More homemade gifts

We're well into our second year of giving only homemade gifts at our place. Sometimes it feels hard to come up with ideas, but really if is no harder than choosing from the shops. I have a tough time churning out the same things over and over, so my list of things is quite extensive ;).  I'll add in links to patterns etc where possible.  In no particular order - here is the pile of pressies made over the last months (excluding Christmas).


A blackboard painted tin filled with chocolate balls for my step dad.

A crocheted Mario!  (this isn't my one, but the pattern was so good, mine turned out exactly like it)



Birthstone nest necklaces.  For a girlfriend, me and my mum.  The one for mum includes all of her kids birthstones in the nest, and the gradkids beside the nest.

oops - sideways photo!  These are stretchies in an upcycled bag.  Made for a girl's 7th birthday.  She loved these so much, they will be a staple for girls and some boys this year!

A cute heart box from a cereal container.......

Inside which was a crocheted cupcake pincushion with pin sprinkles :)

A retro-ruffled apron for my sister-in-law

A sweet heart as a thank you for having us gift.

More crocheted dishcloths as housewarming gifts.

The leg warmers for my teenage sister's birthday

oops!  forgot to take a photo of the inside gift!  It was a slouchy crocheted beanie with a giant flower and wrapped with a matching mini flower for a girlfriend.

A tangled happy crocheted wand for a 5th birthday.

 

A bath set for a 40th - a homemade soap, some tub tea bags (from homegrown herbs) and a jar of bath salts in a vintage doily decorated jar.

Typically, I failed to take photos of some of the gifts I made, so add to this list:

• A duct tape wallet for a 7 year old boy
• Fabric luggage tags for my father in law
• Felted wool slippers for a grandparents birthday
• A crocheted beanie each for my hubby and my brother

For more of my homemade gifts, check out this post and this one on Christmas presents.

Have you been making homemade gifts?  Would love you to share what you've been making - I'm sure I'll run out of inspiration and ideas eventually :)

Winnings and gifted things...

The little one is back at school today.  All is feeling much more "as it should be".  Thank you to those of you who sent kind, understanding comments and emails - you made me smile. 

