Making Good Use

Have You Seen the Price of Cards? - The B Side

I got to work on the dilapidated sewing book yesterday afternoon and cut out a few of the rather nice illustrations.

They do look 'quite' nice, but I think the paper is a bit too thin (probably utility paper) so you can see a faint outline of the printing on the back through the illustrations.

Some are worse than others, and I think I'll have to be more selective about what is on the reverse of the illustrations before I begin cutting them out and sticking them on card stock.

A rather pleasing find in the charity shop this morning - 3 x 20g balls (plus approx another 10g)  of kid mohair in a very pleasant raspberry shade.  No idea what I'll do with it but at £1.75 for the lot I wasn't going to leave it behind.

Have You Seen the Price of Cards These Days?

I've been getting rid of even more 'stuff' again - primarily books that have been removed from Amazon - as we had a charity sack come through the letterbox this week.  I can always find something for a charity that is prepared to take books.  If they won't take books then they get nothing from me, even if I've got other things to get rid of (this may be a petty attitude but I do get a tad annoyed when charities get picky about what they will or won't accept). 

Anyway, I came across a couple of books I'd kept back with the idea of making some cards from the illustrations.  As Mum had kindly given me some card blanks that were no good for her, I decided to actually get around to making them yesterday afternoon.  I found I had a very scary-looking craft knife that I'd picked up goodness knows where and although I couldn't find the small cutting board I've got I wasn't going to let that stop me, so I improvised by using a piece of thick cardboard.

I was quite pleased with the results.

The book had woodcut illustrations of a cat called Oscar with pithy quotes from Oscar Wilde underneath.

I did feel a bit like a vandal as I began ripping the book apart but that got easier the more I did it. 

Now I've got my eye on some of the lovely 1940s illustrations in a very dilapidated sewing book I picked up once.

Blog Reading - Not Just for Humans

Mum sent me over this lovely photo of Lily, mug of coffee near her paw, checking out her favourite blogs on the computer.

Lily (aka the high white half wit.  Don't ask, let's just say Lily may have been at the back of the queue when brains were being handed out) looks quite intelligent in this photo - which just goes to show that sometimes the camera does lie!!  She is extremely cute though and is very good at letting Mum know if there is someone at the door or if the phone is ringing (Mum being a little hard of hearing these days) which is why she is also sometimes known (among other things) as the 'hearing cat for the deaf.'

I'll Never Enjoy Washing Up

But, with a knitted dishcloth, it's certainly become less of a chore.  These blooming things are like magic, they really do cut through tea stains and general crud on dishes in the most amazing way.  Not only have I pretty much eliminated the need for a plastic washing-up brush, but I've also cut my consumption of Brillo pads considerably too.  Which is good because Brillo-type pads are now 89p for 20, and they only end up in landfill - along with the plastic washing-up brushes which I was getting through at the rate of knots.  Also, because I can chuck them in the washing machine when I've used them a couple of times (obviously not an option with a plastic washing-up brush), I find them much more hygienic.

I'd read about traditional dishcloths and how wonderful they were on other people's blogs, and had knitted quite a few for sale myself, but why I'd never tried using them is a mystery!!  I'm definitely a convert now - although I'm still going to get myself a dishwasher just as soon as we live somewhere with a big enough kitchen to instal one!

Giveaway Monday - 2

This week's Monday giveaway is this small hardback book 'Cranks Cakes & Biscuits' which was rescued from the Greenmetropolis cull.  For anyone who doesn't know the Cranks name, they are a small chain of wholefood restaurants.  There are all sorts of delicious-looking recipes in this book, including a triple layer orange gateau, sesame seed squares, marmalade cup cakes and rum and raisin tofu cake.  There are also traditional cake recipes, like a Christmas cake, Eccles cakes, gingerbread men and Bakewell slices.

If you'd like to be entered into the draw for the book, leave a comment on this post.  I'll draw a name from the 'virtual hat' on Saturday 7th February.  It's a small enough book for me to post anywhere in the world.

Now for the obligatory snow pictures.  Please bear with me, I know a few inches of snow are nothing to many areas of the Northern hemisphere at this time of the year, but here in the south of England this is quite an event.  In fact, the biggest fall of snow for 18 years.

