Friday 22 February 2013

FRIDAY PHONE DUMP

Here are this weeks phone photo's. Have a lovely weekend.


fish chips popcorn jellybeans swan teacakes ice lolly cats revlon nail varnish


Valerie
xxx

Tuesday 19 February 2013

Simple

I have noticed a trend lately where people are always boasting about being too busy. I understand that life is busy these days, and especially so for parents who both work (outside or inside the home), but I wonder why it has turned into a competition? I see it on TV, on social media websites, in emails and even on the bus. It has turned into a major competitive sport, and sometimes I get the impression that people want you to be grateful they have even take 30 seconds out of their busy busy busy scheduled to nod to you in the street. Bothering me more is seeing children being literally dragged up the street to school/nursery, their mothers having a firm grip on their forearm and their little feet hardly touching the ground. I expect that says as much about the lack of flexibility with employers as it does about frazzled out parents? Anyway, I hope these busy busy people find time to relax a little and enjoy life, because it is inevitably the simple things which give us most pleasure.

sour dough bread plain scones




pukka love tea spelt flour




Valerie
xxx

Thursday 14 February 2013

sheer nightie tutorial


2 meters of chiffon = 2m long 36 inches (90cm) wide.
2 meters of satin ribbon
1.5 meters of white elastic 3/4 inch wide
Matching thread


14th Feb 2013


First I zig-zag stitched up both raw edge widths, to stop any fraying.


14th Feb 2013


Next  I folded back a 1 inch hem on one of the lengths. I am not that great at sewing so I tacked mine first, then machined it.


14th Feb 2013



14th Feb 2013


Make sure your elastic will fit inside this channel. You may want to turn it back twice, if your fabric is very sheer and you don't want to see the elastic through it (I wasn't too bothered about it).

Next I sewed the two widths together, without sewing over the hem for the elastic (or the elastic cant go in).

14th Feb 2013

I then cut the elastic to size by trying it around me going across my chest around my back, including  under both arms. It has to be tight enough to keep the negligee up but elastic going around your body and under your arms (in the position that the top of a boob tube would sit in), should never been too tight.
Once the elastic is inside, sew the elastic ends together, and stitch up the open end of the elastic hem.


14th Feb 2013



Next I attached two lengths of ribbon for straps. I put the negligee on and pinned where I thought the straps should be. I then took it off and evened the pins up (equal distance from the center on the front and the back), and then pinned the ribbon in place  on the inside, to act as straps.


14th Feb 2013


Sewing the straps on will stop the chiffon from sliding around the elastic (too much), so make sure the chiffon is evenly distributed around the elastic before sewing the straps on (machine stitched is probably best).

I had some spare ribbon to make a little decorative bow at the front, which I quickly hand stitched in place.


14th Feb 2013



14th Feb 2013


Because the selvedge was used at the top and the hem edges, there was no need to hem it. If you wanted a shorter nightgown it would be easy enough to hem (and make the off cut into a scarf tied around the head in a pussy bow of course).
So there it is, all done. By no means perfect, but extremely easy, and extremely cheap.
I get my fabric from HERE it may not be the prettiest website, but the prices speak for themselves.

2 meters x 36' chiffon - in Med Blue - £4.98
2 meters x 0.5' Satin Ribbon - in Navy £0.78
1.5 meter x 3/4' white elastic - sold in meters - £1.00

Total = £6.76
Postage for this weight was £1.35, and only took 2 days to Scotland, bringing the total to £8.11, still coming in at well under £10.


Tuesday 12 February 2013

Housewifery - Bathroom

Yesterday was cleaning day, and I have to be honest and say I have become fairly slack when it comes to making my own cleaning projects. We have a vinegar spray in the kitchen, but with the supermarket selling 'eco' products it has been too easy to pick them up instead of making my own. I was feeling motivated yesterday (despite still recovering from flu), so I looked up some new cleaner 'recipes' on the internet, and got to work.