Now, back to some of those posts I started writing last week!

~~~

I won a competition last week! I'm so excited. I've won a few things over the years:

• A selection of dolls clothes (that my mum had made and donated to the raffle) that I had longed for and loved
• A hamper of handmade produce from a raffle at our (now) primary school fete the day after we moved to our lovely community.
• A huge hamper of groceries won in a raffle that I didn't even know I had a ticket in!

There have been a few more, these are my favourites.

But this week's win is exciting because it wasn't random, it was chosen. I entered this photo in a Facebook competition for Back Yard Farmer magazine, and was selected as the lucky winner of 10 issues (the entire back catalogue) of the magazine.

I can't wait to receive them and get all that new information and inspiration in my hot little hands. They arrived early this week and I've loved having them around to browse through.  They're a terrific collection of real stories written by other people, and I'm gleaning lots of little titbits of information and inspiration from them. And that beautiful nectarine tree, which I already love, is now even more special to me :)

I have also been lucky enough to be gifted some wonderful, useful things this week. Continuing with the bartering in exchange for tutoring her daughter, I was given this pressure cooker and some mason jars by one friend. I'm a little scared to use it, but will do lots and lots of reading and it will then be useful for preserving some things that shouldn't be water bathed.

I was also given 54 Vacola jars of varying sizes! Yes, 54! These belonged to a lady who I believe has just moved from her farm to a town home and no longer used them. She offered them to one of my other friends' mum, who didn't want them, but thought of me. I love the wide mouths of the jars, and all the different sizes, and they will work brilliantly with my funky, retro Fowlers Vacola preserver. Not sure I'll get them all filled this year (though I'm trying - pears, apples and dried apples in them so far), but there's always next year! Very grateful to the kind stranger who sent them my way.

Have you won or been gifted anything wonderful lately?

Homemade Christmas gifts 2012

Ok, here it is, the long awaited list of gifts I made for family and friends this year. I've split it up so it is easier to refer to if you want to use any ideas, and where I used a tutorial or pattern from the net, I've linked to it for you. There are photos of some things, but not all. Wanna know how to make anything not linked? I'd be happy to help, just ask!

For Men

• Personalised photo coasters
• A mobile phone pouch (custom fitted)
• A crocheted beanie
• An iPod running arm band (from a sock)
• Fire lighter crackers (a wrapped toilet roll filled with a combination of coffee grinds, tea leaves and dried rosemary)
• Crocheted pass the piggies game

For women

• Crocheted bookmark with some secondhand books
• Crocheted bracelet/necklace/garland
• Crocheted beanie
• Crocheted slippers
• Homemade soap with a crocheted dish/wash cloth

For couples/families/unisex gifts

• A hamper with homemade coffee stencils and chocolate shaker, various pickles, Florentines, biscuits, vanilla extract and a crocheted ornament
• A homemade timber box filled with a variety of home brews (one with and one without a set if photo coasters), we dressed the brews as reindeer for fun!
• Homemade soap using herbs from the garden
• Crocheted Christmas ornaments
• Mini gingerbread houses
• Homemade PJs for the family (pants from re-purposed bed linen and the tops are made from sustainable bamboo and personalised with bleach paintings)

Kids- babies, girls and boys

• Crocheted hair clips
• Block bag and wooden blocks
• Crocheted baby head band
• Bibs
• Car caddy with street signs
• Angry birds game complete with sling shot and custom bag.
• Water bottle carrier from repurposed cargo pants and belt*
• Personalised calico sandwich wraps*
• Paratrooper softies*
• Crocheted cat and bat softies (bat was my own adaptation of the cat pattern)*
• Latch hooked rugs made from recycled tshirts (warning- this gift took 100s of hours of work. Make only for your nearest and dearest!)

*these gifts were used as stocking stuffers for our kids

So that's it! There were a few gifts on the to-do list that I ended up not doing, but will shuffle them onto next year's list. In the meantime, I've started hunting for new ideas to make in 2013. Did you make gifts? Would love you to share your ideas!

Homemade Christmas from the kids

As you know, I've been busy for several months making Christmas presents to give to our family and close friends on behalf if the whole family. I finished the very last gift on Tuesday while watching a Christmas movie (ironically, this gift was the first gift to be started this year and also the idea that started this homemade gift frenzy).  The underneath of our Christmas tree is jam packed with wrapped parcels, and we've already delivered quite a few gifts. So I was already feeling very satisfied before yesterdays advent activity, but it just tipped the scales to thrilled!

The calendar said:

