Guest Blogger - Hidesy

Hi! I'm Rinelle's sister Hidesy :) Since I was taking a photo of all the toys I recently bought second hand Rinelle suggested that I do a guest post and show them off :) I went to about 4-5 different second hand shops around Brisbane, and found all of these. I had a budget of $50 to spend on toys (in theory our weekly budget for "stuff for Miranda (DD)" so I thought I'd see what I could get. I wanted quality stuff or I could have bought a lot more probably - but I didn't want things that were broken or pointless - I wanted things that could be interesting and would help her. Of course now I realise that I left Pinky out of the picture - a bit unforgivable as it's her favourite ;) It's a little pink stuffed Giraffe. So here's what I got for $48.50 in the end. It took a bit to get them all clean, but I think it was worth it :)

Ebay Bargain!

DH and I bought this old blue couch back when we were newly married, meaning it is 7 years old now! It's served us faithfully, and moved with us twice. Unfortunately, while it was a great size for two, now that there are three of us, it's getting very squishy.

So it was well and truly time for a new couch. DH and I fell in love with the couch with chaise style after using one at a holiday apartment we stayed in, but until we re-arranged our living room a few weeks ago, we just couldn't find out that would fit in the space we have. A few weeks ago, we decided to take the plunge and get rid of the TV.

No, we're not really TV less. We haven't had commercial TV for more than 12 months now, but we do still watch out selected DVD's. Which, of course, can be watched just as easily on our computer! Our 19 inch monitor was just a little too small though, so we now have a 27 inch. This saves lots of space, and power as well I would imagine, since we no longer run the old CRT screen TV or the DVD player.

Anyway, once that was done, the hunt was on for a new couch. We looked around all the furniture stores (online and in person), and found several (seems to be a popular style right now), but nearly all of them were synthetic, which is something I'm trying to avoid these days. Ikea had lovely lounges, and as a bonus, the covers are completely removable so that you can wash them. Seemed ideal. Except that on closer inspection, only the WHITE covers were actually machine washable, the others were all dry clean only. This was enough to put us off for a while, until I hit upon the concept of dying the covers!

We probably would have gone straight to Ikea to get one, except they had none in stock. (And, of course, Ikea is a 2 hour drive away!) Thus instead, I have been searching EBay daily (you can have new items matching your search criteria e-mailed to you daily), until last week I spotted the EXACT couch I wanted. Bidding was steep, but with dint of much refreshing and last minute bidding, I am now the proud owner of a genuine Ikea couch, at exactly half the retail price!

As you can see, it's in great condition, only 6 months old. The white cover has a few minor discolourations (much of which was probably due to DD jumping up and down on the cushions pretending they were islands), which will undoubtedly be covered when we dye them. Currently, it's covered in sheets, as the owners had dogs, which DH is mildly allergic to. Hopefully we'll get the covers washed and dyed next weekend.

I'm so glad that we managed to find exactly the couch we wanted, at such a great price, and much closer than Ikea! Buying second hand has many advantages, as well as being more eco friendly in that items are reused rather than being thrown out. (In case you're wondering, our old couch now lives up in the garage, for use when DH is up there working.)

Right now though, I'm off to research eco friendly dying!

Financial Goals

Lately DH and I have been giving quite a lot of thought to our financial situation. I've written previously that our goal is for DH to be able to work part time, and hopefully retire very early, but so far aside from dreaming, we've made very little effort to achieve this goal.

I've been reading many blogs lately about people who have begun to make moves towards changing their situation. People who are working to pay off their mortgages, and live life the way they want to instead of being ruled by their debts, and they are inspiring. I think we can do it too. No, it won't happen tomorrow. In fact, it will be years away. But we certainly can't start any sooner.

Our first goal is to finish paying off our credit card. We hope to have this done by the end of March. Until it's paid off, we're going to continue with our Nothing New policy as much as we are able to. I'm mending our sheets yet again because I don't want to have to buy a new set. (And I refuse to buy cheap ones, I have a particular set in mind, and am waiting until we have the SPARE cash to afford them.) We're attempting to intersperse our normally meat heavy meals with cheaper ones, like the scrambled eggs we had tonight, (Can't get any cheaper than that, eggs laid by our own chooks, on toast cooked here at home), fried rice, and pasta. The increasing amount of produce we're getting from our own garden, as well as making everything we can at home (from materials we already have where possible!), helps as well. Really, there is very little we will need to buy over the next few months. (Except the previously mentioned bookshelves and new lounge if they are available, though in reality they aren't needs, but wants.)

