The World Within our Walls. Being Productive.

Since I was little I liked people who make things.  This was almost everyone in my world as Mum and both my Nan's were highly productive.   Lately I have been thinking about how Nana L spent so much time spinning wool, dying it with natural things like onion skins and knitting up beautiful things for everyone.  These were very happy days for Nan. She was in her element.  She usually had scones cooking in the wood oven and a lot of other things going on.  She was busy all day.

Nan had friends over once a week and they all would bring their spinning wheels with them!   These friends of Nan's were a happy crowd!  I got to be there quite often and loved it.   Many of thee ladies were very talented.   To me Nan was so happy when she was busy creating and making.
She had other friends who were incredibly productive.   Two of these friends had significant disabilities which I realise now looking back more than I noticed then.   I wrote about them here The Happiness Factor of Creating Something.    You would never have guessed anyway as they were very joyous and generous people.   I have no doubt that they way there were always making something had a lot to do with this.

Small projects I can take with me anywhere help me get lots made!

Over time I have come to realise that it is no coincidence that busy and creative people are happier.  Busy hands do make happy hearts.  You are not usually thinking bad thoughts or worrying about something while you are absorbed in creative work with your hands.   In fact you usually end up feeling wonderful.   Rather than sitting idle and stressing you are pouring your energy into creating and this is good for us!

When we have had a good day and achieved a lot we feel good!  Have you noticed that feeling of great happiness, achievement and satisfaction after completing something or some kind of day of hard work?  It is a beautiful feeling!   Jess wrote the most beautiful series that is very much worth studying here called The Blessings of old fashioned work.   This is glorious!  It explains a lot!
We are designed to work and it blesses others as well as ourselves.

Gardenpat is so productive.  He gardens, preserves, runs a small business. 

Then she added chickens and is even more productive! 

The Proverbs woman has "eager hands," she is making linen garments for the household as well as enough to sell.  She is "strong and industrious" and helps the poor an needy as well as having her own household in such order that they have no fear of the winter.  She is trading and working on her goods into the night.  She can be relied upon.  She is busy and this all is bringing great blessings on her family.   She watches over the affairs of her household.  

Jane and Bluey are so productive.  Sewing, crochet, wood work, gardening, cooking, preserving. Joy! 

 Creating things out of almost fresh air like a meal from random bits and pieces,  a birthday cake from flour and eggs,  a garden from a mess of weeds,  a garment from fabric or yarn.... whatever it is there is a sense of accomplishment and getting ahead.  Using what we have to the best advantage...

Vicky gardens, keeps chickens, preserves, cooks and makes Tutus! 

When I was in my teens a young couple came to our house and they had two little girls.   The wife was Linda and she brought her knitting with her.  She was knitting a striped jumper for one of the girls and I liked her instantly.   She was exactly where I wanted to be in a few years time and we became friends.   I just loved her!   And over the years I have had so many people that I have learned new skills from.   Ethel who made and decorated cakes.  Dawn who embroidered like no one else.  Dorrie who took me under her wing when Chloe was a baby and she taught me stretch knit sewing.  She lived over the road.  I would sew a bit more and run over the road to her to learn how to do the next thing...

Mum makes rugs, jumpers, hats for everyone she knows plus charity. 

She also cooks, preserves, gardens, mends (endlessly) and keeps ducks.

Over the years I learned (at least to some extent) the basic things like baking,  making cleaning products,  knitting, sewing,  embroidery including wool, shadow work, grub roses.... patchwork,
card making,  soap making,  basic painting, mending, slow cooking, yeast cooking,  veggie and herb growing,  jam and relish making...  I have loved learning each new thing!

More recently I learned sour dough cooking,  yoghurt making,  how to make essential oil blends and rollers.

I have LOVED learning how to use essential oils and boy has this blessed our household!   

Now and then it is time to learn a new skill.   We have all seen a child so excited when they learned how to do something.  We are really no different.  Last year with You Tube I learned a heap of new crochet patterns.  It was so much fun!   You know you are loving something when you find yourself counting down to the time of day you can get back to it.  So much fun! 

Kelsey makes cleaning cloths, sews, makes beautiful gifts, gift tags and cooking.