"make Christmas presents for your baby cousin and your pets"

Twelve months ago, I think the boys would've groaned at the idea. It was them afterall who were concerned about homemade gifts when we took on the challenge last year.  Back then, they thought homemade meant dodgy gifts. But after a year of giving homemade, this challenge excited then, and when I explained that I would also be teaching them to use my sewing machine, they were delighted.

I have no photos of them sewing - sewing machines, irons, dressmaking scissors and pins are dangerous enough without me zipping off to photograph the event!  But the boys did cut, pin and sew (with my help) beautiful gifts. They each made a bib for the baby, a fabric gift bag to wrap it in and a toy mouse for their cats which involved both machine and hand sewing.  They wrote gift cards and proudly put their quality, homemade gifts under the tree. Then, being 8 year old boys, they nicked all the fabric scraps and tied them to their bodies as armour before running off to play some complicated wrestling game, leaving me to tidy up!

As well as these gifts, they also made each other a present. They had chosen to buy for each other, and they did, but then they had homemade ideas too! J is the bossiest of the twins, and came up with the idea if making his brother a 'permission pass'.  It looks like a backstage pass, but has a few things that L can choose, like what game they are going to play, or permission to borrow a book from J. It's pretty cute (if a tad dominant).  L made a bookmark for his bat and book loving brother that has an origami bat on the top.

It is lovely to see the whole family embracing the homemade idea. We're all exciting to give and recieve homemade presents this year.   The boys have learnt that a gift made by the hands of someone who loves you is so much more than the sum of its parts. It is a token of time spent thinking about the recipient, love and care poured into a useful and thoughtful item. It is an eco-friendly alternative with less travel miles, no packaging, often made with recycled materials and with only a little bit of child labour ;)  It is a gift to be proud of giving and a gift to cherish recieving.  And (most if the time) the giver gets to have fun making it!

I had wondered if I would continue this challenge next year, afterall, it is a lot of work. But with all the benefits of doing it, I couldn't just stop now.  So next year will be another homemade gift year, and then maybe, many more after.

Ginger (or chocolate) bread houses (or sleighs)

Last year's mini houses.

One of the things I love about Christmas in our home is that we adopt traditions from all over the world and make Christmas all about us and what we like.  One of those adopted traditions is the gingerbread house.  Back when my kids were very little and my younger brother and sister were small too, I would have the four kids during the holidays.  It was at this time that my then neighbour gave me my first gingerbread house kit.  We had a ball!  I stuck the house together and the four kids attached a huge amount of lollies to it (and rather a lot in their mouths).  We left it on display and then after Christmas, I let them all dig in and eat it.  One of the best things about gingerbread houses is how pretty they look even if you let the kids do it all without any adult views to symmetry and clever decorating.

Our first gingerbread house was a kit version with people etc.

We've made a gingerbread house each year since then, and last year, I made my own gingerbread for the project.  Can I just say - the kits are great, but gingerbread is easy to make and you can cut it however you like and it tastes awesome when you make it yourself!  Last year we made a collection of small houses, some to give as gifts and some to keep for the kids.  They make lovely gifts, but the only downside is that I have friends who don't like ginger.  So this year, we have made some changes to the recipe and have ginger and chocolate bread houses to give away and a sleigh with reindeer that we will put together next week. 

I thought I'd share the recipes and template ideas with you.  I made a batch of each this year and had enough dough to make four of the small houses, 2 reindeer, a sleigh and a large pile of tree and gingerbread man shaped biscuits.

Gingerbread

125g butter
1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons golden syrup
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons of ginger
3/4 teaspoon of bicarb soda
2 1/2 cups plain flour

"Chocolate bread"

125g butter
1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 heaped teaspoons cocoa
3/4 teaspoon of bicarb soda
2 cups plain flour

Directions for both types

With an electric beater, cream the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and beat well.  Add the other wet ingredient and beat well.  In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients and mix well.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir, and then knead with your hands.  The dough will be relatively crumbly.  Form the dough into 3 mounds.  Roll out (with flour/baking paper/your choice of rolling out method) one mound to about 4-5mm thick.  Use your templates to cut out shapes with a knife and then carefully lift the shapes onto a lined baking tray with an egg slice.  Continue rolling out and cutting shapes until all dough is used.  Bake at 180C for 10-15min until just starting to change colour.  Cool on trays for a few minutes and then transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.

