Thimbleina

Help make a difference

Websites that may inspire you to go out there and make a difference:

howies clothing - Quality clothing that is built to last, alot of organic fabrics used and thought is put into the whole process. Also a cool catalogue to download with information as well as the products, take a look and use your pennies wisely when you shop.

fixya.com - As per a link from the howie's catalogue why don't you see if this website has the answer to how to fix that broken item rather than throw it and buy a new one? I shall be looking to see if my iron can be salvaged as I am fed up with them having such a short life and I would so much rather have it repaired

The Do lectures - These lectures will inspire you to get out there and do something to make a difference, take a look at some of last years lectures on the site to get inspired

 Supernaturale.com  - Check out their patterns for revamping clothes, especially Compai's tutorial on how to reinvent an old boring white t-shirt. It is amazing what you can do with what you already own rather than going out and buying more

Hope you have a great weekend   

More junk re-use

 

Master T has his last day at his forest/playschool tomorrow so he wanted to take some cookies in for the kids which we have made. Now for the container part so that we don't have to remember to bring one back with us in the midst of all the excitement.

I bake most of our bread in a bread machine each day and those of you that do will know that this requires dried skimmed milk powder of which we go through quite a bit. So what to do with all those containers that it comes in, as I hate putting them in the bin as they can't be put in our recycling. So apart from making into stilts, pen pots and holders for coconuts on the coconut shy I have found a use for them. When we bake for people as gifts we use them and cover them in wrapping paper or brown paper then draw things on them and the make ideal cookie containers when you are giving as gifts

A jumbled post

 

Amongst all the weeds and against all the odds I have something to show you that actually came out of our veg patch. So if anyone is starting off growing veg, take it from me these onions and carrots grow without any care, attention and watering and survive stamping from small people and it doesn't matter if the older small person scatters the carrot seeds afar they still grow!!

 

I had a tidy up and clear out of our junk box. I put things that we can use for junk modelling in here before the recycling bin as alot of junk modelling goes on in this house and you can always find something useful in this box to fashion a van, lighthouse, digger, pencil holder, stilts, scoop, telescope, rain measure etc, etc (just a few of the things that have been made so far). I would highly recommend a junk box if you have children and you haven't already got one as it totally fires the imagination along with a dressing up box of old clothes, shoes and hats and other things that you have collected along the way as kids that come to play always seem to like diving into our dressing up box as there is so many variations of what you can do with a scarf and an adults silky skirt and sometimes I put things in there thinking I'm not going to wear them anymore and then pull them out again at a later date to wear as they are just what I am looking for.

 

Last but not least of this jumbled post a little science experiment that Lady A did from a book that she has got from the library'Kitchen Science'. It uses mainly ingredients that you will find in your kitchen. The above experiment was putting a third of the jar filled with golden syrup, then fill a third with vegetable oil, then another third with water containing food colouring. You will notice that the oil will settle as the top layer as it is the lightest liquid, then you drop in a cork, a grape(this settled in the coloured water layer) and a metal screw/bolt. This is to show the density of the items and get the child to guess where each item will float. There are plenty of other great experiments for us to be going on with now. 

Buttering up

 

As it is another wet and rainy weekend and the rain hasn't stopped today we need to find some activities which will stop the cabin fever arriving. We did all go out and walk the dog in a local woodland this morning and got soaked through.

This afternoon I put some spare double cream in an empty jam jar so that they could try to make butter as per The River Cottage Family Cookbook. Well they got board of shaking and daddy did the most shaking, I thought all we were going to get was a slightly yellow thick double cream, when all of a sudden the change happened and we were left with buttermilk and butter

 

I was really impressed by the sudden transformation and so were the kids. I have put it in the fridge for putting on toast for breakfast tomorrow as we are all full up with what I concocted for lunch

 

I wasn't sure what I was going to feed them for lunch and I didn't really have much in the fridge as I will not be shopping until tomorrow. So I put on a white dough mixture in the bread machine after breakfast hoping that something would come to me. As all I had in the fridge was two slices of salami, three small vine tomatoes and some cheese. I don't think they would have been happy with plain old cheese sandwiches again. 

So inspired by this recipe I thought I would create something similar. I flattened the dough out and lay along the middle the chopped up salami and tomatoes some torn fresh basil (which I grow on the kitchen windowsill) and grated some cheddar which I always have in the fridge and some parmesan which again as it lasts forever is always in the fridge then I rolled the sides and ends up and over and baked in the oven. The taste was really good and the whole loaf was eaten up in one foul swoop - result!

 

I went to a art and craft fair on Friday and bought these for the kids bedrooms and some decopatch glue and papers to decorate them. I shall let you see the results when they are finished. I bought a few other bits which I shall show you later this week   

Wax works

 

We had a go at candle dipping yesterday. We got the idea and instructions from Earthwise.

 

We melted the beeswax pellets in an old tomato tin in a bath of hot water on the stove.