I think in terms of improving skills and learning new ones.   I do not think we have to be good at everything.  If you have one skill that you can get to a good level it gives you something you can also trade and sell.  This can be enormously helpful.   And this is where we will finish up for now as many of us are in fact launching little businesses of our own.    I have followed Patsy's journey in starting up her business this year.   She shared the goal and the steps she took. You can see her shop here Pillowcases by Patsy.

Sewingcreations gardens, cooks and preserves (in abundance!)

I have been accumulating the details of many of your own enterprises and planning a series on selling and trading your homemade or home grown goods.   If you would like to be featured and share some tips on how you did it and how you keep it going please email me at brinkzi21@hotmail.com
We are going to attempt to have a system where by we all share each others shops/businesses with our friends and on social media which could generate a lot of free advertising for each other.   Also ways to help each other build our little businesses.

We are working on becoming more producers than consumers.   The more we can make ourselves the better.   The more we also have to trade and sell as well.  I am dreaming of a giant pumpkin patch, veggie garden and even an orchard.  I have always wanted an orchard!  Fruit trees with chickens running underneath = heavenly!

What do you produce?
What would you like to learn how to grow or make?
Do you trade or sell some of your produce?
What skills could you work on to become better at?
Do you notice that feeling of joy and satisfaction from creating?

This week I am heading off to the farm.  Andy is keeping the home fires burning.  So there will be no post on Wednesday and I will do a big Feather Your Nest post possibly Friday or over the weekend!

Have a wonderful and productive week! xxx

Feather your Nest Friday, 25th May, 2018.

I had a lovely week and today is just the most beautiful sunny day after a really cold night.
After posting last Friday I headed off to see my Aunt and on that trip I always incorporate a couple of op shops and a really good veggie shop on the way home.

My Aunt has a beautiful garden and it is now citrus season.  Her orange and lime trees were covered.

Regular readers know about my Aunt and that she has no car and rides her bike to do her grocery shopping and has a fabulous productive garden.  She and my Dad (sister and brother) and in their 80's  Recently my Aunt was not well and when she recovered she rode to get groceries as usual.  She thought that she had lost fitness as it was hard going.  She has a big basket on her bike that she fills with her shopping.   Eventually she realised there was a brake stuck on and it wan't her fitness after all it was just the brakes!  So that was a relief.

Here we were admiring the autumn leaves...

I came home with a basket of Limes and three huge lush while bath towels.  One is Ralph Lauren no less.  Somewhere in my blog my Aunt read that Andy loves giant bath towels!

We had a lovely time chatting over cups of tea.  There was a lot to catch up on!

On the way home I had great luck at the veggie market and loaded up with pumpkin for lots of soup.

Saturday was the royal wedding.  I had soup on and made gluten free pumpkin scones. Chloe came over for dinner in front of the tv to watch the wedding.  She walked in with an coat and scarf and underneath her pyjamas.  lol this is a tradition with us!   We settled in on the lounge. The neighbours decorated their whole house with British flags.  The supermarket was full of red, white and blue balloons.  The boy in the supermarket said his Mum spent the week decorating the whole house to be a cathedral.  

We had so much fun!   And the entrance with the trumpets and the heavenly soloist was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen or heard.  And that Gospel Choir I think called The Kingdom Choir.... how they sang and how they dressed.... truly beautiful.   It was so fabulous I felt I floated on air all of Sunday.   You have to say that was frugal and fabulous fun!  And 2 Billion people heard the Word of God no less.

I made some little cakes for Harper and used up some flowers from my cake supplies.  

Yesterday I made a big batch of Butter Chicken in the slow cooker.   Talking about getting extra meals set aside the other day...   I am always amazed how little curry you need for a meal and how much I have.  It is the sides that do it! 

I set aside two containers so we will have curry again on Saturday night and I will freeze a batch.  So one cook gets me three dinners.  I picked mint at Mum's and made a double batch of Raita so that is ready for tomorrow night as well.   It was delicious.   I love the slow cooker! 

Wednesday I headed south to see Hilde and shop the cheaper stores near her including a fruit and veggie market, op shops, discount grocery store...   This once a month trip saves me so much money. I am so amazed that a half hour trip sees grocery prices drop so dramatically.  