Once the credit card is paid off, our next step is to build up an emergency fund of $1000. As any budgeting gurus will tell you, if you lack an emergency fund, you will simply rack up your credit card again when the unexpected happens. We now have a second mortgage offset account (off our construction loan), where the emergency fund will be separate from our day to day money, while still offsetting the interest on our mortgage. We hope to have this done by the end of June.

After the initial emergency fund is secure, we will increase our payments on the home loan by $100 a fortnight. Not much, and should be easy to do without many changes to our current budget, but from the few calculations I've done, it should reduce the repayments on our home loan nearly in half, and save us scads of interest! While we're doing this, we will continue to add any extra money, bonus payments etc, into the emergency fund until it's at about $5000. Hopefully we should achieve this by the end of the year.

Then, all going well, any extra money we get will go straight into the home loan. If we can pay off this one loan (the smaller, and at a higher interest rate), it will halve our repayments, and would allow DH to work part time if he chooses, or allow us to pay off the second loan (on the land) in half the time.

In order to help us keep track of our goals and progress, I've set up a budget in Microsoft Money (which we already had!) We've used this with great success previously, only falling behind when DD was little, and we couldn't find the time to keep it updated. Hopefully it will work just as well for us this time!

Restoring Old Toys

When DD was first born, we bought SO MANY toys for her, all new. I shudder to think of how much we spent on toys that probably only lasted a year or two at most. (To my credit, most were either sold or donated to charity then, not thrown out.) My sister has a far more sensible attitude, and gets a lot more for her $50 at the second hand stores or garage sales than we ever got at the toystore!

These days, we buy a few select, high quality toys new, and mostly either make them at home, or buy second hand. While there are many second hand toys that are like new, or even gain appeal through being loved, many just aren't as 'pretty' as those you can buy new. And I don't believe in kids getting 'second best'. Though DD will happily play with her second hand toys, I often like to spruce them up a bit for her.

Here is the toy ironing board we bought for a couple of dollars somewhere. A new cover, and a second hand wooden iron from the markets, and it's a toy worth of any child's playroom. (Clicking on the pictures will enlarge them so you can have a good look if you want.)

This pram, likewise, was a dollar or two at a second hand store. I believe they're $7 or so new at bargain stores, which is probably where this one was originally from. With a new cover, it looks far prettier than the original one would have looked the day it came home from the store. I took off the old cover and used it to make a pattern for this new one. DD and I gave the pram a good scrubbing. The new cover took less than an hour to sew up (mostly due to me trying to 'improve' over the original design, when will I learn), and used the buckle from the original cover, but otherwise all new material (less than half a metre of $5 a metre material).

I enjoy this so much more than just going out and buying new, which always leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

These toys will also be a great addition to DD's 'home corner' once I get to it.

Op-Shop Bargains and another Nothing New Month

I've been re-visiting a lot of the local op-shops (thrift stores for those in the US) lately, and found some real bargains. Like the cushion inserts above, at $3 each. Sure, I've seen cushion inserts in stores for $3 each, but not this size, these are about 20 inches square. Perfect for DD's reading corner. The white object folded up on the bottom is actually a thin, cotton quilt, in perfect condition, it was $7. The folded up flannel sheets were $1.50 each because they had slight marks/not in top condition, which is not going to matter once I cut them up for hankies!

Then in another op-shop (where I went to buy zippers for covers for the new cushions, which incidentally I found for 20 cents each), I found these shirts on the $1 rack. Perfect for cutting up to make some smaller shirts for DD.

I love finding bargains at the op-shops. It feels so good to not only get something cheaply, but to know that I'm recycling in the real meaning of the word. These objects, which would otherwise be thrown out, are being used again. And when I'm finished with them, they'll be passed back to be used again. We waste so much in our world, it feels good to stop even a little of that.

However, despite finding bargains and some great deals, I think I've been going a bit overboard on the buying. Things are piling up, and we need some more cleaning and organising going on here. I have more material than I have time to sew, and more things than I have places to put them. So DH and I have decided to have another Nothing New month this month. Yes, I know we're already into February, and to make it neat I should wait until March, but when the mood hits you, it's best to start while you're motivated.

The exceptions to the Nothing New will be a particular set of bookshelves, or a particular couch, if they come up second hand this month.

