Reggio inspired tag toy

I made a Reggio inspired tag toy, check it out on my other blog Imperfectly Natural Mama.

40 Soups - 1. Spicy Lentil

A few months ago, a lovely lady from one of the blogs I follow, Elise Blaha, posted a series of recipes entitled "40 Loaves" where she baked 40 different bread recipes, blogged about each of them and included recipes for each.  After finishing this project she decided to embark on a new one.  Initially she thought "4 Soups" would be a fun idea, but she realised her husband didn't enjoy soups and thought the project wouldn't be so much fun to do alone, so instead she decided to a project called "40 pizzas"!  I however LOVE soups and make them often, so I thought it would be a really fun idea to blog about each of them and give you a recipe and photo to go with.

My first soup for this series is Spicy Lentil. It is a great recipe to make if you don't have much in the way of fresh veg in the house and good for tight budgets. Plus lentils have loads of wonderful vitamins and minerals.  The recipe serves 2 and I am afraid that (as with all my recipes and tutorials) measurements are approximate!  So I will leave you to be the judge when it comes to quantities and you can take my numbers as a guide.

Ingredients:
1 tbs olive oil,
1/2 onion,
1 clove garlic,
1 cup red lentils,
1/4 tsp ground corriander,
1/4 tsp paprike,
1/4 tsp ground cumin,
1/4 tsp chilli,
1 chicken stock cube,
600ml boiled water.

Chop the onion, and garlic and fry in a little olive oil in a large sauce pan, when softened add the lentils and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the stock cube and water and sprinkle in the spices. Stir to mix everything together.  Cover and leave until all the water is soaked up.  Continue to add water until you achieve a pleasing consistency and the lentils and cooked soft. Take out half the soup and blend, add back to the mixture and stir together.  Serve with toasted wholemeal bread and butter.  Perfect, thick warming and tasty.

Re-usable wet wipes tutorial

If there is one thing that most parents seem to not be able to live without then it has to be wet wipes.  I often hear other mothers lamenting the cost of nappies, formula and wet wipes and I smile smugly to myself and think how glad I am that I am not having to spend money on two out of those three essentials.

Don't get me wrong, I am no saint, I was using cotton wool and water for this first five months of my son's life, but I realised the error of my ways and that I needn't be filling up our dustbins with yet more detritus, that, although admittedly will eventually bio-degrade, will take a long time under all that plastic.  So in order to eliminate that little bit extra waste I decided I could make my own wet wipes.  This idea struck me after reading the chapter about babies in The Self-sufficientish Bible, they suggest cutting up polyester fleece to use as wipes, but seeing as I had a lot of cotton flannelette left from the neckerchief/bandanna bibs I thought this would be a better material.  Not only is cotton more natural that synthetic fleece, but I figured it might also be more absorbent.

To begin with I tore up my flannelette into long strips which were the width of a sheet of toilet tissue.  I then cut these strips into smaller toilet tissue sized rectangles.  Initially I thought to make them wet-wipe sized, but decided that toilet paper size was sufficient, and should I decide they ought to be bigger in future I could just make more.

Next I stitched round each edge with a wide zig-zag on the sewing machine.  I don't think that this step is essential, but I thought it might make them last a bit longer as it will stop them fraying in the wash. 

Then just keep going until you have as many as you need.  I must have made about 50 initially, but may  make more depending on how many I get through in a day.

To store them I put mine into a plastic tupperware type box with a slosh of water to keep them moist.  You could also add a few drops of something like grape seed oil which is the only other ingredient in waterwipes, or soak the water in chamomile tea before putting the wipes in. 

Better for your pocket and better for baby's bottom too because they don't contain any of the nasty chemicals found in commercial wet-wipes.

Once used place them into another plastic container with a tight lid which will not only keep in any smell but will keep them moist making them easier to wash.  (much harder to get out dried on poo than the soft wet stuff) You can wash them as you would washable nappies.  I will be washing them at 30 degrees with Bio D Laundry Liquid.

Neckerchief/Bandanna bib tutorial

Have you seen there sweet bibs you can get now that look like neckerchiefs?!  I think they are really cute and much more fun that an ordinary bib, it makes the bib part of the baby's outfit rather than just covering it up for the sake of dribble protection.
I was on the verge of buying some when I suddenly remembered that I can sew, and have half a brain #9the other half went out with the placenta!) and therefore could make some myself.
What's more I though I could share it with you so you can have a go at making one for your baby if you have one, or as a gift for a friend with a new addition.
It is dead easy to make one of these bibs, as I am sure you know by now I don't really do measuring, so haven't included any, all lengths are by rack of eye! (Or by what I figure will fit round a baby's neck.)

