Homemade gifts from the past couple of months

A couple of ideas from my creative exploits in the last few weeks.  Always so much easier to be creative in daylight...bring on more light evenings, as child free time often helps too ;-)



Kester's 2nd Birthday cake, and for those who don't recognise it...he's the Ravenous Beast!  A strange creature, that eats literally everthing...or should I say everyone!  (Yes, an odd book for a 2 year old to love ;-)

P.S.  This is really simple to do.  Just print off a picture of whatever you want to put on the cake.  Cut it up into the main elements.  Roll out some icing, colour appropriately.  Put the paper templates on the icing, cut out, and position correctly on the cake.  Hey presto!

This is possibly from Feb actually, but a very simple to make 'Coriander Spice Rub', and in lovely, simple spice jars from IKEA.

And my favourite recent project, was an elephant, who I packaged up in the theme of the 'Dear Zoo' book, and gave to a little 2 year old girl.  The elephant was made from charity shop wool, the stuffing from a local craft shop.  And the box, was a covered cereal packet, decorated with my kids felt tips. (Hoping to do more like this in future, but probably once the next batch of winter nights set in.) 

The ribbon was meant to go round it's neck, but was somewhat obscured by its trunk, so ended up on it's bottom!

The Herbs Progress!

This morning I spent a couple of child-free hours in the garden...amazing what can be achieved without little ones wanting to help!

The bokashi compost was put to good use for the first time (quite an aroma, but full of worms, so hope it works).  Some herbs potted up and put in the front yard, and seeds planted for more herbs to emerge shortly.

Last week the kids and I also planted some sunflower seeds for 'International Sunflower Guerilla Gardening Day' on the 1st May, and plan to plant and nurture them in the local park and around the new tree that's been planted on our street corner.  The packaging from the easter eggs earlier this month has made great little incubators, and within a week we've got new growth...I'm as excited as the kids!!

A use for Easter Egg packaging!

Possible to live without a car?

©Mr Green

For ages I've said that when our car dies, we'll try and not get a 'new' one...well the reality of that is now looming!  The verdict of the garage isn't positive, and so I'm trying to do some speedy research on alteratives.


We don't use our car on a daily basis, as I work from home and cycle with the kids in the area (the joy of living in a dense city is that everything literally is on our doorstep...well, except the woods).  Andy gets the train to Bristol for work and cycles there.  So we truly are infrequent car users.  It can sit in our street for a couple of weeks without being started and has definitely enjoyed it's retirement, since it's long IBM communting to Bedfont days.  However, we do need one for visiting relatives and going on holiday, and in fact need one for 2 weeks in the not too distant future.

For the odd short requirement, we have great local friends that will lend us their cars, although I do need to look into the reality of whether this still works if I don't have my own car insurance.  But asking someone to borrow their car for 2 weeks, is a bit more of a challenge.

So I'm looking into local car clubs (existing and possible to set up), car hire, permanent car sharing, and alternative transport such as trains (although not really workable with a tent and camping gear in tow!).  One of the challenging factors of car clubs, is where the car is based.  There is one that has cars based at the Civic Offices.  But with two small children in tow, and their two car seats, plus whatever else we need for the trip, it's an enourmous effort just to get to the car!

Ironically it might end up cheaper to buy another car, although there is then obviously the unknown factor of future repairs, as we certainly wouldn't be getting anything new.  But I really don't want to end up doing that.  This seems a great opportunity to try and do something good for the environment, and also to share resources with others.  So more homework required!

General Update

In addition to the car issue, the past two months have brought up several unexpected expenses, and yet talking with others and asking around have brought some great alternatives to cash being spent!  

The blinds in our living room have been on their last legs for a while, but now each morning that I open them, I pray that they will actually open and not disintegrate in my hands.  When I was talking about it with a friend, she mentioned that she had some curtains in her loft that we could use as a short term measure.  And my mother-in-law found her old curtains from two houses ago, and although they're too short, is happy for me to recycle them and make a long term solution.  (Just need to find some clear time to find some co-ordinating fabric, and get unpicking and then sewing.)


Kester was at the perfect moment to leave his cot and move into a bed, as he's so tired at bedtime, having dropped his daytime sleep, that he isn't worried about getting out of bed, and he also really wants to be like his big sister ;-)  A friend was letting us have her son's bed, once they'd got a new one for him off eBay.  M will have that one, and K would have hers.  And in the meantime we managed to borrow a toddler bed from another friend's loft for K, so he could make the transition.  This weekend the other friend got her son's new bed, so we got their old cabin bed.  Yesterday, was the big move day, and last night, M slept up high in her 'new' bed, and K slept in his big sister's old bed.  Lots of great recycling, and the only expense was a new mattress for M!

'I never want to sleep anywhere else, Mummy!'

We also got a bonus 3 months of membership at the local acquarium this week!  For the past 3 months they've been promising us our membership card, and keep mislaying it.  On about the 7th time of asking they decided to ask me to fill in all the forms again, and then said they'd start the year from that date.  Bonus!

And at last the front yard/community herb garden is starting to show signs of development!  Yesterday, Southsea Greenhouse (check out their community garden launch day below) came and dug up the large plant, and is going to rehouse it at the Pyramids (Mariella is very happy that we can go and see it when we have a swim there ;-)  The other main plant was taken last weekend.  A couple were passing on Mother's Day, when I was at the front door, and asked what the plant was called.  They'd admired it previously and tried to discover what it was, but to no avail.  I had no idea, but said they were really welcome to it, as I might need to move it for the herb garden anyway.  They were rather taken aback, but after further convincing, agreed to take it as long as they could bring me some herbs in exchange, and invite us to their open garden later in the year.  (A great deal!)  And so now that the winter appears to letting up, at last, I need to get some pots round the front, collect all the promised-to-me herbs and start growing.  Exciting!!!

http://southseagreenhouse.co.uk/events-and-news/