Making Good Use

Happy Birthday To My Best Boy

My lovely nephew is nine years old today.  Good grief, where does the time go.  Seems like no time at all since he was a babe in arms.  He got a homemade card from me with added addition of a star button badge (also homemade) because he is my little star!!

The whole family have clubbed together to get him some electronic games thingamajig (not sure what precisely) that he really wanted so there were only a couple of little bits and bobs from me to go with that. 

But I did customise a freebie Cath Kidston weeny cloth tote as a 'goodie bag' to put them in.  I used some iron-on motifs and, as always, I managed to louse it up a bit - me and hot irons and having to get things 'just so' don't really mix that well.  Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my best boy.

Another Jumble Sale Skirt Makeover

I found this skirt at the Shenfield scouts jumble sale last October.  I'd picked it out of the pile of clothes because I really liked the print with its combination of milk chocolate and chartreuse green colours.  When I got it home I found that it was two sizes too small but thought I'd pop it away in the drawer under the bed just in case I thought I could do something with it when the warmer weather arrived again. 

Well, the warmer weather has certainly arrived now so I dug this skirt out again.  Originally it had a yoked waist band and was a rather unflattering mid-calf length on me.  I took out the side zip, cut off the yoke portion (which gave me some much needed spare inches around the waist - ahem!!) and then attached the whole lot to some white binding I found in ye olde stash.  This now gives me a skirt with a tie-fastened waistband and a small opening to one side where the zip used to go (am hoping this will be covered with a T-shirt when I wear it.)

I was very pleased with how it all turned out until I noticed the little burn hole right in the front of the skirt!!  B*gger, why didn't I spot that before I spent the whole afternoon re-jigging the blessed thing.  I'll probably wear it anyway as, very luckily, the skirt is lined in a plain chocolate brown  fabric which stops the hole being too obvious - I hope!!  Anyway, as it only cost me 30p I don't mind if I only wear it round the house to be honest.

A Bit Battered Round the Edges - But Aren't We All

I haven't bought anything in the weekly 'Coffee and Jumble' for absolutely ages and ages, and I don't know what prompted me to have a look at the pile of cuddly toys and teddys today but I'm very glad I did. 

Sitting at the front of the pile, and looking most forlorn, was this well-loved Scottie dog.  He's undoubtedly seen better days (haven't we all) and he's most definitely a bit battered round the edges (aren't we all) but he's got the sweetest face which really seems to capture a Scottie dog perfectly.

I've no idea exactly how 'vintage' he is but he has a 'Made in England' label (though no maker's name) so he must be getting on a bit (again, aren't we all these days!!) 

I was really delighted to find him - and even more delighted that he only cost me 50p.  He's a very very welcome addition to my ever growing collection of Scottie dog items.

15 Minute Tea Cosy

P has become very enamoured of having his tea from a tea pot - with cosy - these past few months.  He's not keen on the usual English cup of 'Rosie Lee' - a nice dark brown brew with milk, and possibly sugar, drunk piping hot - even in a heatwave.  He's much more into Rooibos or fruit teas, left in the pot for hours on end while he drinks his way through it.  Personally, I can think of nothing worse than luke-warm tea but P - being from the Continent - is quite happy to drink tea from fairly warm right through to horribly tepid - yuk!!  He even extols the virtue of 'iced tea' which, to my English tastes, sounds like it could well be the work of the devil!!!!

Anyway, he's been thinking about taking a tea pot and cosy to work with him - providing we can find a suitable tea pot somewhere second-hand.  I fortuitously found this tutorial over at Wise Craft to make a reversible padded tea cosy.

Using my 25-year-old Kaffe Fassett tea cosy as a template.  (What a marvellous item, it may be a little tea-stained in places but still keeps the tea pot lovely and warm even aftef all these years.)

I came up with this prototype from bits and bobs of fabric I had knocking about.  The outside is made from the remnants of a 1970s tablecloth

The inside from some bright and breezy Ikea fabric I found at a boot sale.  Perversely enough, I prefer the Ikea fabric side much more than the 70s fabric, though that is supposed to be the lining fabric.  I used two layers of quilt batting as the padding in the middle. The whole lot must have taken me 15 minutes or less to cut out and sew. 

It's only a prototype and for P's cosy I'm thinking of using some of this fabric that Mum gave me for Christmas lined with the same Ikea fabric as the tea cosy above.  Other alterations would be to put hanging tags on both sides (as was given in the original instructions) and to make the cosy less tall.  Otherwise, all in all, I'm pretty pleased with my 15 minute effort.