Decorating requires tongue sticking out levels of concentration!

Templates

Use cardboard from a cereal box to draw up your templates.  You can then cut them out, lay them on top of the rolled out dough (printed side of the box down) and use a knife to carefully cut around the shapes.  The templates can then be gently wiped clean and put away for next year. 

To make the mini houses you will need:
2 side walls 5cm x 8cm
2 end walls 5cm square with a 3cm tall triangle on top
2 roof pieces 5cm x 9cm

One of this years complete mini houses.

To make the sleigh, you will need:
2 sleigh side shapes
1 big square for the back
1 smaller square for the front
2 (or more) reindeer/horse shapes

Enlarge this image to fit on an A4 sheet and you should be able to use my templates, or feel free to make your own better ones ;)

This image is of my templates.  The bigger square is 8cmx8cm.  Feel free to copy the image and scale in your own program.

To assemble

Make up a batch of royal icing by gently beating an egg white and then beating in about 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar (I use the mixture, not pure) and a teaspoon of lemon juice.  Spoon into a piping bag (or snap lock back with a corner cut off).

Use the chocolate shapes, ginger shapes or a combination of both depending on your (or your gift recipients) tastes.

A chocolate house assembled and ready for decorating.

For the houses, I assemble on a foil covered coaster.  Run a line of the icing along the front of the coaster and down each side where the walls will stand (test the spacing with your pieces first).  On on of the end wall, pipe a line of icing up the back of the wall edges and place the piece onto the line of piping on the coaster.  Quickly glue the two wall pieces into place to hold it up, then attach the back wall.  Use more icing to attach the two roof pieces and fill in the gap in the top with more icing.  Your icing doesn't need to be neat, you won't notice it when you finish the decorating!

I like to give my house a couple of minutes for the 'concrete' to dry, and then go to town with the lollies!  Use whatever you like in terms of lollies, but we particularly like smarties, mini marshmallows and candy canes and tiny teddy biscuits make nice residents :).  Last year we used small chocolate bars cut on an angle to make chimneys and some fruit/musk sticks, and this year we used some licorice allsorts.  Use your imagination and have fun.

Lots of bright lollies make pretty houses.

To make the sleigh, I will join the four pieces and then stand the horse shapes at the front.  They will have pretzel antlers added and I have lots of decorating ideas.  I'll share a picture when its done.


Have fun!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It is nice to be back!  Back on the internet and all the good things it has to offer after over 2 weeks without it.  You may have heard of the fire in the Warrnambool Telstra Exchange (or maybe not), this fire wiped out all telecommunications in the district and caused some minor chaos.  There was no eftpos, ATMs or online banking; no internet at all which also meant no security cameras in the banks; we couldn't call anyone and the Optus shop sold out of phones (all those who deemed it impossible to live without a mobile phone ran in there to buy one) and there were thousands of teenagers out there without access to facebook ;)

I was fine without it all for a while, but by the end of the first week without a home phone, very sketchy and occasional mobile coverage and no internet, I was beginning to feel a little bit isolated from the world.  We finally got our home phone back after 9 days, and the internet came back after 15 days.  It is quite scary how reliant on telecommunications we are isn't it?

Anyway, I'm back, and life has gone on here and everywhere else.  I have wanted to blog about so many things these last two weeks, and maybe I'll get to some of them, but I'm going to start with a Christmas update.

We always start our Christmassy things on the 1st of December, and this year I made the boys an advent calender.  Each pocket is made from a spray painted, sewn up toilet roll, and they are hung on our kitchen notice board.  Each day, the boys get a random lolly each and a slip of paper gives them a Christmas activity to do.  The first one was a little treasure hunt for a new Christmas book, and since then they've had things like decorate the tree, visit Santa for a photo, watch a Christmas movie, write cards for their friends etc. 