As usual we had a wonderful time!  We picked lemons from Hilde's tree which is just covered.  

I had luck at the op shops too.  On the top of my list I had decanters.   Luke's birthday is coming up and he fancies a Whiskey Decanter.  I found two really beautiful ones...

I got both as I thought Andy will want one.

I also got crystal glasses from Aldi and packaged the decanter and glasses in a large ball box with tissue paper.

Gift ready!

(And yes Andy loved the round one and was thrilled with that!)

From this trip I came home with lots of produce at a fraction of local prices.   Tonight I am roasting a lot of veggies and over the weekend I will make soup.  

I also found two tops and two cardis that I just love.  They are hanging in the sunshine drying now as I washed them last night. So pleased!  ($5 each)

Another thing I got was several meters of Muslin cloth.  This is so beautiful and handy.  I needed some the other day to strain the lemons from my vodka for my Limoncello.  But it also makes the most beautiful face cloths or baby wash cloths. 

I also got  a pack of 20 glossy beautiful cards for $4.

While I say I do not buy cards it is another story if they are this gorgeous and 20c each!  Considering most nice cards are $8 and up!

I had eggs, zucchini and bargain cream so I made a zucchini slice...

I went with Lucy and the girls to the Doctors as the girls had injections.  I was armed with Princess bandaids,  freddo frogs and my usual bag of ticks in my handbag.  Neither of them even cried.  And yesterday I baby sat for a while in the afternoon while Lucy has an appointment.  We watched the Wiggles and danced :) 

I think that is about it!   Our evenings are dark and cold so hot meals are beautiful.  But today is just lovely and bright.  I have a meeting to go out to so I will enjoy the sunshine. 

I hope you had a good week!  Oh one more thing I have to show you Vicky got new chickens.

Aren't they beautiful!   Her son is the animal namer.  He named them Annabel, Patsy, Rachel and Jane.  Apparently he hears these names constantly! haha!  Can you guess who is who!? 

That garden setting.... so lovely! 

How did you build up your home, pantry, preparedness this week?  

How did you save, get ahead, get stuff done?

Have a beautiful weekend and remember to make hay while the sun shines! xxx

The Christmas Challenge. Stamping.

Last week Phyllis (who is incredibly creative and versatile with her crafts) mentioned that she had a number of stamps and ink pads and was looking for ideas for what she could make using them.

Rubber stamps were a big trend in crafting a while ago and many of us ended up with some of these. I had heaps!  So of the designs didn't age so well and I donated those but others I still love!  I thought this would be a good time to get them out and make a few goodies.

There are just so many things you can use them for.  Lets brainstorm as we should put them back into use!

First of all I made a pile of gift tags.  These are always useful and also double as food labels.

My favourite stamps are crowns and chandeliers.  The addition of just a few dobs of sparkly glitter  (stick on dots or glitter glue) makes a difference! 

I am thinking stamping plain wrapping paper or delicate issue paper would be gorgeous.  Also something the kids could do.   A stamp in the corner of a paper napkin for a party... goodie bags and gift bags.

I stamped a pile of little white paper bags to use as treat bags for cooking gifts.

For a party you could have a theme... I am thinking I need to get myself a ballerina stamp...

Stamping works on fabric too.   You can make gorgeous ribbon just from torn strips of pretty florals or calico...

Of course you can stamp regular cards and envelopes, invitations etc.

Barb gave me these beautiful stamps.  I LOVE pretty envelopes.   The front of these look so pretty!   You could do seed packets,  envelopes to give cash or gift cards,  wedding stationary,  shopping lists, 

sticky notes...

I am working on making sets of recipe cards.  I really like recipe cards but I have just started on these with stamps Barb also sent me! 

When I complete this project I will show how it turns out.  

I would quite like to find stamps with herbs and medical bottles and write up the uses for essential oils and remedies for my medical cabinet.  Something to look out for.

Another possibility would be to stamp plain stickers to add to jars, bottles and baked goods.

My stamps will be out few a few days yet.  Today I am off to see Hilde and shop the southern area fruit and veg shops and op shops.  Also Aldi!  So I have a big day.

If you have uses for rubber stamps please share as I love it when everything old is new again and we can use what we have maybe in a new way!

