My Christmas presents to myself.

A few weeks ago i completed a tote bag and sent it off to its new home. I liked the pattern and design that much that I wanted to make one for myself. I had bought two pieces of fabric at the same time with one for me, the fabric was on sale for $5 a metre, very good price as it was quilting fabric, anyway I bought half a metre of each. (usually around $18/20 a metre)

There seemed to be quite a bit of fabric left over so I made a shopping bag to go inside the tote and I covered a book as well, which will also be used/carried in the tote.

I didn't have enough black to cut the handles for the tote on the basis so it has the bicycle fabric for handles. The shopping bag has black handles which was cut on the straight and it has rounded corners at the bottom. i did have to piece to pieces together to get enough to cover the book/dairy, a couple of the wheels are a little elongated but from a half a metre of fabric, it was good value. i think there is enough scraps to make a coin purse as well. I love the colours and as this is the only bag i will be taking on our trip, it will get a lot of use. 

E books and Technology!!

Last week I was all set to do a course at the library about E-books online, borrowing from the library.Three years ago that was the main reason that I bought a tablet but found that any books I could assess were very old and nothing that I wanted to read so didnt go on with it. Surely there must be a better/different way to do it. I had booked into the course about a month ago, they hold them every Wednesday but of course that had been a work day for me. I got a phone on the Tuesday, reminding/checking that I would be attending. Yes, yes, i would be there.

Famous last words as on Wednesday, I got out of bed and something was not right with me. I waited a couple of hours and then rang the library to tell them I would not be there as I did not want to be away from my own toilet! I felt fine but not able to go out. Bummer!

Back to the drawing board as I read a lot and I know that I will miss going to the library and picking out my usual six or eight books that I read every two to three weeks.

I can and have down loaded books on to my tablet before but the app had seemed to have disappeared. Apparently it was due to having a couple of big things on there like Face book. Warren took that off so I could load reading books. Great, I trolled through and selected some books, I start with the interesting looking free ones.

Then it asked me for the secret number on the back of my credit card, no problem. Except that earlier in the year we had had to get new ones and my old credit card details were locked in the tablet.

I went through all the settings looking to change it, I asked Warren (def my go to person on tech stuff) he didn't know and said to just keep looking. After an hour of going back and forth, I thought i found it once, it said new cards and I clicked on that to delete it, went back and found the books that I has selected, not an easy task, put in secret number, Barp, Barp, not the correct number, so that didn't work.

It had my credit card number which was xxxed out except the last four digits which of course isn't the ones on the new card. In frustration, I clicked on the number and it took me off to a new screen where I could delete and put in new details. Taddaah, finally. I spent an enjoyable couple of hours then selecting and down loading my reading material for the first few weeks at least and now i know how to do it, i will probably never have to do that again.

Making a New Clock

I do like clocks and we have a few around the house. I had one in my sewing room but it was looking a bit worse for wear. It had been white but over time the white had yellowed and even though it still worked, I did think about replacing it but that was as far as I had gone with that idea.

Strolling or trolling through the internet a week ago, I saw a re purposed clock and thought what a good idea, I could probably do that and promptly thought no more about it until I was looking cleaning/clearing out some drawers and came across an embroidery hoop.The clock that i had seen used a hoop.

This is how I spent some of my morning.

Using a large dinner plate I traced around it, the material I had bought years ago to make myself a skirt for work, however I don't wear pink and these days I don't wear skirts.

I have a bottle of odds and sods buttons and was able to select twelve pink ones.

The clock mechanism and hands came from the original clock and the colours suit the room as the curtains are a mauve colour.

A new clock with nothing spend except a bit of time.

A Ginger Bread House

Today Aidan has been with us and we made a kit that I had bought earlier in the year. I had seen one done a couple of years ago and thought that they looked quite cute.

Goodness knows what it will taste like but it smells good, gingery without too over powering.

We had fun and it wasn't that difficult.

First aid kit

We have a very small first aid kit for the caravan and I think we have only used it a couple of times. I cut myself on a knife while washing up and needed a band aid for a couple of days.

But embarking on a trip like we are going to do, we thought we may need some more things namely bandages and a bigger bag/kit whatever to put them in.

This is where re purposing comes in. When I tided/cleaned out the pantry, way in the back was a wooden box with two empty bottles in it, they held port but of course that was long gone. The box was a com memorable box from when the pay corp (Warren's Army crop was founded/formed) and we didn't feel ready to just throw it out. The bottles went out though!

Nice sturdy wooden box with a sliding lid.

First I painted it red. I had a tube of red paint that was in my sewing room, why? who knows but at least there was a use for it.

Then I covered some packing foam that we had keep "just in case." and put it in the sides and bottom, like the packing boxes in China, except I am not as good at doing that as they are and I didn't leave it in but I did leave the bottom one in to absorb any bumps along the way.

I have included a few more things that we might need and Warren wants me to buy some strapping bandages again just in case.

Pockets

What is it with pockets and men or should that be men and pockets?

Yesterday Warren's brother Barry and his partner came for lunch. Barry is known to be tight, if one is being  rude or careful with his money. Maureen remarked that she had taken Barry shopping earlier in the week and persuaded him to buy two pairs of pants and three shirts.

Warren replied that he lives in what he calls tennis or golf shirts, a T shirt with a collar. Barry said that he needs a pocket and Warren agreed that he likes to have a pocket as well but many of the collared T-shirts don't have pockets.

I said that he always tries to get them with pockets but not always possible but he doesnt ever use the pocket anyway.

Apparently Barry does use the pocket for a pen and notepaper but the note paper is cut up to fit cardboard and he writes phone numbers and messages on it and transfers to each shirt. Now that is recycling.

Helping out in the community

Yesterday our local paper landed on the door step, I don't often read it but thought I would give it a flick through. During my flicking there was a advert asking for help for families for Christmas and listed the families and their ages and a phone number.

I decided to ring and check it out. They were asking for a hamper or similar and a gift for the kids. I was given family No. seven. They also asked if there could be a gift for mum as well as the two boys, which to me was a given. If Mum is having trouble making ends meet then she is probably doing without, so of course I would include something for her.

I figured that I had a week and was thinking of making PJs but no they asked if it could be delivered as soon as possible. Of course thinking about it, that made sense. No fresh meat or fruit and vegetables could be included as they had no refrigeration at the centre.

I left to shop this morning at 8.15 am but shop were already busy. I had two boys three and ten. I did buy some boring stuff like socks and jocks, again could help them out.

This is what I ended up sending, I had the gift bags and bon bons were left over the cane basket came from the teddies picnic earlier in the year. 

I had enough stuff for three or four presents each.

Funny thing, I was buying some salmon and the small tins 210 gms were $2.30 and I grabbed two for the basket, then I wondered how much was a bigger tin of 420 gms, same price! I changed the smaller tins for the bigger tins. There was no tinned ham but I found enough to fill it, I know it was heavy. It did feel weird not buying meat or F & V