Cream Cleaner

  • 1 cup of baking soda
  • 1/4 cup of white vinegar
  • 1/4 cup of dish washing liquid
  • 3 tablespoons of soda crystals
  • 1 tablespoon of sea salt
  • 20 drops of essential oil (today I used pine needles - 'Pinus Sylvestris')
Slowly combine all the ingredients in a bowl, stirring with a non metallic spoon or spatula. Decant into a jar, for storage. This can be left on high soap scum areas for a few minutes before being scrubbed and rinsed off.
Multi-Purpose Liquid
  • 1 cup of distilled water
  • 1/4 cup of dish washing liquid
  • 1 cup of baking soda
  • 1/4 cup of white vinegar
  • 20 drops of essential oil
Slowly combine all the ingredients in a bowl, stirring with a non metallic spoon or spatula. Decant into a spray bottle, for use.
Glass Cleaner
  • 1/4 cup of rubbing alcohol
  • 1/4 cup of vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon of cornstarch
  • 2 cups of warm water
Combine everything in a spray bottle and shake well.

Results
I found that all of the cleaners worked well, but the liquid cleaner had a tendency to clump at the bottom. It definitely could not be sprayed, but could be poured on to a cloth and used to wipe down, or diluted into a bowl/basin/the sink with water and used that way (probably the most economical way to use it).


1



2



3



4



5



6
This was in my Grandma Rose's bathroom when I was a girl, and I claimed it as mine when she  passed away, it is a Mabel Lucy Attwell LINK

Valerie
xxx

Friday 8 February 2013

FRIDAY PHONE DUMP & WEDDING MUSIC

Friday Phone Dump


phone dump 8th Feb



I have added a playlist to the blog, some of my favourite cheesy tracks, (not Stevie though, no cheese there). You can find the player at the top of this page, but its not set to auto play because frankly it bugs the life out of me when music is suddenly thrust upon me, so feel free to listen at your leisure. I have the same list, titled 'Cheesy Songs You Might Hear At A Wedding' (some tracks don't have visuals, just tunes), on You Tube.




Have A Great Weekend

p.s. I saw my GP today and I have pneumonia and influenza and anemia, no wonder I have felt terrible eh.

Valerie
xxx
phone dump logo


*phone dump inspired by kelle hampton

Thursday 7 February 2013

WHEN I WANT TO, BUT DONT

HOUSEKEEPING LOUNGE TIDY


I think perhaps I have a split/dual personality. One half of me is an absolute neat freak, a germ -a-phob, a woman who delights in an empty laundry basket, who intentionally inhales the scent of furniture polish, and who only really relaxes when the house is SPOTLESS. Unfortunately this is a very cerebral part of my personality and seems somehow to have by-passed the link to physical function.
Physical function, it would appear, is controlled by the woman who would rather drink some tea, or do some knitting, or check her emails/ read some blogs/ or put a cheeky bid on Ebay.
I have to tell you, it causes a clash of personality. For a long long time, I have only been motivated into doing a 'big' clean if furniture re-arranging is also on the cards. The furniture thing, I am not 100% sure about, I know my Mum was a bit of a furniture mover and my Grandma was a bit of a furniture mover, so I can only surmise that one bit plus another bit has combined to make me a compulsive furniture mover. Even last week when I was at deaths door (not really, but I felt pretty bad), I couldn't be tempted to clean the bath, or fold the laundry, but somehow or other managed to re-arrange the furniture in the lounge and the dining room, which incidentally involved dragging a sofa and a sideboard up the hall one way and dragging a dining table and bookcase up the hall in the other direction.
I think boredom is at the root of it, and I have somehow convinced myself, cleaning equals bad, moving all the furniture around and cleaning as I go equals not so bad.