Thank you Barb for giving me beautiful stamps... they are just right, the birds and birdcages are gorgeous and the mixmaster and cooking things are perfect for recipe cards and I thought if I get a plain hard cover book I would stamp the pages in the corners and create a cooking book or journal.

I hope your week is going well!  See you on Friday! xxx

The World Within our Walls. Getting ahead with meals.

We have talked about how important meals are to the comforts of home.  Not just filling bellies but the smell of cooking when family come in the door, meal times together. Celebrations.  Soup on a cold night.  There are so many beautiful family moments around the table.

Achieving all these meals is another thing!   There is shopping, budgeting, menu planning, leaning new recipes, using up left overs,  staying ahead of life little surprises like visitors, illness, storms and simply sometimes running out of time.

I am a member of quite a few Facebook groups and blogs and one thing I continually see are posts by people who are simply out of food.   They have children to feed and they have run out of money before pay day and the pantry isn't in good shape either.
Then of course there is illness and other things that go wrong where even if the fridge is full we are too sick to do anything about it!  There are too many reasons we might fail to get dinner on the table to list!   It happens.  It has probably happened to us all at some time.

If you are new here I have lots of posts on Pantries and Preparedness in my index.  I have spent a few years now building up my pantry and supplies so I always have lots of meals I can make even if the shops were shut.

Having a baking day or a baking afternoon is a great way to get ahead with meals. 

And use stuff up!  This is a post with some handy recipes.... The money saving baking day.

It was with the help of Laine that I really changed my shopping habits drastically.  I went from going to the supermarket and getting what I needed and coming home to shopping many different shops, markets and locations every month and menu planning from what I had, what needs using up and what great deals I have found. It kind of flipped grocery shopping upside down!  Shopping this way roughly doubled my stock or halved my bill whichever way you want to look at it.
You can read this post and Laine's menu planning here.

Once I got going on menu planning I developed a system where I keep a list on the fridge of all the ready to go meals I have in the fridge, freezer and pantry currently.  This list is always changing but I like to have at least thirty meals listed.
My pantry itself holds more possible basic meals but my list is usual meals I either have ready to thaw or cook from the fridge.   These are good backups but I also want actual ready meals too, meals that just need thawing with no work involved for times I might be sick or unable to think!
Once I did this it became both a challenge and a form of security.
All the time I am working on building up my list!

During a week I will cross off things as I have used them.   When I shop or do some cooking I will love to add all the meals to my list and get a few more!   Trying to do this has made me see many more ways to stretch a meal, use things up, create a new meal with left overs....  save something over for another meal. I will think about how I can add a meal to my list!
The list also stops me from forgetting something at the bottom of the freezer and later finding mystery packages that need carbon dating to identify!  So less is wasted!

When I cook up some spaghetti sauce this is a chance to freeze a few batches for later.

I will also make up a Lasagna. 

When it is cold it slices neatly and then you can freeze single portions. 

These are so handy! 

Saturday night Chloe came to watch the Royal Wedding.  I had a huge crockpot going full of pumpkin soup and I made pumpkin scones (gf) as I love soup and Chloe loves this pumpkin one.   Andy ate left over roast chicken pieces and scones.  This was all in front of the TV where we were snuggled up!   It wasn't a normal meal but everyone was happy.
Last night I had more soup and I heated up a Spaghetti Bolognese pasta bake for Andy.  I had one individual portion frozen from another time.  He loved that and I loved my soup.   Sunday nights are often a use it up night.  This is a breakthrough for me as years ago I though everyone needed to have the same thing for dinner (for some reason) and now if there are a few things left over then we will have a meal of this and that.

Other ways to build up some spare meals are to simply always double a recipe if you possibly can and put away a meal.

 I have had it where people keep coming back for more regardless of how much they just ate.  (Years ago I had this problem although not now.)    I learned to set it aside immediately and put it out of the way.  

Add a side to a dish that can be stretched to two meals.  And/or add a soup or a desert that will stretch it further into "enough".

To make up casseroles in the slow cooker and bulk them up with lots of veggies.   The left overs then make the most wonderful pie fillings.   Keep some puff pastry in the freezer.   Pies freeze as perfect instant meals.  You can make family sized pies or individual ones.  Little ones in muffin trays are lovely for children.   Pies are great emergency meals!

