Pirate Treasure Chest!

Our children never ask for much, normally their requests for presents are quite random (last year one was a treasure map). This year the boy asked for a  treasure chest, we searched online but didn't really like (or could afford) anything we saw, so time for me to contribute to Christmas (my wife does so much!). 

We decided that it would be ideal if it could double up as a toy box, but I might have got a little carried away with the dimensions as it's a proper treasure chest size! 

Making Pasta After School

 I'm very aware that the time between school and dinner can be a tough time, and one that can be easily wasted.

Nothing is easier for me than letting the kids come home, putting on the TV, letting them fill their faces with snacks and act like vegetables whilst I get jobs done, like the washing or cooking dinner.

I don't like it like that though, I want my children to remember doing things with me. I'm very lucky to be able to pick them up each day and don't want to waste that time with them.

But in the winter months it can be harder to think of things to do together. They do love helping with making tea though.

I Made Our Double Bed - The Economy Of Making Your Own

Lay in bed I could literally count the springs sticking into my back. 

I'd wake up feeling worse than when I'd gone to sleep. The mattress had to go and the crappy bed with it. 

The Mattress in question was 10 years old and the first bed that we purchased after having a few second hand ones from family. 

Our new bed!!!

It was from Ikea along with the bed frame. I broke the bed frame the first night by pushing one bit with my foot and it's not got any better, slats fall out frequently and I had to make some modifications the first few weeks of having it. By the end I'm fairly sure it's just my collection of books that's keeping it up!

Toy Farm Yard

We went over to mum and dad's farm this weekend. It was dads birthday so we were having a takeaway meal together, my sister, brother and his wife were there as well. 

It was a lovely evening.

When we got there we saw that mum had got out the toy farmyard that dad had made me 31 years ago! Dad had made it for my third birthday. 

Mum had got it out of the loft and washed it all down found lots of tractors and animals to go in it.  

My little boy was in heaven! He had great fun moving bales around and tipping over the barns with the tractor!

Unfortunately it's too big to live in our house, but it's something lovely for him to play with when he goes to grandma and granddad's! 

Did anyone make you toys when you were younger? 

Do you have a favourite?

Grow Your Own Plant Pots

This is a little tongue in cheek but I did do it for a reason! 

The other day  I run out of plant pots, I have never planted so much before and I've ended up using everything I can find, I've even been to mums and pinched all her spares as well. It did make me think about preppers and I wondered if they've planned for plant pots and other sundry items that you need when you grow lots of food. What would you do if you couldn't buy any more plant pots to start seedlings off in or to pot on when you're tryign to keep the growing season as long as possible?

Looking around for other containers I found a few squashes that I'd chucked out. 

Rotten squash shells

They sounded hollow when I tapped them.  

Cleaned out ready for a bit of soil

 They'd dried up inside, so all I had to do was bash a hole in the top, scoop out all the seeds and dried flesh and then swill them out. I was left with something that could be used as a plant pot, not just a a wasted vegetable.

Eight in fact, just enough to pot on a few tomato plants as a little experiment.

Tomatoes growing quite happily in their new pots

The plan with these is just to bash out the bottom when I plant the tomatoes on next time and the pot should decompose in time back into the soil. I know I'm not the first to use a squash as a container (I know some gourds were originally bred for this reason - to carry water) but I was quite pleased with my novel little pots.

Who else has been using anything they can find as a pot lately?

What Do You Want For Christmas?

I've finally started to make some Christmas presents today, the girls should be pleased with what I'm making them.

I haven't left it as late to start as I did for the kitchen I made them last year! Although I'm not saying that I'm not going to be finishing it Christmas eve again, as this years present is a much bigger project!

The kitchen I made them last year - its been a big success.

They are at a wonderful age though. 

Whenever we ask our eldest what she wants she just says "A dinosaur". No long list of toys or other wants - I know it won't last! 

As we get into adulthood we generally want less, I now struggle to think what I want for Christmas when I'm asked and I'm pretty happy if I get a good book or two, so long as the kids are happy.

What does everyone else want for Christmas? (no wishing for world peace please!)

Squidgy Rabbit

My sister is a rather clever with textiles and loves making things.

She's just written a blog post on a rather lovely squidgy rabbit she made for my youngest daughter when she was born.

Check out her blog here for pictures of this little bunny with my little girl!

Wooden Potting Tray

The other gift I made this Christmas was a wooden potting tray for my mother.

 Over the last couple of years I have slowly (and I really emphasise the word slowly here) been doing all the carpentry bits to a rather amazing potting shed we've been building her. I'll do a post on the shed once it's finished, but it's going to look like it came straight out of The Garden magazine or Country Living and make a lot of people jealous.

