Yule Pot Pourri

I've bagged up the Yule Pot Pourri today, 9 bags.

Also bagged up some dried orange slices and some cinnamon stick bundles.

 Ready for the Christmas Craft fairs now. :)

Christmas/Yule Cards

For Sellers its that time of year already. It doesn't seem that long ago since I was creating Yule decorations to sell.

This year I've been making Yule/Christmas Pot Pourri and Glass Painted cards. I have some Fair booked into my calendar and fingers crossed I get some sales.

More are currently in the paper and pencil stage so I will add those when they are complete. :)

Lemon this, lemon that.

The other day I felt quite creative, and I decided to make myself some conditioner and shampoo.

Here are the results.

Lemon balm and tea tree oil shampoo blocks

Lemon and Geranium oil conditioner

Lemon balm and Lemon ointment

Shampoo doesn't quite lather up as well as I'd liked and it didn't wash out the conditioner I'd put in first, going to try it again without putting on the conditioner first and see how it turns out.

They smell lovely though. :)

Busy as a Bee

I've been rather busy of late. So many things have been going on. Time for a little update.

Work is manic, but it looks like from the end of September I will be on the market for work again. A little nervous about this but I'm contracting so it is to be expected I suppose. I've had a contract with the same company for over a year so I've done exceptionally well for a contract that was for 3 months. :D

I've recently completed my Reiki level 1 and thoroughly enjoyed it, I'm due to start my level 2 shortly. I attended a Herbal Medicine workshop, here are the results. Being well used I must say.

I decided to do a diploma in Herbalism and another in Aromatherapy, so they are in progress.

The garden is doing well, some things aren't quite doing what I expected them to, but its a learning process isn't it and this is my first year and I started a little late due to moving in late.

Progress is being made in the house, the bathroom is nearly complete after finding woodworm and having to replace most of the floor. Kitchen is functioning, and we've had a quote for a multi-fuel burner in the living room. Just to get it ordered and paid for now I suppose.

And I got stung by a bee, 6 times. Poor thing, got tangled in my skirt.

Salad is ripe for the picking

Everything seems to be growing well. So I thought it time for an update to share my garden again.

Salad is now ready to pick and tonight hubby and I had mixed salad with some parsley and coriander mixed in along with mixed pepper frittata. It was yummy. :)

Garden potterings

I have a few things growing in the garden now. Its beginning to look quite nice. The cats are having a field day knocking stuff of shelves. The rocket took a tumble the other week and this morning I went into the greenhouse to find that the kale seedlings, the tiny strawberry seedlings had been knocked onto the floor and had damaged my grape vine in the process. I wasn't impressed.

I've managed to salvage the seedlings, hopefully they will survive, they are looking OK and not too damaged from their fall. The grape vine is looking a little sorry for itself but should be ok.

Thought I'd share some pictures of my little garden so far. Shame there isn't much to eat yet.

KaleBroccoli

Onions

Rocket and Lettuce

Beetroot
Some flowers, marigolds and wildflower mix

Blackberry and Raspberry
Tomatoes
Herbs (I can't actually remember what I planted... oops)
PotatoesPotatoes, Onions, Carrots and Salad

So its all coming along, may need a little hedgerow foraging and looking for a place to find dandelions. I have some dandelion seeds planted but I'm waiting for them to grow.

Making free fuel

I have been a rather busy bee recently, however I have had time to start on one of my mini frugal projects.

My plan is to have a multi-fuel burner and therefore there will be a requirement for fuel to feed said burner. A couple of Christmas' ago I was asked what I would like for a present, I asked for a briquette maker, which was duly provided. Anyway, we tried it out then and failed miserably at making fire briquettes as we didn't have the space to dry them properly.

So after a little research about how best to dry them and now having a suitable amount of space to make these fire briquettes and dry them en-mass. I've started the process again.

I've filled a red tub with shredded paper, which is a mix of newspaper, old bills, junk mail, envelops, old road maps and then poured some water out of the water butt over the top.

I've then left it for 4 days to soak and come back to soggy paper mess which I've loaded into my briquette maker and squeezed the water out (as much as possible back into the red tub to be used again.

The resulting briquettes are turned out onto the greenhouse worktops where they will be left to dry, as they become most stable I will begin to stack them and leave them to dry until winter, when hopefully

I will have my multi-fuel burner and lots of lovely briquettes to burn and keep us warm. Each briquette is supposed to take about 2 hours to burn through if dried properly.

Bring on the junk mail I now have a use for you!

New House

Its been a while since my last post, things have been a little hectic. On the 4th February we received the keys to our new house. Finally!!!