Have a use it up night and create a pizza, fried rice, soup or something with all your odds and ends left over.  Make extra and fill the lunch boxes for tomorrow.

Serve up lots of left overs Indian style in little bowls,  add some rice, bread, salad or something to make it go further.

Have a toasted sandwiches,  eggs on toast night.   Toasties and soup used to be one of my favourite dinners.

Save ingredients for another time.  Mimi mentions this... be aware of what is enough and save something for another time.  Over time you get extra meals this way.

Half your expensive ingredient and double the rest.   i.e. if I am making something like Blueberry Muffins I will use a single recipe amount of the berries and I will double the rest.  Same with chocolate chips etc.  No one notices, you just get more!   This recipe will use up a tiny bit of anything and turn it into a tray of muffins....  Miracle Muffins.  (sweet or savoury)

When you have an abundance have a cook up.   These were cobblers I made in my last house when I had lots of apricots.  I would just make as many as would fit in the oven....

They were great on soup nights!

The same with baking....  if dinner is a smaller meal I have fruit cake on hand to offer.

Then I am glad I had a baking day and stored these away!

Right now I can get extra meals by having a quick look in the fridge and crisper.  I can freeze some portions of soup giving me a couple of emergency meals.  I know I have two zucchini to use.  I will see what else.... then make a plan to use these up in the next few days.   Doing this I very often get a couple of extra creative meals.  I can build my list!  

The slow cooker is a big help to me as when you make soup, a casserole, curry etc you can add so many things that are left overs...  my pumpkin soup on the weekend had a bunch of broccolini stalks thrown in.   My last casserole had a few tomatoes added that needed to be used.   Spaghetti sauce is a place you can hide all kinds of grated veggies.   So is meatloaf, sausage rolls, hamburgers, rissoles... you can fill all of these with veggies that need to be sued up and greatly bulk out your meat.  (and also trick kids who are being difficult!)

How do you speech ingredients and make more meals from what you have?

Do you have tricks to get ahead and save?   

I think our Mum's and Grandmas were experts at this!   My Nan used to make a tomato bake Nans Tomato Pie  that consisted of zucchini, onion, tomato, bread and cheese topping.  She also make great stuffing!   These were served with roast meals.  I LOVED them both.  It took me years to realise she was stretching the meat much further by all the sides she served! 

Other cultures do this wonderfully... the English add Yorkshire Puddings.

Asian cultures tend to add lots of little bowls of sides and the meat part is actually quite small but it goes such a long way!  You have wonderful sauces and condiments, rice and veggies... the meat portion goes a mile! 

We can learn a lot from this!

However you achieve it having meals to fall back on when you need them adds a lot of peace and security to your home.  I look at my list on the fridge and think that actually when I shop I need nothing.  The only money I will spend is on absolutely fantastic deals.  With luck these will get me further ahead!

I hope you have a wonderful week!  I have lots of plans including a further afield shopping day and seeing Hilde.... this always builds up my pantry. xxx

Feather your Nest Friday, 18th May, 2018.

I had a good week!  It was cold and rainy... the rain has kept coming and everything is green and rainwater tanks are full.

We had a wonderful Friday night last week, Luke and Chloe came to dinner and we had a celebration of sorts as well.  During the day I had been with Chloe for her wedding dress fitting.  Getting exciting!

Then we had Harper's 3rd Birthday on Monday so that was wonderful.

She is growing up so fast.  She always wants to be helpful.  She loves anything to do with making things.  💗

Lucy made her cake and we had sparklers!

I found some bargains including sausages which I divided up and froze in meal size portions.  Also cartons of cream for 40c. 

I made a giant cauliflower cheese bake and baked apples in the slow cooker.

After a few hours these are caramelised and delicious! 

I was blessed with parcels in the mail!  

Tania sent me wonderful books for my medical cabinet... they are my current reading and some of the tips will be in a Home Pharmacy post.

Mimi sent me a lampshade. It is silk!  Ages ago I found this beautiful lamp base in an op shop and grabbed it.  I LOVE it.  When Mimi saw this she said "don't buy a shade I have one" and she had bought two shades on a good deal but only needed one of them.   So this week the shade arrived.  Now what are the odds that this shade would be the perfect size and proportions for my lamp base?