Junk Mail and Wardrobe Planning

You may be wondering what I'm doing posting about these two topics together on a blog that is supposedly about simple living. I mean, isn't the aim to buy less and make your own rather than getting drawn into all the advertising and sales?

Well, of course it is. And the truth is, I can't see me buying children's clothes (or adults clothes for the most part) in stores again. But I do like to look through the catalogues to be inspired and come up with ideas for what I can make at home. Most of the pretty outfits you see in the catalogues are just variations on a basic pattern. They might add a few frills in different places, some embroidery, or use a particular material, but there is very little in the stores that can't easily be replicated by the home dressmaker.

So each week when the catalogues come in (and I really should get a "No Junk Mail" sign for the letterbox and just check them out online), I look through them, and if there is anything that I like the look of, I cut it out, and stick it into my inspiration scrapbook. I noticed this week that we've moved away from the summer clothes, and into the autumn/winter stuff. Probably a good reminder that I need to get onto planning DD's wardrobe. Making it yourself takes a little more time, but it is SO satisfying to dress DD each day, and know that I made nearly everything she's wearing! Hopefully, this winter, her entire wardrobe will be homemade!

Keeping on Mending

Some of my regular readers (and I do have regular readers, including 5 followers, Yay!) might remember this sheet from a previous repair post. I've been washing a lot of things on hot to be sure to keep the chicken's mites out of the house, and unfortunately the hot water (my machine does a 90 degree hot wash) has killed the elastic in the fitted sheet. Last time it was on the bed, it just kept coming off at the corners, very annoying.

I thought at first that the elastic had just snapped somewhere, but when I unpicked the seam at one corner, it was obvious it was just destroyed. So I cut the elastic, and pulled the whole lot out. (I could have left it in, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist.)

The fastest way to unpick the seams is to use this handy little tool. It's called a quick unpick, and is invaluable to the sewing enthusiast. No matter how good you get at sewing, there will always be times when you just have to unpick something. Like when you sew the arm of a t-shirt onto the neck opening. (Not that I would do something like that...) And also handy in this case, where you want to undo the stitching to change the elastic. (Handy hint, you can do this for skirts and pants that have become to tight but otherwise still fit, so long as the elastic isn't sewn in.)

Once I'd unpicked that spot, I cut the elastic, and pulled the whole lot out, a very slow and tedious process.

Then I had to replace it with some good elastic. I didn't happen to have a piece long enough, so I pulled out 3 2m bits, and sewed them together with a zig zag stitch like this.

I forgot to take photos of putting the new elastic in unfortunately, but basically you attach a safety pin to the end of the elastic, and use that to thread it through the casing. I found that all the way around a queen sized sheet was a LONG way, so I ended up unpicking the opposite corner too, and threading through from the opposite end as well.

Because of the long length, it's quite hard to get the elastic through evenly, so I simply pulled it as tight as I could, fastened it with the safety pin, and put the sheet on. Each time I'm making the bed, I check it, and often tighten it a little. When it's time to change the sheets again, I'll sew the ends of the elastic together, and close up the opening.

Some people might thing that this is a pointless waste of time, and it's much easier to just go out and buy a new set of sheets. But the reality is that the sheets are still good (and my favourite set), and they have plenty of wear left in them yet. The top sheet and pillow cases are still find, and the fitted sheet is still in reasonable condition. So for about 20 minutes work, I just saved about $100 (I refuse to buy cheap sheets, hate them), and at least half an hour's time had I needed to go buy a new set! Not to mention the damage to the environment to grow the cotton, process it into material, make the sheets, and ship them back and forth. It just makes sense to repair things where you can.

New Shirts

I've been sewing away at the t-shirts I'm making for DD, and am down to the last two. In fact, when I finish this post, I'll probably go and try to get them finished, leaving way for the next sewing project. She's been wearing them as fast as I'm sewing them, meaning it's hard to get a photo, but I'll try to add some to this post before I post it.

Out of 3 metres of fabric, I've made about 7 t-shirts, the entire lot costing me less than $20. There is plenty of material left over, just no pieces big enough for the front of the shirts. I will probably make some skirts as well or perhaps some pants.

I deliberately bought 3 co-ordinating colours so that I could mix and match, and ended up with some interesting colour combinations at the end, some deliberate, some just the material I had left. Each shirt I made is different in some way, perhaps a different colour binding, or different coloured sleeves/back. Only problem I've found is that because most of them are patterns, it's harder to match them with DD's patterned skirts.

