and seeing if it tastes as good as it looks - it's now a lovely delicate plumy pink colour.

Little Things

I don't know what it is about tiny things that I like so much but somehow most things are much cuter when they're miniature.  Somewhere in the depths of the loft I have a box full of teeny tiny items to be displayed in a printer's tray.  Although those little items are an absolute pain in the proverbials to dust, I used to love having my printer's tray and miniatures out on display.  Ah, one day, when we're finally settled somewhere, I'll get them all out again.

Meanwhile, I found three teeny tiny little bottle brush Christmas trees at the Coffee and Jumble yesterday.  They were 50p for all three and I'm really rather enamoured of them.  They were probably originally Christmas cake decorations but they'd look equally good in a festive doll's house.  They'd also look jolly nice in my printer's tray but I've no intention of hauling that down from the attic at the moment.

I also found a large pile of vintage children's fairy story cards.  The illustrations are lovely and I'm thinking they may make some nice greetings cards at some point.   They were also 50p for the entire bundle.

 

And So Begins the Short Christmas Bazaar Season

Yesterday was the local church Christmas Bazaar, the official (for me) start of the short but usually very sweet Christmas Bazaar season.    Those local bazaars are a great way to fill in the rather empty thrifting time after the finish of the boot sale season (for now we'll draw a veil over the tedious bazaar and boot sale free months of January and February.)

As the scrum around the bric-a-brac and china stall was huge, I strategically decided to have a shufty at the toiletries and linens table instead.

I found a few nice bits and bobs, including Molton Brown and L'Occitane bodywashes and a couple of Urban Decay eye shadows - all 30p each.

On the same stall was a lovely Christmassy-print unused linen tea towel - £1.00.

And a dinky little unopened umbrella that comes with its own little handbag - £1.50.

And on the raffle table I 'won' this brand new robot lunch box which I hope might be of some use for my nephew (if he decides to stop having school dinners.)

Not the biggest haul I've ever had but a few nice and useful bits and bobs.  Next Saturday there's another Christmas Bazaar at the local village hall and the following week there's one at a 13th century church just behind Sainsbury's.  And, to my shame, I had no idea there was even a church in that vicinity, let alone at 13th century one!

Culinary Experiments

I can get very stuck in a rut when it comes to our main meal of the day, come to think of it I'm pretty predictable when it comes to lunchtime too, but these last couple of days I've been trying out some new-to-me recipes.  Having to stick to a low-fat diet does somewhat limit what I cook - no more sausage casseroles or anything in a cheese sauce for example - so it's not always easy to think of different meals that won't aggravate my gall bladder.

I've been enjoying Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's new Channel 4 programme about vegetarian food, although a lot of his recipes are firmly verboten for me as there is quite prolific use of butter, cream and cheese - though many of those veggie treats do look tres delicious.   On Sunday he had a recipe for Chachouka with duck eggs which I thought sounded rather tasty and which had minimal amounts of saturated fat in it.  I made it yesterday evening - sans duck eggs of course which would be impossible to buy here in Wickford but using ordinary organic hens eggs instead, and also sans saffron as that would be totally beyond my budget.  There was A LOT of chopping and preparation involved and I don't think I've ever used quite so many peppers in one dish before but it all came together most satisfactorily, though I would have to say that I don't think there are too many calories in it as we were both rather peckish a bit later on.  And that was despite the fact that I made a small loaf of bread to go with it and we ate most of that with the Chachouka too.  I may make it again I may not - the jury's still out at the moment.

One recipe I've already made  more than once is Roast Sweet Potatoes with Chilli and Onions that I came across on Robin Ellis's blog (and yes, that is THE Robin Ellis who played Poldark so dashingly in the 1970s.)  His blog is very much a food blog with particular emphasis on recipes suitable for people with type 2 diabetes (which he himself has been diagnosed with) but many of them are low in fat too which makes them ideal for me to try as well.  He has some fabulous mediterranean-inspired recipes on his blog and if they're all as tasty and easy to prepare as the roast sweet potatoes then I definitely think I'll be buying his new recipe book.  P and I have the sweet potatoes with veggie burgers in a bun and a nice green salad - makes a very quick and tasty evening meal.