 

Dipped the wick into the melted wax - we used 15 ply wick as we were only making tiny candles (birthday candle size) to start with and it can be used to make tea lights which we may do as well.

 

Then dip it into cold water to set the wax, the first couple of times you need to pull it straight as the wick curls up. You then repeat this process until the candle is the required thickness.

 

We need to find some deeper containers so that we can make longer thicker candles, but this is a lovely process to do with kids as long as you are careful with the hot wax and watch over them. Lady A is going to make some for the teachers for school as end of school year presents. 

Quackers

 

As we have some ducks nesting in a garden nearby and we see them daily wandering around Master T wanted to paint a duck. This is his masterpiece of a adult male mallard. He did another in crayon (the second time blue). I love it at this age that to them that splog is a picture with such detail - he said when I hung it up to dry that he had forgotten the wings, what great detail and observation.

 

I got the stamp and red ink in the post for the party bags that I made up, so a bit of stamping has now to be done, I have a couple of willing persons for that job

A spring in my step

 

It feels good to be creating again. Lady A is having a birthday party at the end of June which she wants to do as a Circus party, so I thought I would start with trying to do some things for that. I have started with the gifts for the party bags. I am doing juggling balls using up scraps of fabric that I have already and filling them with rice. They have gone down a treat with the kids here as they disappeared this morning as soon as they saw them. I had to rescue them for the photo. Lady A particular liked the Red Riding Hood fabric, so I might have to buy some other fabric like that for some of them.

 

Making party bags out of brown paper, by wrapping it around the icing sugar box. I think I might need to buy a rubber stamp to print something onto the bags.

 

Two new books borrowed from the library to get some inspiration for more interesting meals. I am feeling so invigorated getting back into the swing of things

This was not in the plan!!

 

neither was it on the to-do list. Mr Thimbleina was tackled at football yesterday in the first 10 minutes and then called me to tell me he was on his way to hospital.When we went along to pick him up he appeared with his right foot looking like this, it would appear that he has a bone fracture near his ankle. He has to go back to hospital tomorrow to get it looked at as the swelling will have gone down. But not good news as he could be out of action for 6 weeks, so we will have to try to work around things over this period as he is self-employed. But hey life throws these things at you and you have to make the most of it. It is nice having him at home to talk to and the kids think the crutches are a real novelty, but the dog has taken a while to get used to it, she was not happy when he arrived home on crutches, she growled at him, I think she thought he was a strange man that she needed to protect us from. But she has sniffed the bandages and the crutches and she is happy to lie next to him again.

Before all this excitment I did manage to tick a few things off. Done felted Easter chicks:

 

A little top (well two actually although the other one was spirited away by Lady A) one was for Lady A and one for a friend of hers and Master T's for her birthday:

   

This is from a pattern from the 'Girly Style Wardrobe' Japanese pattern book which I have mentioned before. This book has so many great little girl patterns and as you trace them you can go back each year and trace the next size up if you can see the pattern in amongst all the lines!!

Space and the rest

 

Not the clearest of photos. As lady A seems to be very into space, the solar system and all things related at the moment I thought we would try and construct this solar system together. I did all the drawing of the circles in the polystyrene plate (sorry I did sin along while ago and buy a supermarket pizza in a weak cannot be bothered moment!) Lady A coloured in the planets, cut them out and wrote their names on the back so that when she looks up at her ceiling she can see the names. It looks better than in my picture and Lady A is very pleased with it.

  

  

  

  

We have also been busy with the kids making a puppet theatre out of two archive box lids and I made two sock puppets from their specifications, then a show took place.

  

  

With each visit to relatives this holidays I have tried to take something home baked or handmade and after seeing this to a link on origami boxes I thought I'd try my hand at some boxes making them out of some heavy duty brown paper that was packaging in a parcel that I had received. I am very pleased with them and shall be making more in the future to house present and baked goodies  

I think it might be starting to come together

 

First of all, sorry if you have commented recently and I haven't replied or your comment disappeared but Typepad were having a problem with some comment forms on some blogs and apparently this is now fixed. So I may have lost some comments somewhere along the way - probably fallen into that black hole where the odd socks go!

So back to the panic that is Christmas. Now realising that Christmas is less than a week away I think I better pull my finger out and stop sitting around thinking - oh it will get done - it won't! if I don't get on with it. So what do I do - something that I hadn't really planned on doing just yet - needle felting. This is some of the supplies that Angel sent me. I am now addicted - I made these little hedgehogs and they were so quick and easy I made

  

None of them on my to do list and neither were these:

  

Little gift bags which I found a tutorial on Moogsmum via The Crafty Crow. Very useful at this time of year.

These were on my to-do list - they were dolly's clothes that needed some finishing well they are now done and wrapped and Mister T's baby doll will no longer be naked on Christmas day and Lady A's will have a new cardigan for Christmas

  

Those trousers are the same leg length it is just the way the photo looks - honest!

One more layer was added to the baubles - they may be ready for next Christmas