Our tree is up and looking beautiful.  We bought a new tree this year after a very long family discussion about the various environmental impacts of tree choices.  In the end we decided on a new plastic tree.  We completely understand the implications of plastic trees, but we will use it for another 10 years (or more) like our last one, and it will safely hold all of our precious decorations.  Our tree has no Christmas lights this year though as the power to run even LED lights just seems wasteful in a country where it isn't dark until after 9pm at Christmas time.  Our tree still twinkles though with tinsel and decorations that catch the suns rays through the window.

Our tree decorations are a family tradition.  Each year since I was four, I would choose a special decoration and mum would write my name and the year on it.  When I left home, I took all of my decorations with me, and they all hang on our tree.  Stu and I continued this tradition for the two of us until the boys came along, and then we started it for them.  Each year we all hang our own decorations and remember all of the Christmases past, and the boys will be able to take their decorations for their own tree when they move out.  A beautiful tradition.

And we are starting to get a pile of presents under the tree too!  I've been very busy in my own 'Santa's workshop' and have made all the presents to give this year.  I have about 5 to complete and am so proud of the gifts we're giving.  The four of us will also get a few homemade gifts, including all of the 'stocking stuffers' for the boys which I've made too.  I wish I could tell you all the things I've made, but I don't want to spoil the surprises!  But I can tell you my crochet hooks, sewing machine, hammers, kitchen tools and every other crafty tool I have has been very busy making a wide variety of gifts.  I've taken photos of them all, and promise to share after Christmas. (want some of my ideas for this Christmas? head over to my Pinterest page to see some of my inspirations for this year and next). 

There are a few purchased gifts under the tree, some new ones for the kids, but mostly secondhand items.  I took the kids to the opshop to do their Christmas shopping.  They loved it, and so did the opshop staff who helped them shop!  For a grand total of $12, they each bought a gift for me and one for Stu and they are so proud of their choices - I can't wait to see what they bought!

Our December greening challenge is to not use wrapping paper.  All the gifts we're giving are therefore wrapped in re-usable bags sewn from Christmas fabric.  They are very simple rectangular bags in a range of fabrics and sizes.  We'll gather them back from people after they open the gifts (unless they really want them and have a use for them) and use them again for years to come.  This year we've tied them with curling ribbon, just because we still had heaps from previous years, but once that runs out, I'll buy reusable satin ribbon too.  Gift tags are made from recycled Christmas cards and pieces of plastic cut from milk bottles.

Today, I'm working on another sewn Christmas toy gift and some more Christmas baking.  Today's advent calender task is for the boys to decorate a plate of Christmas biscuits and deliver them to a friend/neighbour, so we'll do that this arvo.  And in the midst all those tasks, I'm going to travel around blogland checking out what all my favourite bloggers have been up to!

I hope you're having a very happy December too
xx

Eight....

Our boys turned 8 this week. The years are simply flying by, but I must say I love the boys more and more each year, both because that is the natural thing and also because I love the quirky characters that they are gradually becoming.  Little people that still love to be cuddled, read to and pampered by us like little children, but can also be extremely independent, read to themselves, hold intelligent conversations (that are sometimes a little too smart!) and are simply funny.

For last year's birthday, we invited a hoard of children for a round the world party. It was a huge success and we all enjoyed it, but this year I insisted on a quiet, family party. We held the party on Saturday and while it was a family party, it was far from quiet! We invited the local family, but also family from further afield and some adopted family with children the boys' age. We kept most of the invited guests a secret from the boys who were delightedly surprised as grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and great-grandparents kept arriving. With 22 people all up, it was a great party! We cooked pizzas, ate and drank homemade treats, played pass-the-parcel (adults and kids together) and thoroughly enjoyed being outside in our pretty spring garden in the sunshine. And the boys received a pile of wonderful presents. In fact, their entire birthday wish list was granted by family.

From our 3 month old niece to my Grandad visiting from the UK, everyone had fun with pass-the parcel. 
And my friend, Jayne, was delighted to win the game for the first time in her life.

So when Tuesday came, their actual birthday, I was a bit concerned about how they would receive their homemade gifts from us and each other. I shouldn't have been worried though, they love them.