There was a time not so long ago when you could by clothes for cheaper than you could make them, but it seems that is passing. I wonder if it's the material getting cheaper, or the clothes getting more expensive? Or perhaps it's just that I'm sewing for a smaller person now! It can't only be that though, because I'm finding it cheaper to make clothes for myself too, so long as I stick to the simpler patterns, which is really what I prefer anyway.

I've taken to cutting up the junk mail catalogues as they come in, picking out the clothing pictures I once would have gone out to buy, and sticking them into a scrapbook for inspiration when sewing. Nearly every picture I see is a relatively simple alteration on a basic pattern, so are easily reproducible without much added expense. Now that we've solved the immediate lack of t-shirt issue, hopefully I'll have time for some pretty and frilly additions!

Edited to add: Not any time soon though, overlocked is broken again! I had the same problem a few weeks after I bought it, so I'm not happy that it's happened again. Back to the repair shop yet again!

New Year, New Enthusiasm.

Regular readers may have noticed that this blog has been rather quiet through November/December. In part, this was due to the fact that these have been very busy months for our family. November was taken up with writing, December with frantic Christmas preparations. On top of that, the weather has been hot, hot and more hot, with lots of rain thrown into the mix. Very little chance for gardening, for even if we braved the heat to plant, what is going to grow in this weather? (Other than the watermelons, which are doing great!)

And now, here we are in 2009, wondering what we are going to do this year. Well, we are hoping for some lifestyle changes, mainly in the form of a new job for DH. Closer to home would be great, but is unlikely due to the lack of jobs in his field nearby. Mainly though, we are hoping for some more regular hours, less stress, and hopefully a bit more flexibility.

DH and I have been talking too, and are looking at ways to further reduce our expenses on the basis that saving $100 is worth more than making an extra $100. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, think on it. For starters, of the $100 extra you make, a large percentage is immediately gone in tax. Not to mention the GST you're not paying simply by not buying something.

With this in mind, it will be back to making, mending and growing this year. I'm itching for the weather to cool down enough to plant something, but think I'll realistically have to wait until mid February at least. In the meantime though, there are some fruit trees that still need to be planted out (from before November!), mowing to do, fruit trees to mulch etc etc, so plenty to keep me busy. On the sewing front, I'm finally getting around to finishing those t-shirts for DD, making more shopping bags (and I've just had the brainwave to recycle my old green bags, which are more than a little the worse for wear, into stiffening in various projects), some swimming togs for DD (from second hand swimming tops), and no doubt many other things. I need to get back into preserving, before all this wonderful summer fruit is done for the year, including cooking up all the tomatoes that are languishing in my freezer (cooked up one lot last night though, and they were delish!). I need to cook more from scratch, and start figuring out how to use all this garden produce. I also have lots and lots of wool that needs to be spun ready for the winter knitting frenzy.

On the financial front, hopefully we'll have more no-spend months, do some budgeting maybe, and hopefully, 2009 will be the year that we pay off the credit card for good. We've paid it off before, but it is only this time, through dint of paying it off bit by bit the slow hard way, that we have actually changed our spending habits enough to know we are not going to run it straight back up again. Then we can work on saving, and beginning paying extra on the home loan. Exciting stuff.

I also need to get working on organising the house, decluttering, making curtains for the windows, rugs for the floors, that sort of thing.

And last, but not least, I have to get a plan in place for DD's first official year of homeschooling. She is due to start prep this year, which is not compulsory in Queensland, so we will be running our own program (at this stage), including lots of getting out and joining groups, excursions, and other fun stuff.

So stay tuned for a hopefully action packed 2009!

$29.60

$29.60, that is how much this lot of fruit cost us at the Caboolture markets cost us this morning. We spend about this amount each week, and get roughly the same amount of fruit. There were a few luxuries in there today, the mangoes were $1 each, and the apricots were about $5 a kg I think. The grapes were the most expensive at $7 a kg, but DD loves them, and since she's been sick, whatever she will eat is a good thing.

Today's Harvest

It would be nice to be able to supply all most of our fruit and vegetables from our own garden, but we are still quite a way away from that, and in the meantime, the markets are an excellent alternative to the supermarkets, and I'm sure it's much cheaper.

Gearing up for November

Things could be fairly quite around here for the next month, as most of my writing energy goes towards making my 50,000 word goal as part of NaNoWriMo.