Tonight I tried out yet another new-to-me dish, Sticky Lemon Chicken, which I got from a BBC Low-Fat Cookbook that Mum let me have a while ago.  Again a nice easy tasty meal with pretty much no saturated fats in the recipe at all - just chicken pieces, thinly sliced carrots, green beans and a red pepper cooked in a marinade of honey, lemon, soy sauce and chicken stock.  We had it all atop a pile of noodles - tres delicious but I do fear the 'munchies' may strike a bit later if I'm not careful!!  I think tomorrow it may be time to go back to one of my more regular recipes and give the experimentation a bit of a rest.

 

I've Come to the Conclusion I'm Actually Solar Powered

Yup, sadly for me, I only seem to function properly when there is daylight - preferably sunshine but at least a glimmer of daylight is needed for me to actually get my act together.  Yesterday, which was a gloriously sunny day, I had boundless energy and got oodles of things done - including some serious Hoovering of the house (the only downside of sunshine is it has the unfortunate ability to show up my shocking lack of housework!) 

Today in contrast has been grey, grey, grey - even the weather forecaster last night had to admit that it would barely be daylight today, and he was oh so right.  Consequently, after a fairly busy morning in the High Street I lost all energy by 3.30 pm (in my defence, it was practically dark by then) and retreated to bed for a couple of hours.  Now I'm feeling all agitated and annoyed with myself for having wasted time sleeping when I could have been doing something useful. 

Is it me or is this November even duller, darker and more depressing than usual?  Even my lightbox doesn't seem to be helping.  But at least it's not cold so that's a big bonus, as well as being a metaphorical two fingers up to the energy companies and their humungous price rises.  It would be marvellous if it stayed mild all winter and they lost oodles of money due to lack of gas and electricity usage.

 

Good Life-ish Giveaway Winners

First name out of the virtual hat was Morag who already has a copy of 'The Pauper's Cookbook' so she'll be getting the copy of 'On Next to Nothing' and Sarah Morris was the second name out so I'll send her the copy of 'The Pauper's Cookbook.'  I'll send both of you an e-mail so you can let me know your addresses.

I seem to have absolutely no other blog-worthy news at the moment.  I'm finding these days of perpetual gloom and semi-daylight - swiftly followed by pitch-black darkenss - exceedingly trying, and we've got weeks and weeks of this to look forward to yet!!!!  Gordon Bennett, it's enough to drive me bonkers.  At least there's the annual Christmas Bazaar at the local church next Friday to lighten the gloom at little - it's usually a fantastic bazaar and I am looking forward to it with great anticipation.

Infinity Scarf

There's a rather nice idea for an infinity scarf - plus good straightforward instructions - in this months Mollie Makes magazine.  They showed it made up in tweed which I thought a lovely idea but perhaps a tad scratchy for neck wear, so I dug out some brightly coloured fleece that I had and made my version from that.

It should keep my neck uber-warm when wrapped around twice as well as cheering me up no end with its psychedelic-style colours.   It was incredibly quick and easy to make, though perhaps we'll gloss over the fact it took me THREE attempts to work out how to correctly sew the short ends together to create the 'infinity' bit!!

It's a Stick Up

I thought I'd give the vintage Japanese iron-on appliques I found at a recent boot sale a whirl on some card blanks.  It took me longer to open the packets and read the instructions than it did to iron them onto the cards.

Though it did then take overnight under a pile of heavy books to flatten and un-warp the card again.

I'm thinking a) the little gnome figure is quite Christmassy and b) at 20p each I wish I'd bought a whole lot more of the appliques as they make great cards.