But it is perfect!  Now I have my lamp out on display and in use! 

Next I get a parcel from the USA from Vicky.  She had a pair of beautiful and expensive black bras sent to her in one of her amazing deals.  Except they weren't her size!   Once again... what are the chances they would be perfect for me (hahaha again we are talking what are the chances of perfect size and proportions!)  Well, they are perfect!   They are so pretty and exactly what I would buy! 

THEN a beautiful reader Belle sent me a package of medical supplies for my cupboard.

Because I try to add to my supplies all the time I have a fair idea of the prices of things and rolls of bandages, compression bandages, dressings etc are all very expensive.  This all was worth a fortune.  Yesterday I spent some time putting it away and adding some to the car kits as well.  Just wonderful.

So it was amazing and I thank you all for so many big blessings this week!

I found some post Mothers Day sale items and this included $3 stainless steel drink bottles we were wanting and some gifts for the present cupboard.

A local supermarket has been having amazing specials.  I think it is because they have found themselves really close to Aldi.   Last week it was the pork roasts.  This week it was Andy's favourite coffee for $10 a tin.  This is usually $22 a tin in Coles or Woolworths.  (The big nescafe tins) I got five as the date on them is mid 2020.  So I saved over $50 there.

I have been doing some trades and my essential oils have been great for this and also gifts.

Now that I have supplies I can put together some rollers suitable for a persons needs and it isn't too expensive.  Yet to buy rollers of a blend can cost $30 + each so this is a great start for someone.   As I got started because of a gift Chloe gave me I also hope that a gift like this also starts something wonderful.

Andy was busy and he told me to say he saved over $400 in his Vicky Challenge.  

So that was my week!  

Today I am heading off to see my Aunt.  I have farm honey for her and photos.  On this trip I do a kind of loop and go to Spotlight,  several op shops, my Aunts and a wonderful fruit and veggie shop that usually has amazing bargains.   With luck I will have veggies to make a big pot of soup over the weekend! 

I just heard from Jen in NZ.  Several people wished her well for the imminent birth of her new baby.  She has a baby girl!  So wonderful to hear. Congratulations Jen I am so thrilled for you!

How did you build up your home this week?  Didi you save, get ahead, add to your pantry or preparedness?  I hope it was a good week and you have a great weekend.  Tomorrow I am setting myself up to watch the royal wedding!   I remember watching Princess Diana and Charles marry. I was in college then.  I love how literally millions of people will come out to celebrate! 

I better get going as I have a busy afternoon! xxx

The Christmas Challenge. Lately...

My latest additions to the present cupboard were clearance items after Mothers Day.  Nothing actually was obviously related to Mothers Day i.e. colouring in books, drink bottles, socks...  even Andy scored stainless steel drink bottles for taking to work for $3  (down from $12) and they were plain green not even girly so he is none the wiser!

Otherwise I have been card making and using up some of the bargain books I got from the op shops.  In the evenings I am crocheting.

Card making is a big saver.  Throughout the year we need cards and it is nice to have plenty on hand. As well as for greetings, notes and best wishes cards can make an actual gift i.e. a pack of five or six in a pretty box or in cellophane with a ribbon around them.  I have sometimes added a pen, stamps or address book.

I love having a good supply on hand and if I go away on holidays I love to take writing paper and cards and write actual hand written letters.  I keep a box for this and a card making session stocks it up again.


This month I got busy and cut up my rose books and made myself a fresh supply...

I had three good books so I ended up with main themes of colourful photos,  beautiful gardens and rose paintings.   All worked well.

All the little bits left over go towards making gift tags.

In earlier posts I have shown lots of cards I make and how they are useful.
Here is a link to a post about cards as gifts and some presentation ideas...  Cards as Gifts.

For some really easy instructions have a look at my tutorial Card Making Part 1   and Part 2 These are super simple!  If you are not confident with crafts this is a good way to get started.
When we are trying to save and get ahead there is nothing that gives you a boost more than being productive.  Saving is one thing... producing things is another.  Believe me... together they are a powerful force!

I tend to go through stages with my card making from fancy to simple.  It also will depend on the supplies I have.  For ages I loved to do ruffles and appliqués...