I've made this goal for the last two years, but at that time I wasn't trying to garden or make all these things at the same time. But I will give it a go again regardless.

DH and I have also set ourselves a challenge for this month, we're not going to buy anything other than food and medications for the month. Any money saved will go towards our credit card debt (which was run up with building expenses).

This is more than just a money saving challenge though. Over the last 18 or so months, since we first packed up our unit ready to move, we've lived out of boxes, many of which are still not unpacked, meaning much of the stuff we have either DD has grown out of, or we just plain don't need. We are all feeling a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of STUFF in our house (not to mention still in the garage!), and until it is under control, we don't want to bring anything more into the house. So this isn't just about money and spending, it's about not bringing anything new into the house full stop. Not from any source.

And as if that wasn't enough for one month, we're going to try to get rid of existing clutter. I'm hoping we can get at least 100 items OUT OF THE HOUSE (or shed). That's a little over 3 items a day. Think we can do it? I reckon we can.

So expect a lot of posts about how we've resisted bringing new things into the house (and hopefully found some creative and innovative solutions to anything that we are lacking), and updates on how many items we've gotten rid of. And, of course, some updates on my word count.

Lemon Butter

I had my second go at making lemon butter today, and luckily it turned out much better than my first go. Not that I didn't eat and enjoy all of that first attempt, but this time, when I tasted a little of the spills, I was transported instantly back to eating my grandmother's lemon butter as a child. This is how lemon butter is supposed to taste!

I made up double the recipe this time, since I have plenty of eggs to use up. The chooks are laying 4-5 eggs a day now, and even though we are selling extras to friends and family (for $2 a dozen, to cover chook food), we still have more than we can eat. Double the recipe calls for a dozen eggs, so without your own chickens, this could be quite a costly recipe (although still probably cheaper than buying it at the store). And I think that the eggs from our free range chooks is what really made this special. Look at the colour of it! Most lemon butter you see these days is a kind of washed out yellow, not bright and vibrant like this. That is the actual colour of the lemon butter, no added colours, and no photoshopping the picture (well, not to alter the colour anyway).

By my calculations, this recipe probably ends up at about $1 a jar. All up, the eggs were free, the butter - 225g, about $1, the sugar - just under a 1kg, $1 (I buy it in bulk), and the lemons were $2 a kg, I used 5, not exactly sure what they weighed, but lets say 1kg, so $2. $5 for the 5 jars. I have no idea what lemon butter sells for in the shops, but I'm guessing that it's at least $2 a bottle, saving me 50%.

It's now sitting in the fridge with the remainder of my last strawberry jam. Hopefully, it should last me six months or so before I need to make more.

Sheet Wardrobe

I've been sewing up a storm the last few weeks, making some summer dresses for myself (in among making all those clothes for DD). So far I have these 6 dresses (can you tell what colours I like?). Some of the material has been bought new, but most of it is recycled, and about the only place you can get this much material in one piece is in old sheets! So what I'm wondering now, is can you guess which ones are the sheets, and which ones are the new material? Most of these I plan to wear around the house anyway, so it doesn't really matter that they look like sheets, but I am curious how many of them are obvious.

The patterns are from my Stitch House book, which I officially LOVE. All of these can be made with 2m or less of material! Pretty good for an adult dress. They're also really cool and comfortable, which is a very important characteristic.

I popped my soap out of the moulds this morning too. Well, popped is probably the wrong word, wrestled is more like it. But it's out, and it looks WAY better than the last lot. The picture doesn't show it, but it actually looks kind of green, not quite sure why, but the colour is even, and the consistency is right (the last lot was crumbly and patchy), so I think this lot is going to be great. I'm really looking forward to trying it out.

I'm off for a few days to a week tomorrow, visiting my mum, so probably won't be posting. But expect lots of crafty pics and op shop finds when I get back!

Rainy Days

It's been raining on and off the last two days, so we've spent a lot of time indoors. DD made this flower out of paddlepop sticks, all her own idea, although I suspect it was sparked by our flower collages a few weeks ago. I'm really impressed at her craft work lately, she's coming up with a lot of ideas on her own, and has the manipulative skills to turn them into actual objects. She also made some letters out of the paddlepop sticks, although she messed them up before I could take a photo.

We were really glad to see this rain, as it's the first we've had since the last lot I wrote about, over a month ago! Very unusual for spring.