Decluttering Mania

I don't know if I've been hit with a belated Spring cleaning urge or if it's the result of watching several programmes about compulsive hoarders lately, but I've been on a mahoosive decluttering drive.  I was delighted to find a British Heart Foundation charity bag through the letterbox on Monday with a note saying they'd be collecting donations this morning.  Cue a huge turn out of my wardrobe with several items being consigned to the charity bag without hesitation and a whole over the years on the wardrobe floor over the years, and the bagging up of yet more items to go to the BHF when they finally saw the light of day (embarassingly, I had to dust two pairs of shoes before I could even think of adding them to the charity sack!!)

Next day I moved on to sorting through the books I've got listed for sale on Amazon and Greenmetropolis - I was pretty ruthless here too and everything that was not listed for a decent price was purged.  Worryingly, I also found quite a lot of rather heavy hardbacks listed on Greenmetropolis which would be useless for me to sell since the Royal Mail raised it's prices so staggeringly high.  Such heavy tomes would have cost more to post than I could ever have made on the sale - they also ended up in the charity sack.  I kid you not when I say I feel I should be taking out a mortgage to pay my weekly postage costs - seriously, the total these days is tres scary!

This morning I was delighted to be able to put three large sacks out the front for collection plus a large mirror.  The house feels a whole lot lighter without so much 'stuff' cluttering up the place, plus I have a lot more room, and spare hangers, in my wardrobe now - always useful should I find some new-to-me clothes at any upcoming boot sales.  And, as an added bonus, I unearthed some great items I'd forgotten I had which can be listed on eBay - win, win all round.

50p

Finally, I got to go to a car boot sale yesterday.  Both buyers and sellers were out in force - making the best of a break in this incessant rainy weather.  I bought a few bits and bobs, but there wasn't an awful lot that took my fancy.  Oddly enough, every item I bought cost me 50p.

A hippy-tastic Jacobs Cream Cracker tin - still sporting it's original 'Daisy Pattern' label.

Another tin that caught my eye - marked on the bottom Frears Biscuits, Christmas 1958.

A fabbo pair of vintage sunglasses.

A reel of linen bias binding.  Always useful as I seem to use quite a lot of this stuff one way or another.

And my favourite find of the day, an Andy Pandy saucer with a picture of Andy and Teddy making a wool ball.  I was very fond of Andy Pandy when I was little - but used to get terribly upset when the music at the end started up, I couldn't bear it that 'Andy was saying goodbye' for another day.  Mind you, 'Nellie the Elephant' and 'Puff the Magic Dragon' could also reduce me to tears too - I was a sensitive little soul in those days.

I Seem to be a Little Out of Touch Where Prices are Concerned

As I rarely buy anything, apart from food, in an actual bricks and mortar retail shop, I seem to have become a little out of touch with the prices of things new.  Who knew that the two Brita water filter cartridges I bought the other day - 50p for the two - actually cost £10 for two new.  I think the last time we bought water filter cartridges was when they were being sold by Aldi (they weren't yer actual Brita ones) and they must have been very competitively priced as we bought A LOT of them in one go.  So many in fact that they've lasted us for years.

Also, I've been on the lookout for a plain black T-shirt to wear with summer skirts.  I wanted to buy one last year but never found exactly what I was looking for in either a charity shop or at the boot sale.  I've been seeing quite a lot of M&S cotton T-shirts in the local chazzas lately, and at £2.50 a pop I thought they were quite good value (indeed, I bought one for my Mum not long ago) but I never came across black in my size.   It was a bit of a surprise to me when I decided I'd have to bite the bullet and buy one new from the M&S website.  Good grief, they had a special promotion on at the moment where you could buy two T-shirts for £8.00 (they're normally £6.00 each) which means I could buy brand new exactly what I was looking for, in the right colour and the correct size for only £1.50 per T-shirt more than they're charging in the charity shops.   It makes you think, it really does!!

Never mind, there's a jumble sale I'm off to tomorrow morning.  It won't be wonderful - those particular jumbles never are - but at least the clothing will probably only cost 25p each, maybe less.

This was a skirt I found at a jumble sale last autumn.  I knew it was a most unflattering mid-calf length when I tried it on back then but decided to put it away and deal with it when the spring rolled round again.  I lopped six inches off the length and hemmed it up again.  I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  It'll certainly be lovely to wear if we ever do get some hot weather (can't imagine THAT at the moment) and as it only cost me 30p I was happy enough to take a punt and attack it with the scissors. 

