Mindless Vandalism

I decided to take another look in the new Little Free Library as I was passing on my dog walk the other morning. Needless to say I was disappointed when I discovered that it had already fallen victim to some mindless vandalism. The perspex sheet in the door had been smashed through leaving jagged edges exposed.  (At least it wasn't glass)

I guess some moron didn't appreciate the organiser's efforts to provide a resource for sharing knowledge/culture and a sense of community spirit. Shame on them.

Wardrobe Audit Tags

The other day when we were out and about, I came across a great idea for keeping a tab on how often you wear the things in your wardrobe.

It was a set of tags on which you write down the last time you wore an item, had it dry cleaned, washed it, etc. I didn't take a photograph, because they were placed right by the till and I would have felt silly. When I got home I checked out similar ideas on Pinterest, but the only one I could come up with was this one, which is apparently by Anthropology.



I thought these were a genius idea, but didn't want to spend £4 or more on a set, so I decided to do my own hack.  Here's what I came up with.

From my point of view, I was only really interested in knowing how often I wear an item.  I don't have many dry clean only garments and I don't care about documenting what goes with what, so I decided to make them very simple with the name of the garment and then create a tally for each time I wore them.

I had lots of buff tags that I needed to find a use for and this was the perfect project for them. I wrote a brief description of each garment on them and then strung them with some fancy string from my craft supplies and hung them to the relevant coat hanger.

I also hung a pen from some string just inside the wardrobe door, so I could reach for it when I get dressed and put a mark against each item I wear as I get dressed.  This will hopefully encourage me not to forget and as well as being a visual reminder, it meant that I didn't have to hunt around for a pen.

As I was doing this hack immediately after getting caught up on my ironing,  most of my clothes were in there, but I tried to make tags for every item of clothing I could think of that I had, including those that might be in the wash.  Anything I'd worn in the last week I gave a mark, as I have actually worn some little worn things this week for a change. I also made a few spare blank tags for items that I might have forgotten or that might get added in the near future.

It sounds a lot of faff, but it only took about an hour to set up the whole system. I just have to make sure I stick to using it.  Even if I only use it for items I'm thinking of getting rid of because I rarely wear them, it could help me when it comes to my next wardrobe edit.

One of the most satisfying things about this project was to have an excuse to use some of my craft supplies, which otherwise might not get an airing.  After all, that's what I bought them for.

A New Haircut and Other stories.

Yesterday, was a pretty busy day, but by the time I sat down at the computer to write this post, I felt like I'd achieved quite a lot.

The first job of the day, after walking the dog, was to get my hair cut. Once again I ventured out to a local Supercuts, which luckily wasn't busy, so I only had a 10 minute wait.  I'd got to the stage with my hair whereby I just had to get it cut.  I think it might have been 8 or 9 months since I'd had it cut and coloured and it was looking like straw.  I'm trying to grow out bleached highlights and go back to my natural light brown hair colour, to give my hair a rest from the stress for a while and my purse a rest from the expense.

The hairdresser who cut my hair was particularly chatty, but inspite of this I came away, for the first time in ages, with a cut that I actually quite liked.  I looked human again, in a good way and it's amazing what a mental lift you can get just from having your hair chopped off. I realise having said this, that by tomorrow I'll probably be looking like Wurzel Gummage again.  At least I will know, however, that my hair is in infinitely better condition and should be easier to style, especially with a wedding to attend in the next couple of weeks, which was the main reason that I succumbed to the haircut during Stoptober.

Anyway, hair done I headed home to get on with everything else I had to do.  Due to spending most of the weekend out of the house, I'd got behind on chores and needed to catch up.  I spent most of the rest of the afternoon doing a few bits of work and then gradually gravitated toward the ironing, cooking dinner, washing up, putting away two baskets full of ironed clothes and then emptying all the bins ready for collection tomorrow.  Gosh did it feel good to get to that last task.  I could then sit down, do a couple of tasks online ending the day with a bit of leisurely blog reading.

I now feel like I've broken the back of it, and I can hopefully find time tomorrow for an overdue allotment visit and completion of  a few other bits and pieces on my 'to do list'.  I'm hoping to tackle the back garden this weekend, whilst LB is out with her friends, and get it tidied up before winter. The old tomato and bean plants need clearing, the greenhouse needs sweeping out and recovering and I might even start to tackle the Shed of Doom which is full of things that I need to declutter.  Wish me luck!

A Birthday Day Out in London

As mentioned in a previous post, it was my birthday last week and on Sunday, we decided to cancel our usual commitments and go out for the day into Central London. We left the dog with the dog trainer for the day, so we didn't have to worry about her and set off quite early so that we could get parked for free in town.

First stop was an exhibition that I wanted to see at the Fashion and Textile museum in Bermondsey, called Liberty in Fashion.  It was an exhibition about the store, it's style and it's distinctive influence in the world of fashion over the decades.  Here's a few photos.

In addition to the Liberty exhibition, there was a small exhibition of the work of CollierCampbell, namely Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell, sisters who designed many beautiful fabrics for Liberty and others in the 1960's and 70's.  