I like flowers and birds as my themes best but I have made a lot of childrens cards and I will choose books i.e. Beatrix Potter,  Winnie the Pooh, woodland creatures and so on.

For men I will get wildlife books and do deer, eagles, fishing type themes.  It is good to just follow someones interests and go with that.  In my family wildlife works but you could do trains, motorbikes or pretty much any theme.

Every time I am in an op shop I look for books with great images.  Old calendars can be good too.  Sheets of music, wrapping paper, magazines with good quality paper.... then think of bits of lace, appliqués, broken jewellery, ribbon, glitter, stickers, wall paper samples.... so many possibilities!

Today I am off to Aldi and the same supermarket that had the big special on roasts today has a big special on coffee.  Really big!  They just be trying hard to get people in the door!  Also it is sunny so the washing is going out!

I hope you are having a good week!

What are you working on now?

How is your present cupboard going?  

See you on Friday! xxx

Gardening with Sewingcreations.

Regular readers here all know Sewingcreations and how she and her husband work so hard toward building their house deposit fund.  Gardening always features in her household savings.  Eventually some of us started saying that we just have to see this garden and learn more!

Very kindly Sewingcreations is taking us on a garden tour and giving us her tips on how to garden inexpensively.  I could have almost included this post in The World Within Our Walls as really our garden and surroundings are such an important part of the world we create and live in.  A garden and a beautiful setting are so wonderful.  Over to Sewingcreations...

We have around 188 square metres of herb, berry and vegetable gardens here which supplies us with most of our vegetables all year round which we blanch and freeze and use fresh as well.

A little story about the gardens is that none of the back gardens were here in our rental property when we arrived and we put them all in ourselves as we had the money to do so. We funded everything piece by piece by doing cleaning and gardening jobs. The back garden beds were set up for about $400 with the drip irrigation systems and we also funded buying 2 x 1100 lt water tanks by doing paid gardening jobs for others too. I might add ask permission if you are in a rental whether it is okay to put in garden beds but most real estates are only too happy to see lovely gardens set up in rental properties.

Our on going vegetable garden costs are mostly covered by selling saved garden seeds and dried herbs we produce in our gardens on the internet as well as a bit of paid gardening work that DH does.

The ways we save money in the gardens are -

- To buy our cow manure from a local livestock transport company for $25 for 3 cubic metres and likewise buy our horse manure from a local horse stud for $20 for 3 cubic metres that they both load into our trailer by front end loader. This saves an absolute fortune over buying bags of manure in our local garden centre for the same quantity.

- For our mulch we mix half dried grass clippings, leaves and half Lucerne hay we also buy for around 1/3 saving from a local horse stud to mulch our gardens with. We run over this in piles with our ride on lawn mower with a catcher and then back it up to the garden beds to use. This saves so much money not buying hay as often as the price of hay is getting expensive here.

- We save around 50% or more of our own seeds that we plant year in year out which saves a huge amount on buying seeds from the local garden centre. For instance as we have bred heirloom tomatoes over the last 4 years that are now frost resistant we squeeze the seeds into the ground and have fresh tomatoes all year round.

- From our fellow gardening friends we get plant cuttings and bulbs which we use in our gardens and we trade amongst one another which saves a huge amount on buying plants and herbs.

- When planting seeds in the gardens we plant directly into the garden beds in bulk around a few drippers and then transplant them when they get bigger. This saves on rain water usage for supplement watering rather than planting in every drip irrigation hole.

- The household lawns and flower beds get watered with saved grey water from our showers and washing machine as we use biodegradable products for both. We also use our white grey water for watering vegetable seeds in on occasion if there is severe water restrictions and we alternate with fresh town water watering too.

All I can think of currently but I hope this gives people lots of ideas to save money in their gardens and know that even if you are renting you can supply food for your families all year round just as we do.

Sewingcreations15.

Thank you so much I love it all!  My ambition!  I love the row of pumpkins. I want the biggest pumpkin patch that is my dream!  Whether we have smaller or larger gardens it is a matter of making the most of the space.   Sewingcreations what you have done on a rental property is amazing!

I hope you all have a good week!
Do you have any money saving tips that help set up, maintain or plant a garden?
xxx