For this tutorial you need two types of fabric, I used a flannelette type cotton which I figured would be fairly absorbent, then a patterned jersey type fabric for the front.

Begin buy making a paper template for the shape you want, I loosely wrapped mine around my baby's neck to get an idea of the size and included enough room for hemming.

Pin the template to the fabric then cut around it.  

Next pin the flannelette to the jersey and cut around it as before so you have two triangles of the same shape and size.

Keeping the fabric pinned together sew the two pieces together using a straight stitch.  Leave about 1 cm for hemming.  

Make sure you leave a small gap of about 3cm to turn your bib the right way round.  I left one of my corners open.  

Next trim off the excess from the edges so they are nice and neat:

Then turn the bib the right way round through the small hole you left at one end:

It should look like this now:

Now to finish off tuck in the un-hemmed edges on your open corner like this:

Then simply sew a straight line over this edge (you could do a chain stitch by hand if you so felt inclined, I am a bit lazy though and want to get it done quickly, so it was just a straight stitch for me.)

Now you need to add some velcro.  Cut a piece about 3 cm long and pin one piece to either side of your bib:

Sew them with a straight stitch and you are done!

Hope you are all having a great week, I am writing this tutorial in my garden because we finally have some sun in the UK!

Making Elderflower Cordial and Elderflower Champagne

Now is the time to get out and pick some elderflowers on a hot dry day if you want to make some elderflower cordial or elderflower champagne.  I made some a few days ago, already drinking the cordial and will have some lovely elderflower champagne in a couple of weeks. Don't forget to only pick elderflowers from trees that are away from roads.
Here are some simple recipes to follow:

Elderflower cordial (Adapted from a recipe in "The Selfsufficient-ish Bible by Andy and Dave Hamilton):

25 flower heads,
1.5kg (3lbs) sugar,
2 pints of water boiling water,
The juice of 2 1/2 lemons and the grated zest of 1 lemon,
1 cinnamon stick.

Place layers of flowers and sugar in a bowl or pan, pour over boiling water, add lemon juice and zest, ad cinnamon stick and leave overnight.
Next day, strain through a muslin and pour into sterilised bottles. Will keep for a few months in a cool place, once opened will last or about a week.

Elderflower Champagne (Adapted from a recipe in The new complete book of self-sufficiency by John Seymour):

15 flower heads,
1 1/2 lbs (0.7 kg) sugar,
4 litres of water,
Juice and zest of one lemon,
2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar.

Put the flowers in a bowl and add lemon juice and zest, add the sugar, vinegar and 4 litres of water.  leave for 24 hours then strain through a muslin and poor into sterilised bottles.  Leave for two weeks, drink before it is 3 weeks old.

Easy Up-cycled Plant Pot Tutorial

Plastic plant pots, what could be more ugly?  And yet they are very useful and not to mention cheap, in face I acquired most of my plant post for nothing, so rather than fork out for expensive decorative pots, why not up-cycle your own?  Here is a really easy tutorial to improve the appearance of a very uninspiring pot:


1. You need: A plastic plant pot, some thick twine (mine is made from hemp), scissors, a glue gun.

 2. Begin by putting a line of glue along the base of the pot and place the end of the string along the line of glue, add more glue and line the string up along it, careful not to burn your fingers on the glue.  Don't cut the string yet because you won't know how much you will need.

 3. Continue all the way round the put then begin another layer on top of the first.

4. Keep glueing and wrapping the string round the pot, try to push the string up as close as possibly to the row below so that none of the pot shows through.

 5. Keep going...

6. And keep going till you get to the top of the pot.  To finish off put a line of glue around the very top edge of the pot then cover with the string so that the top edge of the pot is covered.  Finish off by cutting the string and gluing the end slightly inside the pot so you don't have an exposed end.

