Car boot discoveries

Went to our first car boot of the year this morning - yay. I love car boot sales. Got loads of bargains for the house and boys, but the best discovery/buy, by far, was a local beekeeper selling some beeswax. Fantastic. I now have his address so I can get more when needed - and it's only 10 miles up the road.

Thought I'd best make something for the kids before I start on the next lot of orders I've got to do. Although they use empty tins for the felt tip pens and pencil crayons, I've never actually covered them (shame on me), so tonight I managed to make these 2 - one for the broad tips and one for the narow tips. Just got to do the pencil crayons and then the brushes.

Can't stay away today ;-)

From the postie today was a parcel from the very talented Gill from GP forum containing handspun alpacca wool. It is soooooo soft and the most gorgeous colour. Wool shawn and spun from within 45 miles of me is just fantastic. Thanks so much - just got to decide what to knit with it now.

This delight is going to be my tatty scrubber. I save all the net bags that I get from fruit, then put them inside the largest bag and then I just stitch the end up. Lasts years and saves them going to landfill.

Commissioned bag and keyring

Here is the horse keyring requested by Claire.

Here's piccies of the pink bag that a Michelle requested. Laura Ashley fabric with pink liner, then a pocket with the name stitched onto it.

Lastly is a birthday card for a friends birthday which is today. He likes the japanese Manga, so this is my attempt at it!

Free food friday - elderflower cordial

Elderflower cordial - we love this in our house so I'm making a double batch of this recipe. Elderflower heads (25) and lemons (3) cut into slices in the top piccie, then a cold syrup (2pts water to 3.5lb sugar) poured on the top of these. Leave for 3 days in the fridge, then strain and bottle. You can also add 2tsp citric acid but I never do. I've tried a couple of different recipes for this but this is the one I like best (from 80 year old Molly, who makes this every year too).

I can go to bed now ;-)

Finished at last - woohooo. I've also finished the pink bag too, so that will be in the post tomorrow (hopefully piccies to follow).

Busy, busy

I've been really busy these last few days. I've made a horse keyring for Claire (piccies after she's recieved it), I've been doing the pink bag, I've made strawberry jam this morning, and I've been round the charity shops again. I only found a couple of balls of wool (plus other bits for the kids) and then I got some jute string for crafting.

The house smelt lovely this morning while I was doing the strawberry jam - I think more people would make it if they knew how easy it was. We love strawberry jam in this house, so this will be the first of many batches to last us the year.

I ordered a few books from Amazon, which arrived this morning. they are full of gorgeous things. The long awaited (or it seems like that anyway) fabric arrived today too. Now I can finish the garden bag as the fabric with the cockerel on it was there too. Depending on how the day goes there may be a picture of that later.

Pickles galore!

Spent the last couple of days pickling eggs, beetroot and onions. Going to be doing some strawberry jam later this week (unless we eat them all first).

Don't you just love charity shops

While browsing the local charity shops again on Friday I managed to find these goodies...

2.5metres patterned fabric, and a green sheet and pillowcase (to use as fabric)....

buttons (of course) and 2 bamboo knitting needles (odd sizes but at 10p for the 2 who could resist ;-) ). I actually have 3 odd bamboo needles now, so if I keep looking I'll hopefully end up with a good set - all bought in the charity shop. Also in this picture is a bag with lead weights in for putting in curtains - another bargain at 30p. Altogether I spent £4.30.

Now to balance out the bargains I went for a stroke of the wool in a wool shop (I really don't need to buy any) and came out with some buttons - but they are just so gorgeous aren't they? These were 40p each so I only got 3 - not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but they are lovely to look at.

I hope you've had a look at the lovely handmade showcase since I put it in the sidebar thingy. I'm trying to persuade my brother to set up an online shop for his drawings as they are absolutely fantastic, but I think I'll have to keep working on him.

Back again

I've been helping my MIL this afternoon sorting through her Mum's house. I came away with a few things including a velvet jacket that I will use the fabric on because it wasn't suitable for the charity shop; a large, deep-sided tray that I am going to use as a work tray on my knee; and a knitting bag full of wool and knitting needles. Fantastic.

Did anyone watch Kirsty's Handmade Home on channel 4? I watched it and thought it was fantastic. It gave me more confidence to use second-hand/handmade in my home. I love charity shops and car boot sales anyway, but seeing it on TV made such a change from the normal house programmes that you get. Anyway, I'd definitely recommend watching it if you have access to the repeats/on-demand telly. With this in mind I'm going to add a handmade showcase to my blog to show you some of the lovely, talented people that I use to purchase things.

Where does the time go?

I can't believe it's been 4 days since I last updated here!!! I've had a very busy week so far - started my group bereavement counselling on Monday evening, been out walking everyday, been very busy at home, been crafting, wooooohooo. It's been a good week.

I just had to show you these tomatoes that came in our weekly organic veg box...they are just gorgeous. Made them into a mozzerella and tomato salad.

I've got the scarecrow bag all finished with the liner and everything. I've also made the liner for the cottage bag but the lady asked if I could add a cockeral as well, so I'm just waiting for a gorgeous piece of fabric to arrive so I can finish that completely.

These arrived in the post yesterday morning from the very talented Claire - thank you so much (I'll be emailing you later my lovely).

Right, must dash as I'm supposed to be somewhere in 5 mins and I still haven't sorted out my hair, but I'll be back later with some other stuff.