 

 

I haven't heard any trains this morning so I'm presuming that they aren't running, there have only been half a dozen or so cars passing the house, and the only people who've ventured out on foot are the children in the road who are busy pelting each other with snowballs.  The snow continues to fall from a very leaden sky and looks set to keep on falling for some time to come.

Hello Kitty Winner is ....

Comment number 2 - Shazza.  (As chosen by my Mum in her role as the 'virtual hat' for this giveaway.)  Shazza, let me have your name and address and I'll post the box off to you.

There'll be another giveaway - probably a book this time - on Monday.

Good Grief, How Did That Happen?

 

I actually bought a book brand-new, from a shop, and didn't go out intending to buy it.  There are a few mitigating circumstances, m'lud.  Firstly, I only went into W H Smiths because I had a voucher to buy this month's 'Delicious' magazine for £1.00 (saving £2.30 off the cover price), they didn't have it!  Then, I honestly thought this book was only £2.99 if purchased with today's edition of The Times (it wasn't, as I discovered at the checkout).  Finally, for £3.99 I thought it was well worth getting some ideas from.

It's an amusing little tome with some usual and not so usual ideas for making a bit of extra money.  The usual suspects are car boot sales, selling on ebay. on-line surveys, mystery shopper (I've always fancied having a go at that myself), selling home-made craft items (I do try with that, with various levels of success), making jams and chutneys to sell etc etc.  The not so usual ideas are being a porn star (I think not in my case), breastfeeding consultant (I can see this might be good for some people), surrogate mother (too old now, thank goodness), fishing and hunting (eww, no thanks, hate fish of any description and also hate meat in the 'raw').

Some of the ideas that quite appealed to me were foraging, taking in ironing (I knew someone who did this once and it was quite successful), proof reading (I used to be a 'scrutineer' on the local Bristol newspaper many moons ago), and treasure hunting (tramping round a muddy field with a metal detector has always held an odd fascination for me, although I've never done it.)

All in all, not a bad investment for £3.99, although I bet I could have found it in the local library if I'd not been so impulsive.

Edited to add:  There is a website to go with the book.

A Very British Obsession

It's true, I am somewhat obsessed by the weather - as I think many people in Britain are.  We have such unpredictable and changeable weather - all year round. 

Today we were back to lovely sunny blue skies in south Essex - although with a rather keen north-easterly wind, which may have dried the washing well but was a bit too chilly for my liking.  From Sunday onwards we are predicted to get another Arctic blast (this time direct from the steppes of Russia - nice). 

I'm not good with extremes of weather - too hot and I wilt, lying about moaning and, most shockingly, I lose my appetite (huge commiserations to those suffering 40+ heat in Australia at the moment - I think I may well expire if faced by that degree of heat!)  If it's too cold I get really grouchy too, especially if it's icy underfoot - then I start walking like a penguin, probably the worst way to deal with icy surfaces.  P, who is from alpine Switzerland, kept waiting for the council to grit the pavements when he first encountered really icy weather in the UK - he's since realised that only the roads get gritted here - presumably pedestrian's bones don't matter! 

I read this on the BBC news website this afternoon

'People in Iceland - a country currently in desperate economic trouble - have shipped jumpers and blankets to pensioners in England this week, to keep them warm in the winter.

A container of woolies arrived in the north-east of England after an appeal on an Icelandic radio station. They were handed to local charities in Hull on Thursday.

The campaign started after two Icelanders living in Manchester wrote to the programme, saying they were appalled by the numbers of elderly people dying from cold-related illnesses in England.'

This makes me feel rather ashamed on several different levels - not least because of the fact that the UK government invoked anti-terrorism laws against Icelandic banks and businesses in the UK in October - thereby forcing the failure of the last Icelandic bank standing.

