Author: Lisa

Hello!

Today was more of an organisational day (tomorrow is the day to collect our niece from the airport) so I didn’t make it into the garden!

I did sit and do some more cards in between the few domestic chores and going out to deliver 3 dozen eggs (which takes AGES when its Ruby, Margie & Shirley, because you just HAVE to stop for a chat. I reckon Jeff thought I was lost)

Anyway – When doing little crafty things, you often get lots of scraps that are annoying to pick up – In the case of the cards its all the backings off the double sided tape.

One of the useful things I picked up in Japan was making a small temporary paper bin – from newspaper or junk mail.

My Japanese friends mainly used these in the kitchen where all the food scraps could go into them – and then straight into the compost if you are using newspaper.

I tried to get a series of photos to show you how they are done.

I want to show you how to fold the pretty seed packets soon too, but will get my niece to help video that as the folds are slightly tricky and I think difficult to convey via still images.

I haven’t tried to explain this via photos before so let me know if it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and I will move on to video!

So – grab a sheet of newspaper

Fold in half (see red line 🙂 )

Fold in corners to middle

Fold one layer of paper up to meet the triangles

and fold the same layer up again to cover the bottom of the triangles

Turn the whole thing over

Fold each side to meet in middle

Fold bottom up to meet the ‘not so triangles’ like you did on the other side

And fold up a second time to match the other side

Open the ‘almost’ box

Squish bottom down to make a flat underside (This is where a video would come in handy, but just fiddle with it! It works out pretty easily!)

Ta daa!

A ready made recycled scrap bin. I find them pretty handy.

A busy couple of weeks coming up, so stay tuned for some new stuff when the girls arrive!

Cheers & Goodnight

I think of “Correct Weight” and I immediately think of horse racing – thanks to my Dad who likes a little flutter on the neddies every now and again!

But in this case, we have a zucchini that weighed in at 4.199kgs!

So congratulations Audrey, who put in a guess that was a teeny tiny one gram out of a perfect guess – 4.200!!! Fabulous! Thank-you to those that had a go.

I will find my ‘quirky memento’ to send off! 🙂

Cheers!

A couple of jars of orange peel had been sitting on my kitchen window ledge for a bit too long, and I was down to the last bit of laundry liquid, so thought it would be a good idea to restock on my cleaning products

The citrus cleaner I use is a ridiculously easy process.

So if I am making something that creates a lot of citrus peel, I just bung them in an old coffee jar, cover in vinegar and let them sit and look pretty until I am ready to strain them out –

Then I store the liquid in a clean coffee jar until I need to top up my spray bottle.  I use it as an all purpose cleaner – it smells nice and I don’t have to worry about odd chemicals when I am using it in the kitchen.

Vinegar is pretty cheap – you don’t need to use an expensive type, so the whole thing is fairly easy on the wallet (Esp since most surface spray cleaners are around the $5 mark)

Laundry Liquid

I am sure a lot of you who follow homesteading/frugal living blogs are aware of people who make their own laundry liquids or powders, or do so yourselves.

Soon after we moved here I was determined to get in touch with my Happy Hippy Self and try to wind back on the spending and chemicals & rah rah rah… I haven’t started tie-dyeing yet, but I am, little by little, moving away from pre-packaged stuff and being a little more self sufficient.

With just a tiny little bit more effort, you can save a bundle.

This is how I make my laundry liquid. The basic ingredients have lasted an eon. In fact – today I used the last of the Lux flakes, from the first box I bought over 4 years ago!!

I have had to replace the washing soda and borax once each.

I did a costing on it ages ago and worked out it was costing me less than $2 to make 10 litres!! A high end laundry liquid here can cost $10/litre. Dunno about any one else, but I am way keen to be spending that spare $98 on something more exciting than laundry liquid!

You need a bucket that has a bit over a 10 litre capacity & a bunch of bottles – preferably with handles.

1 cup Lux (soap) flakes

1/2 cup Lectric Soda (Washing soda)

1/2 cup Borax

Half grated bar Velvet soap (or a pure washing soap)

10 litres water

Optional oil for making it smell pretty (I love using Eucalyptus oil)

Put all your dry ingredients into a pot, along with a litre of the water and bring to boil

Let all ingredients melt and boil well (it will boil over if you don’t keep and eye on it!)

Pour into bucket and add the remaining 9 litres of water – keep stirring it up

Add your oil of choice

Pour into your bottles, leaving a good amount of ‘shake space’ as the mixture will separate after sitting for a while.

It works fine (I occasionally use normal stain remover – we do live on red dirt after all…) Just add a 1/4 cup to your wash. Its half an hour out of my life well spent. 🙂

Enjoy what’s left of your weekends!

Cheers

After spending a long time in town this afternoon, this ended up being my lunch – which was so late it might as well be relabelled as a dinner entrée! (Mind you we did a repeat performance of the pumpkin soup tonight, as requested by Jeff who clearly really enjoyed it! Yay me!)

I needed some photos printed. I took delivery of some blank cards & envelopes the other day, as now that I have a nice collection of local images, I had the grand idea to make some cards to add to my market stall

I miss film and proper photographic labs. I really do!

Back in my former life I owned a shop that (in part) developed and printed film. Of course, as digital slowly crept in and film slithered out, the industry changed and people either weren’t printing photos or were expecting super cheap jobs. (Due to some of the bigger chains installing labs and retailing their printing at under the price of what it cost for normal labs to produce a print.) We eventually closed the lab side of things and readjusted.

So, the consequence with digital and people not printing like they used to is the loss of labs with people that know what they are doing when it comes to your printing. I have to drive about 25-30 minutes to take my files to Harvey Norman which is a furniture, computer, homewares shop that happen to do printing as well. Its all booths to DIY and regardless of what you do at home to your files, their system is different and their screens show different again to the final print. There is no person who knows what they are doing attending to the fine tuning of your images.

So instead of this –

I get this –

So honestly I don’t think I got very far today. I plan to call my old lab in Canberra tomorrow to talk to them about sending them my files. At least I know when they are being printed, someone is casting a knowledgeable eye over the process.

I did manage to print some details on the cards and a number of the images will be usable

I found some excellent packs of glassine bags locally to pack the final product in too!

I guess I am quite picky when it comes to the quality of my photographs – (haha – says she while posting photos taken tonight under revolting light!!) I don’t mind paying more to get a better job done, but unless I send away to professional labs, there is no choice in this area.  Home printing is out – Paper and inks are very expensive and the life of the print compared to true photographic paper (that has to go through a wet chemical process) just doesn’t compare.

Anyway – its a little challenge to get it fine tuned and looking good… then the real test will be if people actually buy them! 🙂

I’ll leave you with a few of the images that I plan to use on my first lot of cards!

Cheers!