This was my favourite part of the exhibition, as I've been a fan of their work for several years now.  It was so lovely to see so many examples of the beautiful fabrics that they designed.

Next we took a walk along the South Bank, and after stopping for lunch, a mooch around the book stalls under Waterloo Bridge (a favourite haunt from our student days)

and the obligatory ice cream on a sunny afternoon,

we caught a boat back down river and paid a visit to the Shard.

Although we didn't pay to go right up to the viewing platform at the very top, (it costs £25 each) we did take in the amazing views from the 34th floor lounge. (We weren't admitted to the bar on the 52nd floor on account of LB being with us)

We then had a drink in a pub, before eventually making our way home.

It was a lovely day out, the sun was shining, we took in the sights, sounds and smells of the city and promised ourselves we would make an effort to come into town more often.

A Few Practical Birthday Presents

This birthday, I couldn't really think of anything I really wanted or needed when it came to giving OH and LB ideas for gifts to buy me.  It's getting increasingly difficult as I get older.  If I want something I buy it and it's come to seem such a waste of money to me, to receive expensive luxuries just because it's my birthday. As a consequence, the presents I got were pretty random really.

They included this one off purchase of May's Vegan Kind beauty box, which I'd asked OH to buy me a few weeks ago. Included in this box were the following;

This Syphoto Total Protection Serum, which I'd tried a sample of and liked,

a full size Green Frog Botanic geranium and peppermint body wash,

a Crazy Rumours tinted lip balm,

a highlighting stick

and some Z-kin skincare samples.  I was quite pleased with the contents. Pretty good value for money for the £18.15 it cost, which included postage.

I also received this lovely book from OH, which will hopefully come in useful when it comes to making more of my own beauty products, along with some Sweet Orange essential oil from LB to add to my growing kit.

I also received some bottles of spirits from OH, which makes me sound like a bit of a lush, but I'm not. I just like the occasional gin or vodka and we'd run out of both. I also persuaded him to buy me this new drink that was being promoted in John Lewis.

It's called Coole Swan and is a white chocolate equivalent of Baileys.  A bit pricier, but very tasty. They mixed it with something green and minty in store to make a minty cocktail, but I wasn't sure exactly what it was.  It needs to be kept in the fridge, but that's fine by me.  I'm partial to drinking a nice glug of this over ice, especially now the nights are drawing in.  It makes me feel all snug, cosy and warm inside. A bit fattening, being made from real cream, so I do try to limit myself.

I also received a lovely surprise present by post from a friend, namely this electric propagator. I've never had one before and am not quite sure how to use it, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. Hopefully it will help me raise better plants for the allotment and garden next year.

Mostly consumable gifts this year, which is all good.  I think I might be turning into one of those people who is very difficult to buy a present for.  I don't quite know how that happened.  Having said that, I'm always grateful for and appreciative of any gift that I receive and loved everything I received this year.

Another Little Free Library

The other morning whilst walking the dog, I came across another Little Free Library in our neighbourhood. It seems to have recently appeared next to this community garden that has been built on some unused land alongside some garages on a local estate.

As I walk the dog near here every week, it will be a very convenient resource, both to borrow from and donate any unwanted books.  I took a look in it whilst I was passing.  To be honest there were a few books we already had or that I had read, and not really many that appealed to me. I did take this one which looked vaguely interesting. We'll see.

I liked the little quote on the top of the library box.  'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need'.

I can see me stopping at this little library on a regular basis from now on.

Making Some Peppermint Lip Balm

It's been a while since I made any homemade cosmetics/toiletries using the stash of ingredients I bought a couple of months ago.  I had every intention of making some things over the summer holidays, but as with many good intentions, they don't always materialise into action.

This week, however, inspired by Nina from Shalom Mama and her free ebook on Natural Gift Ideas, after downloading it, I couldn't wait to try out one of her recipes and it was probably one of the simplest recipes I've found yet.

I did deviate from the amounts used in Nina's recipe, as I wanted just one or two pots and not 8, to try it out, so I just used a teaspoon of coconut oil, a teaspoon of beeswax pellets and 5 or 6 drops of peppermint essential oil.

The coconut oil and beeswax were melted over a bain marie and then once taken off the heat, the essential oil was added to the mixture and then everything was mixed together before being poured into some little pots I had kept from some natural beauty product samples, and left to set.  The whole process probably took just 10 minutes.  Here's the result.

Two small pots of peppermint lip balm that feels wonderfully tingly on the lips.  Couldn't be simpler. I'm seriously thinking of making some of these as gifts this Christmas.

I think my efforts must have spurred on LB too, as when I got up the following morning, she too had been busy making her own natural Grapefruit Lip Scrub, which looked very pretty and tasted pretty nice too.

She used a recipe from YouTube, not sure which one, but it included the following.

1 and a half tablespoons of Granulated sugar
1 tsp Coconut oil
Half a teaspoon of coarse sea salt
A few drops of red food colouring
3-4 drops Grapefruit essential oil

Mix together and put into a lidded container.  Rub over lips to remove any dry skin.

This recipe made this small jar, plus a bit left over that we used for trying it out.