Still Knitting, Still De-Cluttering

I'm still plugging away at the 'Super Simple' Wrap I'm knitting - I've now made it to about the half-way mark.  I did take a photo of my progress, but it was so dark and dreary here this afternoon that the picture was pants.  What a difference to the weather of yesterday - today is all about grey skies, rain and virtually no proper daylight all day, very lowering to the spirit.  Thank goodness I went out yesterday.  Today I've only ventured as far as the post office - and that was because it was an absolute necessity, otherwise I'd have stayed in all day if I'd had the choice.

Tomorrow a new double bed is being delivered which has meant I've had to empty the four drawers under the current bed.  Who knew you could fit quite so much junk into under-bed drawers - not me, that's for sure.  I thought one bin bag would be enough for the contents of two drawers but, no, each drawer had so much stuff in it that it needed a whole bin bag per drawer.  The trouble is that the new bed base has only two drawers so I'll have two drawers of 'stuff' left over.  Some I've managed to get rid of, or squeeze into other nooks and crannies, but there's still a frightening amount of 'stuff' to be re-housed somewhere.   I've had the bed base for well over 20 years and it is in a very perilous state now.  Whilst emptying one drawer I found that a whole section had completely collapsed and was dangling into the back of the drawer - no wonder my back's been playing me up lately.  I'm not looking forward to single-handedly manoevuring the double bed out of the bedroom but I am looking forward to getting into a new bed tomorrow night.

Roadkill money rolling total - +1p = 4p.  (I actually pcked this one up literally from the middle of the road.  Probably not the cleverest thing to do as I could have been run over at any minute - but I figured that at my size and in my bright-red fleece I'd be a fairly visible object to any on-coming drivers!)

Bea-u-tiful Weather

There has been the most beautiful weather in south Essex today - clear blue skies, bright sunshine and very little wind.  It was far too nice to stay home so I took myself off for a long-overdue trip to Billericay.  It was an absolute joy to sit at the back of the bus (I have to sit there so no one falls over my shopping trolley) and enjoy the passing countryside.  Although there isn't a huge amount of open country between here and Billericay, there are some pretty vistas en route - a couple of farms that face onto the main road, villages on sunny slopes, and the ever-busy flock of geese that seem to live permanently in a little orchard.  (I was sure those geese were destined for Christmas dinners but they still seem to be alive and well - maybe they're being bred for Easter!)

As I hadn't been to Billericay since well before Christmas, I'd amassed quite a long list of items I needed from Waitrose.  Although Waitrose is hideously expensive it is the only place where I can buy certain items in the vicinity (there is a limit to what you can buy when the only supermarkets in our little town are Aldi and Somerfield).  I'm not talking exotic items either, but basics like organic chicken (totally unavailable in our town), Marigold Bouillon powder and the most delicious yogurts ever made - Waitrose own Malaysian Coconut yogurt - yum!  It must be a sign of the times, but even Waitrose had some good offers on - including organic free-range eggs on special which meant they were 27p per half dozen cheaper than Somerfield (and as the Somerfield organic free-range eggs are disgustingly pale yolked I've given up buying them.)

After a very satisfying jaunt around Waitrose, I moved on to the charity shops.  There are six of them  in Billericay high street but, if truth be told, only two of them are really worth visiting.  The others are very expensive - although good bargains can be found with 'posh' shirts for P to wear to work.  The only real 'glory hole' of a charity shop is closing on Saturday for three weeks for a re-fit.  Hmm, we all know what that will mean - higher prices and fancy hangers.  I don't know why charities have to 'gussy up' their shops, it's much more fun to poke about in boxes and flick through over-crowded rails to find that elusive treasure than to have everything laid out like some chi-chi boutique, and charging fairly chi-chi prices too.  Anyway, they had 50% off all prices this week and I found a nice navy zip-up hooded jacket for DN for £2.00 (no way I'd have paid their full price of £4.00) and a vintage Tootal paisley scarf for 25p.  That's already been washed through and is drying on the line as they are good sellers on ebay and I want to get it listed this Thursday.  I also, amazingly, found a good book for re-sale - something which is getting harder and harder to do.

The bus journey back was, if anything, even nicer as the sun was higher in the sky and there seemd to be some real strength in it again - it felt as if spring may be just around the corner.  Sadly, that illusion was ruined when I watched the weather forecast - it seems to be turning colder again!!