We set up a treasure hunt ('birthday quest') for them and they scrambled through the clues to find their homemade bow, arrows and quiver with a pillow shield made up to replicate Tom's shield from their favourite book series, Beast Quest. One of the things we, as parents, love about this series is the lack of merchandising. This means less 'I wants', but also opened up the opportunity for some unique, homemade gifts. The boys are really pleased with them, particularly the bow and arrows.

Appliqued tokens on fabric with belt arm loops on the back and stuffed with soft pillow stuffing,
these shields mean the boys can imagine playing Beast Quest, and if they get hit with a sword or arrow, it won't hurt :)

Simple bow made from flexible branches, string and duct tape with a quiver (fabric covered PVC pipe with a strap that velcros around them) of felt tipped arrows.  They really work, but hopefully won't take out any eyes.

And for each other, they made Harry Potter wands with special bags (sewn by me, decorated by them). They think they're pretty special too.

The wands were made using a chopstick, a hot glue gun, beads, paint and imagination.
Glad they don't work though as their favourite spell is Avada Kedavra.......

It can be hard to make for kids in such a materialistic world, where new toys come on the market constantly and advertising (and school friends) make their list of "I wants" extensive. By making gifts that met the boys interests, I was able to tap into their desires, while staying homemade, simple and eco friendly. Happy all round.

Oh, and I made them a birthday cake for the family party too. I'd had always wanted to make a figure 8 racetrack cake for their 8th birthday, and was granted permission. But I made it a bit more modern and special with a surprise Mario Kart theme. It was dubbed 'the best cake ever'!

Now I can't wait to give them their homemade Christmas presents, and hopefully keep this homemade tradition going for many more years.

I already have a job, thankyou.

The boys went back to school this morning to begin their final term of their second school year.  They are getting so grown up. 

Stu didn't go to work though.  His company made him redundant on Friday and while they've given 10 weeks notice, they were told to take today off anyway.  His redundancy wasn't a surprise, we've been waiting most of this year for the company to set a date.  You see they made some new grand plans that involve cebtralised call centres and jobs in the city and no more rural and regional branches.  Stu has been with them for over 7 years and the only other remaining lady in his office has been with them for 36 years.  The office will close just before Christmas.


So how will this affect our family? We are fairly confident that Stu will get another job in the next couple of months.  If he does, things will go on as normal.  If he doesn't, then I will look for some sort of "stop gap" job to help out until he does.  But despite what some people seem to think I should do, I won't be looking for permanent employment.

Since the boys started school (and occasionally before that) I have frequently been asked if I've 'found a job yet' or when I'll be going back to work.  Thanks for your concern folks, but I already have a job, in fact I have several!

In terms of the employment that I put on my annual tax return, I teach belly dance and perform regularly.  This earns enough each week to cover basic weekly expenses such as fuel and food.  But more importantly, I love it, it keeps me fit, and it doesn't put out my family.  I am here each day when my boys go to, and return from school.  I am able to spend time with them and my husband, and cook dinner for and eat with them every night.  My paid work fits our family life.  If I returned to secondary school teaching (or office or lab work, all of which I've done in the past), I would need someone to care for my kids before and after school, I would need to do preparation and marking in the evenings and I wouldn't have the time or energy to be the homemaker, mother and wife that I want to be.

People wonder what I do all day.  Well it isn't lunching at cafes and shopping with friends.  If I'm lucky, I might have a cuppa (at home) or a long phone call with a friend once a week. I will either have lunch with Stu or browse the opshops with a friend about once a month.  The rest if the time I spend working.  Today I have made more household cleaning products and my herbal hair rinse.  I have washed and hung on the line all of the bed linen (and will soon be bringing it in to remake the beds), I worked in the garden, planting, weeding etc to make sure we are growing enough vegies for summer and I also checked on the laying chooks and our newly hatched chickens which will, in a few months either join the laying flock, or become meat for us to eat.

I've also been working on the pizza oven project with Stu (because he is home), and found time to begin making another homemade gift for the Christmas pile - of which, along with the birthday presents, will be nearly all made by me.  This week, I need to do lesson plans for my term of classes, sew some (recycled fabric) shorts for the boys and do some of the less regular chores, like window washing.  I will do the grocery shopping tomorrow, but also bake bread, make our butter spread and cook pasta from scratch.  I also hope to buy a cheesemaking kit this week so I can add to our list of homemades (which already includes most of what we eat).  I don't have time to socialize, watch tv or read all day, but I do find time to think while I work about new hairbrained schemes brilliant ideas to save us money and make us more sustainable as a family.  I have a job.  This job(s?) may not earn a paycheque, but what it saves us financially, and give us in terms of quality of life is priceless.