I know, I write about the rain quite a lot. But when you're living simply, it really does have a big effect on your life. And not in the annoying 'I'm going to get wet walking from the car to the shops' kind of way either. We rely on the rain to fill our water tanks so that we have fresh water to drink, shower and wash with, and to water the garden. Nothing makes the garden grow so much as a good soaking from the rain. Somehow, it's totally different to being watered with the hose or a watering can.

The rain inspired me to spread the rest of the sugar cane mulch around the front garden. It's well and truly soaked now, as is the ground underneath it, so hopefully even if we have another dry spell, it will stay wet, meaning I will have to water less, and what watering I do do will be more efficient. I hope it hangs around long enough for me to get some more mulching done, although I have so much else to do in the next few days, not sure how that will go.

It also inspired us to jump in and do a job that has been needing to be done for a while, digging a channel down the side of the house to drain some of the water that usually collects there. A good half hour in the rain, and we had improved things substantially. And of course, both DH and I needed a good shower! DD had a ball playing in the rain while we worked though.

While we were out there, DH cleared the gutters again, as they were overflowing yet again, even though it was only a few weeks ago that we cleared them last. We were debating over whether the cost of professional gutter guard was warranted, but after seeing that, it's definitely necessary, so we'll organise that on Monday.

Today I also managed to knock over another few jobs that have been on my mental to-do list, making soap, and making yogurt.

This is my second attempt at making soap using the tutorial on Down to Earth. The first lot was definitely usable, although not exactly pretty. I think my biggest problem was that I was stirring by hand, and after more than 20 minutes, had still barely reached trace. That was solved though by my wonderful sister (who will have some soap delivered to her in a few weeks) giving me her old stainless steel stick blender. One of the seals was gone, making it unsafe for blending food, but still fine for soapmaking. I reached trace so fast I was staring at it thinking it couldn't have happened that quickly, and wondering if I'd done something wrong!

This time I used a slightly different recipe also, listed here, which cut out the rice bran oil, and used copha instead of coconut oil (which is very hard to find). All up, it would have cost about $15. I would expect there are at least 15 bars of soap here (I'll find out tomorrow when it's set enough to cut!), so that's a pretty good price for this quality of soap. It's also totally unscented, with no other additives, very very hard to find in the shops! Now just to wait impatiently for it to cure (up to six weeks, if we can wait that long!), then we get to try it out.

I'll post more about the yogurt experiment tomorrow, it's still... what do you call it when yogurt is making itself? It's not really cooking, is it?

Not a Garden Post

I had a plan to write an update post on the garden today, but we had a bit of an emergency with an ant bite, and before I knew it, it was too dark to take pictures. And we all know there isn't much point writing a garden update post without pictures, right? So instead, I looked around for something inside to take pics of. So here you have today's impulse purchases. 6 half metres of cotton fabric from Spotlight, all ready for 6 new skirts for DD. I just have to wash the fabric first (to preshrink, being 100% cotton), and I'll be ready to sew. The fabric was marked down to $5 a metre (from $7 a metre), so that makes it about $2.50 a skirt. Pretty affordable huh?

Then all I need is matching shirts. I've been debating what to do about these, since ribbing is a bit of a pain (and very hard to find 100% cotton ribbing, especially in the right colours), when a bit of a Google led me to discover a binding foot for sewing machines! Just like having a little bias binding maker attached to your sewing machine foot, so instead of ironing your binding, you sew it instead! Nifty. I've ordered one (or maybe two...), and hopefully they'll arrive soon, although maybe a week or two, since they're coming from the US. Then I should be all set to make some nifty t-shirts to go with these skirts.

DD has been a busy little bunny too, drawing these beautiful dinosaurs. I wrote the names on them for her. A big improvement over her first dinosaur drawings back in February. I especially love the big smiley faces. Obviously these are friendly dinosaurs.

And inspired by our visit to the Amberly Air Show on Saturday, she's also been making paper planes. She made this one all by herself, DH giving her instructions, after watching him make one. Her manipulative skills are just improving in leaps and bounds lately.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get some garden photos taken, and give an update on what is happening outside. Unless I get sidetracked...

Sewing Spree

After discovering this free pattern a week or two ago, I've been itching to try it. Unfortunately gardening, and all the other sewing I've been doing hasn't given me a chance until today. DH was away for the day, so DD and I got stuck into some sewing. (Or rather, I sewed, she played around me, although she did help choose the colours.) This pattern is very simple, and makes up really quickly. I made these four skirts in only a few (interrupted) hours. They look really cute on, and I'm sure will get lots of wear. I'd definitely recommend this pattern for any new sewers wanting something easy, yet professional looking.