 

This 'n' That

Well, the hideous weather continues apace here - rain, rain, a bit more rain and flippin' freezing as well.   It's joyous, it really is!!

Have you read the excellent post by A Thrifty Mrs about charity shop prices?  Her post really struck a chord with me as I rarely go into the Marie Curie shop we have in the high street here because their prices are often ridiculous, plus they charge for their carrier bags (a mega pet peeve of mine.)  Luckily for me, the other two charity shops we have here are run by small local charities where the prices are much more sensible and the shops are rather more 'old school' chazza than designer boutique.  There is a particular charity shop in Billericay where I think I can honestly say I've not bought a single thing since they put up all their prices extortionately in order to pay for the laminated flooring and posh wooden hangers they now use to give the impression that their shop is upmarket and 'aspirational' rather than what it really is - a charity shop selling second-hand clothes.  Puhlease - who do they think they're kidding!

I was very pleased yesterday to find two unused Brita water filter cartridges in their original wrapping - 50p for both - in one of our 'sensibly priced' charity shops.  They were stuffed away on a small shelf under a basket of hair dyes.  As we had run out of cartridges for the water filter - plus they're darned expensive to buy in the shops - I was hugely delighted with my find.  And, for me, that's most of the pleasure of shopping in charity shops - you never know what you're going to find and often you have to dig around a bit to unearth a treasure or two.  In the same shop I also found a lovely chartreuse green Fenn Wright and Manson hand towel which will be just the ticket in our bathroom, it was also the grand sum of 50p.  Yay for the chazzas who don't charge a fortune and don't want to masquerade as designer boutiques - long may they continue.

I've done another draw for my five-year giveaway goodie bag as Briget (the original name out of the 'hat') won a giveaway from me last year and asked me to draw another name.  So, the second name out of the 'hat' was Fiona.  Fiona, if you could drop me an e-mail with your details, I'll get your prize in the post to you.

Drip, Drip, Drip - There Goes (Yet) Another Soggy Bank Holiday

Wheeeeeeen will it ever stop raining??  Gordon Bennett, I know we badly needed some rain but, really, does it all have to come in biblical proportions, all at once, and on yet another soggy bank holiday weekend.  The boot sales were a non-starter - both yesterday and today - so my thrifting opportunities have been severely curtailed lately. 

And it's so bloomin' cold too.  I'm longing for the day I can finally stop wearing thick knitted socks and two long-sleeved T-shirts (one on top the other) just to keep warm in the house.  I bought a lovely short-sleeved T-shirt last week in a charity shop but at the moment it seems like it'll never be warm enough to wear short sleeves ever again.   I also dug out a couple of summer skirts that I got at a jumble sale last autumn and which I knew needed altering - I've pinned up the hem of one to see if it would look better a bit shorter but it's too cold and grey and miserable to even contemplate trying it on.  Pleeeeeease stop raining and let us see some sun for a change!!

I did find a lovely cerise-pink Emma Bridgewater tea towel for £1.00 in a charity shop last week which will brighten up the kitchen nicely on these dull days.  Plus, two rather spiffy Christmas bauble stamp blocks which are a nice large size and were only 50p each.  I know it's a bit ridiculous to be thinking of Christmas in May (even if the temperature on Saturday was apparently colder than on Christmas Day) but I thought these stamps would make nice cards or could gussy up some plain brown paper rather well.  Mum suggested a gold or silver stamp pad and I can see that working beautifully.  With luck, between now and Christmas, I might come across one somewhere.

Anyway, enough of the moaning - I have a winner of my giveaway goodie-bag to announce.  Briget your name came out of the 'hat.'  Thanks to everyone who took part and for all your kind comments.

One for My Mum

It's my Mum's birthday today - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MUM - and, along with some nice things I bought for her in Winchester, I made her a patchwork lap quilt to keep her warm during these chilly Spring evenings.

It's my usual very simple design - lots of large patchwork squares on the front - all sourced from the stash,

with some large pieces of floral flanelette fabric on the back (also from the stash) - for that extra snuggle factor.

I always use Hobbs Heirloom batting as it's light, warm and easy to sew, and the three layers were hand-tied together with white crochet cotton at the points where four squares meet.  Naturally, it's turned out a teensy bit wonky in places - but Mum is very pleased with it anyway and that's what really counts.