She did ask me, if I had the time, could I make her a wooden potting tray as it would look much nicer than a plastic one in her new shed. I made out I hadn't got time, then made her one anyway!

A fairly simple project made from reclaimed wood and a piece of ply. Although to make it stronger the ply is routed into the wood and all the corners are mitred, glued and nailed together. I finished it with a good, thick coat of oil.

She seems really pleased with it, so much so that she sent me a rather staged picture of it in "use" to put on my blog. If she manages to keep her shed this clean then I will be impressed!

Homemade Toy Kitchen

I managed to finish Ev's and Melissa's present on Christmas eve (after a quick drive to my dads to get some perspex off him for the cooker door).

The finished kitchen before we wrapped it on Christmas eve

 I was possibly cutting it a bit fine but my lack of indoor space to build things in made it difficult to put together (on the floor in the spare room) with cutting being done outside between rain showers. Luckily I did manage to borrow a workshop for half a day to get most of the main bits cut a week before.

With doors and cooker open

 The knobs all turn, the cooker is lined out with shinny foam and there's plenty of storage for all her kitchen bits and pieces.

The total cost of this little kitchen set was £30 (not including my time!). Just for a sheet of ply, a metal mixing bowl and some varnish, everything else was salvaged from work and I'm happy with the results.

Straight into some cooking!

 Christmas morning was lovely, she opened it and just started to play with it, not really noticing any of her other presents (except the one with all the toy food and pots and pans). She just started cooking straight away!

Melissa liked her presents as well!

 This is our first Christmas where we've just stayed at home instead of travelling to family. It was lovely and relaxing (well I didn't cook the lovely dinner - so it would be!) and just nice to watch Ev play with her toys and try to play with her little sister.

By the end of the day I was completely full up on toy food - I couldn't eat another bite!

I know it won't be long until they start asking for things for Christmas that they see on the telly or that their friends have got, so it's nice to make things like this for them now and hopefully they'll get years of enjoyment out of it.

Homemade Christmas Presents

Today I've been busy making Christmas presents.
I won't post what I've made this year just yet, but as you can probably guess it involves wood!

A Snowman tree decoration made out of a holly log with a walnut hat!

One of my favourite homemade Christmas gifts was these little snowmen Christmas tree decorations that I made for all the females I had to buy for that year (they did get more than just this though), everyone loved them and I see them in the trees year after year which is really nice.

Making things this year has been a little more difficult as I haven't got a workshop to build gifts in, so the spare room has become an assembly area, needing a good hoover up later, with time spent in a friends workshop to do some cutting. I'm not making many gits this year, just a couple, but I do love doing it as it feels much more personnel than an item you've just purchased on line.

Anyone else been making presents this year?

Homemade Turkish Delight

Putting a roof on a porch last week I was surrounded by roses and the smell kept making me think of Turkish delight! And so the craving began! But I couldn't just buy some, that would be too easy. Looking on the Internet I could see that the flavouring was from rose water, with none in the cupboard and as these roses smelt so good I decided to make some myself.

Rose petals

I gathered a large bag of roses, picked off all the petals and put them in a large pan with a little water. In the centre of this pan I placed an empty Pyrex jug, then placed the lid on the pan upside down. Make sure the jug is spaced off the bottom of the pan with some mesh otherwise it might crack! 

Making Rose water

The infused distilled water from the rose petals rises up, hits the lid, runs to the lowest point and drips into the jug. Not a very quick process but it workedand was easy, I didn't have much, in fact probably just enough to make about a pound of something very sweet!

My rose water - very unimpressive amount!

The Turkish delight was easy to make, although I used the cheats method and used gelatin. The ingredients are:
1lb sugar
Some gelatine
1/2 pint of water
2 table spoons of rose water
 Icing sugar
cornflower

I could have used food colouring as well to make it pink but we haven't got any and why bother when it wont alter the taste just add E numbers?

Quite a bit of sugar needed

Basically the water and gelatin go in first until it's dissolved, then the sugar is added. It's all boiled for about 15 mins, then taken off the heat, the rose water is then added and stirred in before being poured into a silicone mould (which has been lightly oiled to stop it sticking, it's very sticky).

Letting it set

 I let it set over night in the fridge before putting it on a chopping board coated with a light mixture of sugar and cornflower.

Dust with icing sugar mixed with a little corn flower

 I cut it up into small squares and rolled eat one round in the sugar mix so they wouldn't stick to each other. Words can't desribe how sticky this stuff is until you do that!

Finished! Tastes good!

It tastes just like proper Turkish delight and the roses come through just right.

I've never made anything with roses before, but as I haven't got much other produce to use at the moment I thought this was a fun way to spend a few rainy evenings! Anyone else made anything with roses?