While I was on a roll, I had a go at this tutorial for pillowcase dresses. As usual, I was making it from memory, so didn't follow the tutorial exactly, and I decided to do the thread through ties rather than the elastic and ties she used in the tutorial, but the basic idea is the same. These two dresses are actually made out of pillowcases! And they look surprisingly cute (and non-pillowcase like) on.

So in one day, using only material I already had, I made DD four new skirts, and two new dresses! And given my material stash, I have plenty more sewing days like this ahead! I wondered for a while if I would have the time and materials to be able to make all our clothes this year (well, mine and DD's, I draw the line at men's clothes, too difficult), but I'm off to a pretty good start. I can't see it being a problem to make our entire wardrobes. Well, I am making an exception to my t-shirts. 100% cotton interlock is very hard to find, and when you do find it, it's not cheap, so I'm buying my shirts second hand at the op shops.

In amongst all this sewing, I have been working on my spring garden, but it's not quite ready for photographs yet. I popped up to the old garden up the paddock this afternoon though, and harvested these. (Well, the eggs are from the chicken pen, and I actually took them out of the fridge, as they were collected this morning, but I've really been looking forward to adding the eggs to my harvest photos, so here they are.) We had the potatoes and peas for dinner, along with a pumpkin we harvested a week or two ago. We're getting closer and closer to a truly home grown meal!

A Change for the Better

We finally switched the main lights in the new house over to energy saving compact fluro's yesterday. After taking two months to get around to it, it only took a few minutes to actually do it (the biggest problem was remembering to check what type of light fitting we had before going out!) We've switched over the three lights in the living area, the two in DD's playroom, and the bathroom light, since these are the ones we use most often. The bedrooms, toilet and walk in wardrobe came with compact fluro's, so they are fine. We still need to switch over the hallway, laundry, and outside lights, but these are only used infrequently and for short periods of time, so they can wait a little while.

The compact fluros are much cheaper to run, especially over a long period of time. These that we bought are 15 watt, but with the light of a 75 watt, making them brighter than the existing 60 watt lights, for 1/4 of the energy. I'm sure we'll notice the savings on our next bill. Although you would think that changing lightbulbs over wouldn't make that much difference, we did actually notice the savings when we changed the ones in our unit over several years ago now. DH also prefers the white light over the yellow, and I have to agree with him, especially in the sewing room. For those that prefer the yellow light though, you can get yellow compact fluro's now. We have them in the other rooms in the house, and you can definately see the colour difference.

Recycled Planter Box

You may remember from July's Unfinished Projects Challenge, that I mentioned a mysterious planter box. Well, here it is, FINALLY all finished. When I went back to find the initial photos of putting it together, they were back in my MAY folder. This is one project that's been too long in the finishing. But now, finally, my little raspberry plant has a safe home, where it can't take over my yard or grow out of control. Hopefully now it will provide us with lots and lots of fresh raspberries.

It's made out of two old pallets that were left behind (or rather, snaffled with the overseer's permission) from our house building. These were the ones that the bricks were on for the house.

And, just in case anyone has a hankering to make one of these, here are some photos and basic instructions.

First, cut both pallets in half. We used the chainsaw for this. You want to end up with a piece (well, two actually, but you'll only use one of them) like this for the base.

And two pieces like this. They will make the sides.

Pull the back board off each side. These will be cut up to make the ends.

Attach first side with these hammer on connector thingies. (I'm really good with technical names.)

Then attach the other side. Then let it sit and weather for 4 months or so. Or, if you're the sort who likes to finish jobs in one go, you can skip this step...

Then cut the boards you pulled off into two pieces (one slightly shorter than the other if you have an angle like ours), and screw or nail them onto each end.

I then moved the planter to it's final place in the front garden, up against the fence, near the compost heap. Of course, it's not finished yet, since it's hardly going to hold soil like this.

I lined the planter box with weedmat on the bottom (left over from making DD's sandpit), and shadecloth on the sides (recycled from DH's parents pergola).

It's attached on the inside using the staple gun. Doesn't look too tidy, but it's about to be covered in soil anyway, so you won't be able to see it. Using pretty much all recycled materials or stuff we had lying around, all up it cost nothing more than the price of a few screws and staples. Can't go wrong there.