We've spent the last month pulling up carpets, sanding down floorboards and varnishing them. I say we it is more the royal we as in the husband has been doing all that. ;) We've had the gas fire disconnected and removed, a new gas pipe routed into the kitchen for my beautiful and eagerly awaited Belling Classic Range. New white goods of economy "A/A+" ratings have been ordered and received.

On getting the keys we've discovered a case of damp, which the previous owners had denied existed. On inspection by a professional we are now due to have 3ft of plaster removed on the two outer walls in the kitchen, do a damp proof treatment and put fresh plaster on. This has meant that the kitchen sink has been removed. We're now posh camping in that we have a camping table and bowl sat under the tap in the kitchen so we can wash up.

We have a new bathroom suite ordered so we are looking forward to bathing in a clean sparkling white suite instead of the current mottled pink/burgundy one, which suites some peoples taste I'm sure, but not mine. I'm being a bathroom snob here, but I deserve to be.

I have also been a little busy in the greenhouse. I've got some seed potatoes chitting, planted some salad seeds, some courgettes, carrots and onions. I will soon sort out some pots for tomatoes and some fresh herbs. I bought a rhubarb plant along with a blackberry and raspberry cane, so will find a spot for them soon, when the frost has gone.

We just have big furniture to move out of the rented cottage now and the cat's run. Then we're done and life can resume in amongst decorating and becoming a little more self-sufficient. Now off to see if I can get an electric monitoring device. We're on prepayment for both gas and electric and while its more expensive it does make us think about our usage a lot more than we used to. Shocking really.

We have a house

FINALLY!

The purchase went through on Friday and we are now moving our stuff from this small rented cottage into a spacious 3 bed semi, with garden and most importantly for me... a greenhouse. We've moved the plants in and once we're fully sorted will get on with planting. :)

I spent the time after I finished work sat on the floor in what will become my office, sorting through some of the boxes we've taken over.

Much more packing and sorting and transporting to do, but we should be settled in quite quickly. We've subsequently found some things we hadn't spotted before so we need damp proof specialist in and also need to get some things sorted which the previous owner has botched. However as we will be redecorating and rearranging all this was to be expected really.

First things to go are the carpets. Mum has put claim to the living room carpet and we will need to get that out soon.

All exciting and relieved and daunted by the work ahead of us. I will be worth it in the end though. :)

A bit in limbo

This is a bit of a moany post to be fair. Hubby and I are in the process of buying a house, it needs some work but when we're through with it, it will be our home for the foreseeable future. We saw the house in September and put an offer in which was accepted, there is no chain so in theory we could have been done within 8 weeks. We're still waiting, the estate agent seems uninterested, the vendors solicitor seems to be a little wet behind the ears and has required "prompting" by our solicitor to get any answers to our questions. On Friday we went and signed all the paperwork, we're now waiting for the solicitors to agree when to exchange contracts. I do hope that this is sorted soon, it seems to have dragged on far too long.

I have so many plans which I can't proceed with until we are in the house. I want to get into the garden but there is little point getting any seedlings on the go as it will be just more fragile things to move between homes otherwise.

I can't buy any of the white goods we're going to need for the house, so as an interim measure I have bought a multi-pan and also a tabletop twin hob. So at least we can have hot meals once we've moved in while we wait for a cooker. Washing clothes will either have to be done by hand for delicates or taken to parents until a washer turns up, and as its still quite cold outside a coolbox in the garden will have to be our fridge. We'll get by and it will be an adventure. But we have to get into the house first.

Home made Presents

Now that family members have received their presents I can post the pictures on here without ruining any surprise. I love making presents for people, I love thinking about what they would like and making something individual to that person.

I made these Gothy Gauntlets for my sister. She's not a Goth, but she likes some of the clothes (who doesn't?). I saw a similar idea online so this is my version. I knit the black section, using a mitten pattern but just extended the cuffs, I then crochet'd the red section carefully counting to that I could make both gauntlets as even as possible. To finish off I'd bought some ribbon for something else but thought it would look quite good on these. I was happy with the result and my sister liked them too.

I made this for my sister-in-law. She likes homemade things and she mentioned that she wanted a cardi. So this bolero was born. I do have a pattern for this, but during moving middle of last year, its packed somewhere "safe". So I had to do this from memory. I ran out of the fawn/beige colour just in time to finish the main section of the bolero and then hunted around in my mothers stash of wool for a colour that would match and I found this lovely forest green colour. Again, I think its looks lovely and my sister-in-law thinks its lovely and very warm.

I'm now making another present, so will post once the recipient has received. Its going to be beautiful, but boy is it testing my patience.