But how do we go financially? My husband's job earns a decent income (we think) though it is still below the Australian average.  We don't recieve any benefits from the government, though we do get some family tax benefit, and my bellydance pay too.  We own both of our cars, have no credit cards, are paying off more on our mortgage than we have to, and we are doing fine.  No-one in our family misses out on anything they need or really want.  We holiday each year and sometimes go out for tea or do other things like the pool or a movie.  We're doing just fine.

So to the people that ask about my job status, I just want to say, thanks for your concern, but I already have several jobs and a comfortable, happy and full life.  We don't need to change.

Slow living month - September

I know I'm 5 days late with this journal - its been hard to find the time and motivation to get here to blog this week.  We're on school holidays and the boys and I have been having a ball, and the weather has been great, so I've been in the garden a lot.  But I do love these journal type of entries, so here it is, Slow Living Month September.  Do pop over to Slow Living Essentials and see what others have been up to.... that's what I plan to do as soon as I'm done typing this :)

~Nourish~

We celebrated early spring one night by taking our dinner outside.  We cooked our tortillas on the BBQ plate and ate by candlelight.  We realised that early spring is really the only time you can eat outside by candlelight with kids - in summer it is too late by the time it is dark and in winter it is too cold.  It was a lovely, impromptu, weeknight dinner.  I love making our own tortillas, it is one of the few things that Stu and I cook cooperatively and I love it.  We are also now getting plenty of eggs, so there has been a resurgence of egg based meals and pancakes on weekends.

~Grow~

September in the garden has been all about preparing for summer crops.  I continued to plant and nurture seedlings in the cold frame and started planting out.  Unfortunately, snails and slugs are a huge problem here, so I've been fighting them at every step along the way.  I've continued to harvest greens from the garden and the snow peas are finally producing a few crisp pods that never seem to make it to the dinner table.  My son has decided that they are a snacking vegetable, not a dinner vegetable - I tend to agree.  I've loved joining in on the garden journal with Squiggly Rainbow too (and will be back on that when the holidays are over!).

~Prepare~

The coriander that has filled our curries with its colour and flavour through winter has sensed the spring and is bolting to seed, so I have picked huge amounts of it to make frozen coriander ice blocks using this recipe.  They're lovely and will hopefully keep the deliciousness going for us a bit longer.
We also continued to bottle beer and our first batch of alcoholic ginger beer.  The alcohol level is relatively low, but the taste is gooooooood!

 

~Reduce~

Lots of lovely op shop finds this month - clothes and books for the kids, crafty things, clothes and a couple of homewares for me and something special for Stu.  An espresso machine! It's not a super fancy one, but it works really well and Stu is enjoying his morning coffee from it.  He is not enjoying so much the regular requests for 'cinos (strawberry, vanilla, caramel and chai) from the rest of us ;) 
I've also continued to reuse and repurpose a lot of 'junk' through the garden for various jobs.

~Green~

Our challenge for last month was to do 'random acts of greening'.  We built (from recycled materials) a new compost bin; switched to bamboo compostable toothbrushes and discovered new ways to be just a little bit greener.  The kids also took it upon themselves to pick up litter when they go for their walks to check the mail or exercise the dogs - proud of my little greenies.  Our bamboo toothbrushes needed a bit of decoration.  They are all exactly the same, so we decorated the handles of them with nailpolish so we know whose is whose.

~Create~

I'm still working on my jumper that I had hoped to have finished by spring, but keep getting interrupted in its creation to make costumes for dancing, birthday presents etc.  And I have had to write a plan for the next few months of Christmas present making as the sheer quantity on the to do list was overwhelming me.  

Here are a couple of little birthday presents I made this month and was able to gift to the little girls they were for yesterday. They loved them!

A Tangled Happy Wand for a 5 year old friend

A little "spare pocket" handbag with crocheted decals.

