Feather your Nest Friday,24 july, 2015.

We had a really cold week! The garden is soaked and the only pops of color are my climbing yellow roses. It is the weather for keeping warm inside and working on craft projects!
Yesterday the sun shone for several hours and it was windy.  I had the towels and sheets all out on the line and they dried. At about 4.30 it started to rain. I did a mad dash and got them all in just in time.
Today I am finishing off the week with a stay in and catch up day. I love these days!

Some ways I saved money this week:

By using up some of the lemons and limes my aunt gave me I made five jars of lemon butter. This is so quick and easy to make. The recipe is here.

I used a jar as a gift. Often I fill a sponge with this and whipped cream. This time I filled little tart cases and added strawberries and cream. They were beautiful! Two of theses were a gift as well.

Hilde visited and she has lemons for me in a couple of weeks so I can do this again and make a sponge next time! I love lemons, there is so much you can make and when I have them I drink the juice of a lemon in water every morning. It is so good for you and is a burst of goodness.

I completed a Christmas present and started another. So I am up to number four! Also Hilde went "oohh and ahh" over something I was working on so I know what to give her too!

We had pizza, I made dough Wednesday morning and in the evening it was ready and waiting. This made several pizzas so that was dinner, work lunch for the rest of the week, a pizza for Chloe when she gets home tomorrow from a trip... and I used up all kinds of left overs.

I found marked down turkish breads and packs of focaccia breads for 99c. Straight into the freezer for emergency easy meals.

While Hilde was here we snooped in the local florist shop. She was amazed by the little jars filled with succulents and the prices. They didn't have any of the jar terrariums left so I will show her photo's of those. We decided we both have succulents in our gardens and many are the petite flower ones that are right for this. So we are going to have an afternoon where we share and swap and pot up session. This will be so much fun! Now to save interesting containers (I have some) suitable jars, soil, pebbles etc. Plus I will make labels with string ahead of time to add to them. I bet we can make some for our own tables plus a heap of presents each. I also thought of making up a tray of small potted succulents as a gift so that the gift is a dozen different varieties all presented nicely.

At the florist these ones are $25 each... I better point out they are small, tiny little individual succulents. (picture looks bigger!)

And these are $49 each...

So this is totally doable for probably $1 each and we will have a great fun day! I will show you the results. I can think of three birthdays I have coming up that I will make these for. I LOVE ideas that can be easily "borrowed" and to have an afternoon with a friend making gifts or something for the house is just a wonderful.  Looking in lovely nurseries, florists, home ware stores can be so inspiring and give you so many ideas!

Otherwise I did all the usual things... made all meals, made all packed lunches, line dried everything, used laundry water on the garden, hunted for bargains, used up left overs, worked on Christmas presents and worked in the garden anytime it was a bit sunny!

Some ways I feathered my nest:

I made so many roses in the process of making Monday's tutorial! So they house is full of roses which I love.

Even though it is winter I cleaned windows. It makes things look a lot brighter.

I continued my freshen up and re arranging.

I hung three sets of IKEA $6 net curtains. Yes, curtains for six dollars. IKEA amazes me. These are fine net tulle. They just look heavenly! For $18 the bay windows in our bedroom look like something out of a wedding! I LOVE it.

Following what I am learning from Teri I added a tin of powdered milk to my pantry. I keep it in my emergency supplies, I just have to keep rotating it. But I am using it much more now and in all my cooking that requires milk.

Learning new things adds to our building up.
Marge posted that a website called Ripe near Me. It is a rescource for free fruit, herbs and vegies which may be on public land, private properties and the owners are giving it away for free. Thank you Marge! I went on and around me there were so many entires! I am stil exploiring this but it is amazing. Plus you can add your own produce if you have anything going to waste. I think checking this at least weekly would be well worth it. I am not sure if the US has anything similar but this is fantastic for Australia. I found some amazing things. You can also check it before heading off anywhere. I was traveling several suburbs away so I looked along the roads I was going and was amazed how many entires there were. This is going to be good!

I hope you had a great week. How did you save money or build up your nest?
Have a wonderful weekend! xxx