DINING TABLE PAINTS MESSY HOUSE




And in true Split personality style, lets say no more about that and move on to something else, like,

THESPIANS
On Monday evening after dinner, Oscar was in an extremely big grump (having been up earlier than is usual for him at 6:30am). He had cried at me that he was too hot, that his juice was too yucky, that he wanted to be a girl because boys are boring, and that he wanted the real VELMA from the Scooby Gang to come and visit him. I am not entirely sure what made me say it, but I suddenly found myself flicking from page to page on IMDB explaining what actors were and how only some TV and films were 'real'. Far from being crushed that what he held dear was only an illusion (that was a big risk I took there), Oscar was absolutely delighted with the idea and made me show everyone in the house photos of the cast of SCOOBY DOO MYSTERY BEGINS (a DVD we own), in costume and out of costume, in costume, out of costume . . . . . He now knows all of the actors names, and will tell you them as if they were old friends 'thats Kate', 'thats Nick'. When his Papa took him off to bed he was shouting over his shoulder, 'I have a great idea for dressing up tomorrow'.


SCOOBY DOO CARTOON MYSTERY BEGINS




A QUICK LAMENT

Over the weather of course, seriously, it has been awful. If you are reading this from some other part of the country or world, can I just say, well, 'hiya' obviously, but also, you have no idea how cold, grey and wet it is here. If we have one blue day a fortnight it practically makes the front of the newspaper. The cold and the wet seem to seep into every aspect of your life, and I blame it in some part for the lack of movement as mentioned at the start of the post. We haven't been to the park, we haven't been to the beach and the most we have walked is the 15 minutes it takes to walk to nursery. Oscar often cries on the way to nursery (or on the way home), and frankly I don't blame him, because the down side of living so close to the sea is the wind whipping stingy rain in your face and trying to pull the clothes off your back, neck and head. We haven't even checked the back garden lately and I am not sure what we will find when we do, because as postage stamp sized as it is there is still a fair bit of garden toys/tables/chairs etc out there and who knows what state of disarray they may be in. Duncan had to take the wind chimes down which hung above Ellie's roses because we were afraid they would come hurtling through Oscar's bedroom window one night at 100 miles per hour.


WIND CHIMES RARE BLUE SKY



GARDEN RED WAGON SAND PIT SLIDE



LONG SHADOWS GREY STREET DIGGER



And finally....

LURGY UPDATE

We are slowly recovering here. Duncan has a bad tooth which has become infected and cant be treated until he has completed a course of antibiotics, so he has a dental appointment to look forward to on Monday.
Oscar is mostly OK, although he felt quite hot to touch this morning. He has managed to go to nursery EVERY day for the last 2 weeks, which is practically a miracle. I have been asked 3 times if Oscar is new to nursery (in the last week or so), by other Mums, which I expect is down to his continual absenteeism when he first started.  Nursery is on a long weekend break (off from Thursday to Tuesday), so hopefully that will give him a bit of time to shake off the last of the cold.
I am still pretty under the weather with a hacking cough and sore throat. I don't recall having had such a sore throat in years, or at least one that didn't improve in a day or 2. I keep promising myself I will go for a GP checkup, but due to the stupid phone on the day appointment system (which means you have to phone at 8:00am and battle your way through to get a same day appointment), I keep missing the phone-in slot and suddenly realise its 10:00am and I have missed it for another day. My poor Mama is back in hospital so it is really important I shake this thing off, because I cant visit her until it has gone.
Hopefully this long weekend will be a chance for us to stay home and recuperate and bounce back with zest in the new week.  Our boy turns 4 next Friday and we cant be sick on his birthday week, we have presents to wrap, cakes to bake, balloons to blow and kisses and kisses to give.
p.s.
I am trying out an 'updates' kind of blog post, because I have seen it on quite a few other blogs lately, and liked it. Tell me what you think? But please remember, I did say earlier that boredom is a factor for me, and it can all be re-arranged in the blink of on eye.


PLAYMOBILE NURSE PINK



LAZY CAT FAST ASLEEP



XBOX GAMES RAYMAN



OSCAR BEAUTIFUL BOY


Valerie
xxx