We also started on the pizza oven, and are discovering creative masonry :) We built the arch to the base - so proud!  (photos soon)


~Discover~

The library loads have been huge this month and I was also given some vintage pattern books which are gorgeous.  On the reading pile are: Living the Good Life, A Katie Fforde novel, numerous books on building woodfired ovens, a couple of copies of G magazine and a book called A slice of Organic. 

~Enhance~

We had our Spring Hafla at Belly Dance.  I love gathering with the community that we've built with our little belly dance group.  We always have a great atmosphere and fabulous fun.  I was so proud of my own kids and all of the other Belly Kids and adult students who graced the stage with the crazy collection of dances I've been teaching them this year.  It is always such a pleasure to watch a student take to the stage for the first time and to watch the buzz they get from such an achievement.  I had numerous people congratulate me on the diversity and family friendliness of the group, I work hard to make sure that all women and kids, regardless of their abilities or body shape, size age etc are not only welcome, but truly included.  I'm really glad this shows.  I also love that I get to share this with my hubby and kids - special!

Some crazy Shaabi style fun with my intermediate students.  This style is representative of modern 'nightclub' style dancing, hence the casual jeans costume.  All just for fun really :)

~Enjoy~

I've enjoyed the first rays of Spring sunshine.  The first week of holidays with my kids.  Hanging out on screen free Saturday nights with Stu.  Having my stepmum visiting and taking her to meet Clover (and in doing so getting to spend time with my awesome bro and sis-in-law again).  A photoshoot with my little spunky guys before their school disco.  A family day at my mum's place where I felt closer to her and my little brother and sister than I have in a long time.  Dinner and dancing fun with my dancing sisters, including some time where we banned belly dance talk and just connected as friends.  And much more. A good month.

Juggling balls Tutorial - two ways

Following on from my post about homemade gifts, Wendy from South Africa asked how I make my juggling balls.  Juggling balls make a great gift for boys (and girls) in that hard to make for age - ie. 7-adult!  My kids go to a lot of parties for 7 year olds at the moment, so these are a popular gift in our household, but I know my teen and adult relatives would also like a set.

So here are two ways to make them.  Note the second method makes nicer and sturdier juggling balls :)

The first is a no-sew method - VERY easy and probably with items you have hanging around.

Materials (per ball)

• 1 small freezer bag
• 3 balloons
• 2/3 cup rice (or bird seed)
• sticky tape
• Scissors

How to do it:

1. Put your rice into the freezer bag nd tape the bag over to make sure the rice is secure
2. Chop the tail off your balloons
3. Stretch one balloon over the bag of rice and mould it into a round shape with your hands
4. Stretch your second and then third ballon over the top, covering up the hole in the first with the second and finishing with all balloons overlapping for a decorative effect.  You can cut an extra hole or two in the third balloon too to allow the other colours to show through.

NOTE: these are great, but won't last forever if used a lot.  The next ones are better for that.

  

The second is a sewing method.  Also easy (if you have a sewing machine) and made with small fabric scraps, so budget friendly too.

Materials (per ball)

• rectangle of fabric about 22 x 11cm - could be any non-stretch fabric (I used denim and cotton poplin, both either recycled or scraps from other projects)
• sewing machine threaded with matching thread
• about 1/2 cup of rice (or you can use bird seed or the plastic beads from craft shops)
• scissors
• iron and ironing board
• funnel

How to do it:

1. Cut your fabric into rectangles about 22cm x 11cm and iron flat.

2. Fold your rectangle in half lengthways (you will end up with a square) and using a straight stitch, sew around the bottom and side of the square.  (you can do 2 lines of stitching for strength if you like)

3. Fold over about 1cm all around the open end of the pocket and iron it down (don't skip this step or it is too much of a pain to sew!)

4. Turn your pocket back in the right way way, then take the two sides and hold them together.  This will make your triangular shape.

5. top stitch along the opening, leaving a section open at one end big enough for the end of your funnel to go in.

6. Fill up your triangular (kind of) shaped sack with rice.  Use the right amount of rice so that the sack is fairly full, but also so that you can finish sewing up the gap.

7. (this is the trickiest bit) Fiddle around a bit to get your juggling ball back under the sewing machine and stitch up the gap. 

8.  Make a couple more in the same or different fabrics and then either package them up with juggling instructions (lots of the web) or start juggling!

I'd love to eventually crochet some juggling balls too, but I'm thinking that will be less quick and easy......

Let me know if you make some and post a photo! :)