Then add your soil and plant your plants! It took quite a bit of soil to fill this up. Half the compost from my compost heap (on the bottom since it's still quite fresh), and about 4 bags of compost/potting mix from the garden store. The raspberry only takes up half of the planter for now, so I'm thinking I'll plant carrots in the other half until it grows a little.

Improving the Soil

We have our work cut out for us, to change our barren front lawn into a productive vegie garden. And this is the first step. Here are the 20 bales of lucerne hay that were delivered this morning. We will have 50 bales of sugar cane mulch arriving some time in the next week or so. I'm also buying up on compost, manure and soil food at our local Bunnings.

Yes, I am spending a lot of money on establishing this garden, and no doubt I could do it for less. I mean, we have 3/4 of an acre of grass, and plenty of kitchen scraps, couldn't I use those? The answer is that yes, I could, and yes, I do, but the amount of compost and mulch I can produce this way barely makes a dent in the amount of land I'm trying to make productive. And while there is nothing particularly wrong with the soil, there's nothing particularly good about it either. We're basically trying to grow European vegetables in Australian soil, and the difference between them is quite significant. The vegetables will grow in the soil we have, but they won't produce as well as they should be. The answer to this, of course, is to increase the amount of vegetable matter in the soil, which in turn increases the nutrients, and the soil's water retention.

So we have a busy time ahead of us, preparing all this area for our summer planting. I hope to take lots of pictures, and document our progress as I go along.

A Crafting Day

After picking up my new overlocker after a warranty repair yesterday, today was lined up for some serious sewing. I had prewashed all the pretty material I bought from spotlight a few weeks ago (to preshrink it, it's cotton), and was all ready to go. Of course, I then didn't want to cut up said pretty material straight away, in case the pattern I tried didn't work. So a quick search through my recycled fabric stash revealed this pretty purple floral material. It was an old granny nightie. Much more useful now don't you think? And I was glad I didn't cut up the expensive stuff for this, since it was MEANT to be a dress, but was far too short! The addition of the shorts makes it a very cute little outfit regardless though.

Next I had a go at making a dress following this tutorial (from memory, since my computer wasn't turned on). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out (again from an old granny nighty that I posted about here). I've always wanted to know how to do that elastic gathery thing, so was really excited to find out how it was done (and it's very easy, check out the tutorial). Unfortunately DD has already broken one of the gathers from her habit of putting her knees up inside her dresses/shirts and stretching them. Oh well, no doubt I can fix it if I get around to it.

And finally, I took the scissors to the new material to make this skirt for me. This was actually my least favourite of the material, but I really like how it has turned out. After taking the photo, I added two pockets, as I hate wearing things without pockets. Nowhere to put my keys, and they always get lost in the bottom of my handbag. The pattern for this dress came from my "Stitch House" book, a great book, translated from Japanese, with measure and cut patterns for a great variety of clothes. For those who've seen them, it's very similar to Enid Gilchrist's books, only more modern (it's from the 80's I believe). I think I'm going to be making a lot of clothes from this book (and the other two from the series that I have) because most of the clothes can be made with 2m of fabric or less, unlike the paper patterns I have (and I have lots) that seem to need 3-4 metres for everything. Far more frugal, and usually easier and faster to make too.

So it seems like I've made a good start on our summer wardrobe. I am itching to make more, and have my next pattern already planned out. Well, I might have to make DD a skirt like mine first, as she's already requested one. Luckily I have enough material left over from my 2m to make her one!

And yes, for anyone who is curious, I did do all these in one day. Most of them only took 1/2 an hour to an hour to do, so I even managed to cook some johnny cakes, and do some craft with DD too.

We made these flower collages from cutout scrap paper and other bits and pieces. I helped cut bits out for DD, but she stuck all of it on herself. She's really enjoying these sorts of crafts lately. We made a pirate hat at the library yesterday, which she even cut out herself. While I'm at it, here are some other crafts DD has done in the last few days (not today!)

DD cut out and stuck these dinosaurs all by herself last night from some scrapbooking paper we bought her for her birthday. The one on the left is a velociraptor, and the one on the right is an apatosaurus.

These little paper envelopes she also made herself. The paper is some coloured squares, again bought for her birthday. She did it all herself, just asking me to get some masking tape off the roll for her. All the folding and sticking she did herself.

Her manipulative skills are really taking off right now, so I think we're going to be doing a lot more of these sorts of activities around here.