 7. Admire your handiwork!

Downloading Fonts tutorial

There are many many awesome fonts out there that you can download really easily and totally free, I have struggled in the past with how to do it, but have had a go a few times now and think I have the hang of it.  To save you time trawling the internet for how-to's I thought I would do a little tutorial of how to do it so you can have a go yourself easily and quickly. (click on the image to see it bigger)

1. First find a website to download fonts from, I use dafont because it has a lot of new and really funky fonts.

2.  Choose the font you want from one of the menus by clicking download to the right of the font,

3. Click to open the file (on google crome a tab appears at the bottom of the window, click on the arrow and select "open") and this screen should pop open:

4. Highlight the two windows files and click "extract to",

5. A box should pop up on your screen that looks like this:

6. Double click "my computer" then "local disk (C:), then scroll down and double click on WINDOWS, scroll down again till you find the folder titled FONTS:

7. Highlight the folder then click "ok".

Being creative with others is more fun

My friend Hannah and her husband came over on Saturday; I would have to say that she is probably my best friend, I have known her since I was a baby, we grew up together and even though we sometimes go for quite long periods of time without seeing each other, whenever we are together it is like we have never been apart. I feel like I can talk about anything with her and she won't judge, criticize me or think I am crazy, she is also full of good advice and always looks on the positive side of things.  She really is a lovely and good person and I am so glad to have her in my life, she is every thing that a good friend should be.
I was showing her my decorative letter in my bedroom and she commented on the painting above the bed, she said that she wished she could paint, and excitedly I said "You can!" and then "in fact I have a spare canvas, lets do one now!".  It was a totally spur of the moment thing and it meant we didn't end up eating dinner till about 10.00pm!
It was a really good experience for me because I have never really tutored an adult through a painting before, hopefully I was a good teacher, I thought she came up with a really lovely painting, her are some pics of the process, I made a painting along with her:

Isn't she gorgeous!

It made me think about one day doing an e-course for painting.  

Decorative Letters Tutorial

I am now blogging over at http://imperfectlynaturalmama.blogspot.co.uk/ I would love it if you came for a visit and said hello. 


I have always looked at those lovely wooden decorative letters and thought how lovely it would be to have the word "LOVE" above my headboard, (wow, how many times can I use the word "love" in one sentence?) however I have never been able to justify the cost.  So I, being both thrifty and crafty (even thought I do say so myself) decided that I could quite easily make some given a bit of time and the right materials.  So now I have these lovely words on my bed head and I wanted to share how I made them with you, I made these over several days but would say that they do take a good 6 or 7 hours to complete from start to finish:

1. First gather together your materials:

Corrugated card board,

masking tape,

gummed tape,

pencil,

ruler,

craft knife,

cutting mat,

watered down PVA glue,

tissue paper,

paint brush,

white emulsion,

2. Draw the design for your letters to the required height and width.  I used the Font Times New Roman as a guide.  If you are worried about drawing these letters free hand you could quite easily print them off and use the printout as a guide. 

3. Next cut round all your letters with a craft knife, use a ruler and cutting mat for safety and accuracy. Keep the craft knife upright so that all your edges are 90 degrees. *Health and safety - always keep your hand behind the cutting blade!*

4. Now draw out another set of letters using the first set as a template, cut them out as before, you now have two of each letter, 8 in total:

5. Next you need to cut the edge pieces for each letter, this part is a little time consuming, if you are sensible and do things systematically then you could measure all your edges and draw them out accurately before cutting them, I am not sensible so I did all my edges by rack of eye! 

6. Assemble your letters using masking tape the hold the pieces in place, if you are like me then this is where you realise you haven't done all your edges and you have to go back and make more, doh!

7. Get your gummed tape and cut it down the middle, then into lots of small pieces about 2-3 inches long,

8. Wet the paper with a damp sponge and wrap over the edges of the letters, cover the letters totally in gummed paper,

9. The "O" is the trickiest letter to do, I stacked some small pieces of card in between the front and back of the "O" to compensate for the lack of edges,

10. Split the tape in half again to make smaller strips to wrap around the edges of the "O", then cover these with another strip, carefully layering the gummed paper to create as smooth a surface as possible,

They should now look like this:

11. Now you need to cover the letters with tissue paper to give them an even surface texture.  Paste watered down PVA glue onto the letter and paste more PVA over the top, dabbing the brush so the tissue paper scrunches up a bit,

12. Leave them to dry then begin painting with white emulsion,

Leave to dry again, then enjoy the fruits of your labour:

Hope you like, send me your pics if you have a go, I would love to see them.

Have a wonderful weekend lovelies.

xxx

I am now blogging over at http://imperfectlynaturalmama.blogspot.co.uk/ I would love it if you came for a visit and said hello.