Flickr and finances :(

A lot of you are probably already on Flickr, but I have only just joined up, Im behind everyone in these things so forgive me, Im hoping to get more exposure ( not in that way cheeky!), for my crafted items, at the moment my partner and I are really finding things difficult and as we both are at home, doing homeschool, he is self employed and Im trying to get some extra money from my sewn/painted items, it is financially hard. We have been in talks about whether it would be a good idea to both get full time jobs working for the man and seeing if we are any better off. I don't want the boys to go back to school so we would have to work around that too and that is going to be tricky, I love our lives at home but now the eldest has left college and is trying (not very hard) to find himself a job, things are difficult. So I really want to be able to sell my things and make a living that way. I need to sort out my website, its ok but I do have a super one ready with music, moving things etc, trouble is I have to buy a domain name and hosting for it (money again you see), Im always posting on FB and attending craft fairs when I can, the last one I did on sunday was naff for me, my friend bought some things off me, so I was only a £1 down after paying for the table, it's so disheartening when you have put in a lot of effort and been up at 6am not to make any sales. Have you any ideas on how to improve my chances of becoming more successful?, I don't mind harsh words and suggestions, so feel free x

I like a russian cushion!

A quick catch up, we had a great enrichment day at the zoo with the monkeys but it was freezing cold so we didn't stick around long, in fact the weather has been rather rubbish, mother nature if your listening we would like some sunshine please!.

 I have been planting chilli's, basil, coriander, peppers and lots of flowers including sunflowers and verbena, which I adore for it's vivid purple flowers. I bought 2 small rhubarb plants and hopefully will get out into the garden soon to plant them. We have moved our pond now to make way for Tom's medicine herb garden. It all looked great but the neighbours cats have taken to pooing right next to it, I did ask for some lion poo from the zoo but wasn't allowed!

I have been busy making hings to sell on misi and to sell at a craft fair coming up in march. These Russian style babushka dolls have been in my head for ages and I just cracked on and made them, I also made a bag too with an appliqued one on but haven't got a photo yet. These 2 lovely ladies are on sale in my misi (link on right hand side of this page), now for £12.00 each, do you think this is an OK price?, I'm rubbish at pricing up stuff I make.

 

I'm not liking the new blogger type layout for writing new posts, I can't seem to make it go in the middle-Grrr.

I received a great permaculture book off one of the lovely ladies over at green parent, it's really good and I'm sure it will come in handy as the redesign goes on with our garden, ooh I also found some lovely wooden window frames in a skip just perfect for making my Alys Fowler style greenhouse!

I have just started reading the lovely bones as recommended by another friend, I'm liking it so far but it seems I hardy get the chance to read a full book lately, I'm always spending my spare time in cyber land, maybe if the solar storm hits and we lose our ability to connect with the cable our lives will become less virtual!

step into spring with no shampoo

Things have been rather tight around here and as I signed up to spend free January, which I may add I failed as I bought my youngest a carpet for his bedroom!, I am watching our pennies carefully. Now poverty is relative of course and when I say I have no money, I mean I have no money except to put in the gas and elec meter, sometimes not even that these days, so I end up borrowing it off my mum, can you believe it, I'm 34 and I still borrow money off my mum!! nuts.

Well it was one of those weeks and we had ran out of shampoo, I normally spend £6-£7 a bottle on shampoo as it is chemical free and as with all things that are better for you it comes at a higher price. I have very thick hair and when it gets dirty, it makes me have headaches so I needed to give it a wash. I had a browse around the net and found this site

I followed the instructions and rubbed the bicarb into my scalp, it felt sandy and gritty, I didn't really like the feeling to be honest, it seemed easier when I added a little water to make it more runny, my hair was very tangled and felt like a damp dog, but when I added the vinegar rinse it untangled by itself, the smell of the vinegar was really off putting to me because as a child I had long hair, to the back of my knees and my mum used to rinse my hair in vinegar (lots of it), so I was thinking of that. Oh and probably because I only had malt vinegar in the cupboard! When dry my hair felt cleaner and pretty OK, this only lasted a day though and I'm not a girl to be washing my hair every day as it takes nearly 6 hours to dry.

Next up on my no shampoo idea was bicarb, vinegar followed with conditioner (still had this left) - bad idea, my hair was awful, real clumpy and waxy.
Completely by accident after finding out my soap running out and I didn't have the £3 for a new bar ( I told you chem free stuff is expensive!) I bought a bar of 99p olive oil soap

This one from our local health food shop, it is available at Holland and Barratt and other local health food shops too I'm guessing, well back to the no shampoo thing.... I needed to clean my hair so squeezing half a lemon into an old shampoo bottle and adding some water to it, I jumped in the shower, rubbed this soap all over my hair and rinsed with the lemon mix, ohh it was too lovely, my head felt so clean, my hair was totally smooth. After towel drying it and scrunching it into a hairband to dry off on it's own, I was amazed when I took my hair down, it was all curly and shiny and gorgeous. My youngest put his face in my hair and said it smelled good enough to eat!
I saw my friend who I had not seen since Christmas and she commented on how healthy my hair looked, you can imagine her surprise when I told her what I have been using. We have all been converted no to no shampoo, I only wished I had done it sooner.

Also I have a girl crush on a lovely gardener who I discovered quite by chance -Alys Fowler (who I think should change her surname to flower). I know I am sooo behind everyone else in all that I do but I missed her series last year so my lovely BF got it for me off the comp and put the entire series onto disc so I spent two nights in complete grow your own heaven. She is totally different from most grow your owner's in that she doesn't use formal lines, it is a mish mash of a bit of all sorts - I like that. If ,Like me, you are less than formal in anything you do and you haven't discovered her, I urge you to, it will make your day and her clothes are super cute too, I want to be her friend and have cups of nettle tea in her garden whilst discussing how beautiful the nasturtiums look, so Alys Fowler if you happen to read this, please be my new friend ;)

Argh bogey face!!

You know those days where your all at sixes and sevens and you don't really know what to do with yourself?, I had this great idea of being so Sunday selfish and pampering my old worn out body and dry, wrinkly face, I ran myself a hot bath and made some lavender and oat bath bags to infuse the water and prepared an organic avocado and honey face mask, Mmm you may say as I did whilst mixing and feeling gleeful, I plastered it on my face, put cucumbers on my tired eyes and instructed a child to shout me in 10 mins.

I lay on my bed thinking of all lovely things when I started to feel an itch, then a burning on my face, "oh it must be working" I thought, still led there thinking its normal that my face is getting hotter and the itch is getting intense, I asked the child how long had I got left "6 minutes mum" came the reply.

I was now thinking "shit I can't wait any longer", I rushed to the bathroom where another child was on the loo,"arghhh Bogey face" he shouted and as I moved forward to get the toilet roll he screamed so piercingly it made me a little deaf, he kept shouting "get out", not because he was on the loo but because he thought I actually had green snot on my face?!. I ignored his screams and started to wipe the face mask off, underneath the green gunk I had huge hives, big red patches and I felt like it was on fire, I rinsed, still burning, I smothered my face in coconut oil and lavender (lavender is great for getting rid of spots/bumps etc), it still burned, I plunged my head in the bath water and found relief, although this was short lived.

It eventually calmed down although I was bumpy for a few hours and then red patches appeared, that was yesterday and today I am left with a red blob in the middle of my forehead, I look like Gandhi :(

so much for pampering, damn that avocado!.

Frugal 2011, making bread....

Reassessing things after Christmas as we all do and thinking, new year, new start etc as we all do too, I considered my spending, it is at a minimum anyway because I think we all have too much "stuff," but I love collecting old furniture, fabric, vintage/retro home wares, books, vinyl records and clothes, I'm quite terrible actually, but 90% of what I buy is second hand or given to me. The only things I buy new are shoes, knickers and bra's and the boys pants from Boden because they are great quality and last ages, well thinking of it I buy most of their clothes new because it is hard to get second hand older boys clothes that are decent. But this isn't that much over a year.

So I set myself a little challenge, to minimise our spending even further so I can save up for things we actually need/will benefit our lives/make lasting memories.

Over the next few weeks I will be posting about the kinds of things I'm doing to save money, be closer to a natural way of living and hopefully inspiring others to do the same.

I am very particular about what we eat and love to cook so I won't compromise on spending money on food at all, it has to be organic, free range, outdoor bred etc, I have made some menu's up though to try and get more out of my money, we bake our own bread which saves us a fortune and the lovely smell that lingers in the air is unbeatable, this is why supermarkets have a "bakery" (most just reheat frozen loaves!), so the smell makes customers hungry. If you haven't got a bread maker already I really do recommend you save up and get a decent one, taking to friends and my own experience it is worth spending that bit extra on one, ours is this one, which bakes bread, mixes dough, you can even do cake mix in it, although I haven't tried that as I like the process of mixing cakes myself.

It is simple to use, you just weigh out the ingredients from the cookbook that comes with it and pop them into the bread pan that goes inside the bread maker, choose your bread setting and voila in and 2 hours you have a lovely loaf, all hot and delicious! We have made fruit loaf, which is lovely, curry bread made with mango chutney and curry paste, believe me it IS good.

You can of course bake your own loaves in the oven, I have tried and failed many times, they always come out like bricks!!

working it out, a loaf of bread from our local shop costs £1.30 each, (not organic) we as a family of 5 eat on average about 6 loaves a week, sometimes more (if it's fruit loaf!!) so that's £7.80 a week compared to doves organic white flour at £1.87, this would make 3 large loaves, doves organic yeast, 1.29p, one packet lasts us about 3-4 weeks, then in our bread maker you add a tsp salt, 1oz marg, 2 tsp sugar and water, so pennies really, I will allocate 90p for these things, so all together for a weeks worth of organic bread =£4.50, over the course of a year you would save £171.60 on bread alone!

Happy New Year and happy bread making, I will be pleased to answer any bread making questions no matter how silly they seem, before I got a bread maker a lovely friend answered all mine even though I felt daft asking her!