Hello!

We had a return to winter the last few days, with very cold winds and rain, we even had a fabulous hail storm on Saturday. We didn’t get any garden damage, but those hail stones were bigger than usual and there were so many, the yard was white for quite a while.

Makes last week:
Wooden Christmas ornaments
Cards for the Christmas workshop
Cards for a card swap this coming weekend
I made these retreat survival kits for an upcoming retreat I'm attending. They were so much fun to do, and used up things from my craft stash. The only thing I had to buy was the lip balms, because I ran out of time to make them.

Baking last week:
ANZAC slice 
Choc Crunch Slice
Pizza bases for the freezer
Meatballs and mince for the pantry shelf
Dehydrated bread crusts for crumbs
Processed some stale bread for fresh bread crumbs and put them in 1 cup lots in the freezer. I use these to make stuffing for roast chickens and to make a mock chicken roast.

Sewing last week:
I made a serviette holder for our kitchen and just love it. It used up some fabric I had left from another project, so there was no cost. Even the button was recycled from the button jar.

Growing last week:
Picked rhubarb from the garden
Picked more rosemary from the garden and hung it to dry

​Good morning!

It is so windy, has been for a few days now, but everything here seems to be holding up very well.

My making for the last week:
3 bunches celery through the dehydrator
8 kilos of chicken canned for the pantry shelf

My baking for the last week:
ANZAC slice for lunchboxes
Banana cake to use up some black bananas

My growing for the last week:
Picked some more rosemary from the garden
Picked some mandarins off our tree
Walked around the garden every morning to check the wind damage and pick up sticks and leaves

My sewing/crafting for the last week:
Crocheted a couple of dish cloths while waiting at appointments
Two gifts for Christmas that have to remain secret, I'll reveal them when I do the Handmade Christmas show and tell in November.
Made some pot holders for the present box using fabric from my stash
Prepped card kits for a weekend retreat this coming weekend
Prepped card kits for World Cardmaking Day

What did you make, bake, grow and sew last week?

Good morning!

Last week was productive! Lots of things were added to the pantry, and the present box and our household stores.

In the kitchen I made a huge batch of focaccia filling and froze it in 1 cup portions. I love to make this when we have excess zucchini and eggplant. I turned some into a veggie pasta sauce by adding tomato paste and a little cream (a very little cream, I scraped out the bottle) to the veggie mix. It was delicious mixed with pasta twists and baked. 

I sliced, blanched and dehydrated 3 bunches of celery.

I made banana cake for lunchboxes.

All our meals were cooked from scratch, using pantry ingredients. The only thing on my shopping list last week was milk!

In the craft room I made cards for the happy mail project and posted them off.

I made the samples for World Card Making Day and did a little more prep for the kits. 

After some searching I found a lovely card template and created a fun card for an upcoming card making retreat, and then put the kits together and happily crossed that job off my to do list. 

I attended a Zoom Scan and Cut retreat from 1am - 5pm Sunday morning. And yes, I needed a nap yesterday! I learned so much more and practiced on some small projects, and came away with ideas for so many more. 

What did you make, bake, grow and sew last week?

Good morning!

Last week was busy in the craft room, working on gifts. Christmas will be here very soon!

I made kitchen towels and jar openers.
I crocheted some daisy dishcloths.
I worked on samples for the Christmas workshop and World Card Making Day.
I played around with a design for a prayer journal and I think I've come up with one I like. 

In the garden I kept weeding. The warmer weather seems to have woken the weeds up again.
I fed the fruit trees with worm tea.
I washed down the verandah and brushed all the winter cobwebs away.

I made two orange cakes, one for us, one for a friend.
All our meals were made from scratch using ingredients on hand. We ate kransky (from the freezer), corned beef (home canned), MOO pizza, roast lamb (from the freezer), soup and toasties. We stuck mostly to the meal plan!

What did you make, bake, grow and sew last week?

Good morning!

We had a glorious week. The rain stopped and the sun came out. Some days were positively warm, with a north wind blowing. 

I let the fire burn down once the house warmed up, getting it going again about 4pm when it started to get cold. 

All our meals were cooked from scratch using ingredients from our pantry. We had ravioli, a chicken parma bake, pizza, curry, chicken enchilada wraps and soup and toasties.  Sides were green beans, cauliflower, corn cobs, garlic bread, salad, steamed rice and naan. All the ingredients came from the pantry, I didn't have to buy a single thing.

I added to the pantry with meat and chicken bought on sale. It took me two days to get it all canned and seeing the jars cooling on the bench made me smile. They went a long way towards restocking the canning cupboard. 

​I canned:
14 pints mince
16 pints ugly chicken
6 pints corned beef
6 quarts meatballs
6 quarts ugly chicken
5 quarts corned beef

The freezer grew by:
20 meals brisket
4 packets of burgers @ 4 per pack

All up it the cost was $418.57, giving us enough meat and chicken for 77 meals for an average of $5.43 per meal or 91c per serve based on six serves per meal. I can live with that, especially with the inflated prices of meat and chicken at the moment.

​Time in the craft room was welcome. We have some special occasions coming up, so out came the sewing machine (at last) and three gifts were made using fabric from my stash. I love how they turned out.

The Happy Mail Project is back on track and the cards were made using cardstock, designer series paper and stamps I had. I also made the September birthday cards, wrote in them, addressed them and put them in my diary ready to send. 

I took a free online card making lesson. I used materials from my stash for the test card, then made a few more. 

I also took a free online lesson using the Scan and Cut to perfect making cardstock bobbins. So much easier to get the machine to do the cutting! I love how they turned out, and they have gone into the present box.

​One sunny afternoon the pots all had some attention. It was needed, this winter has been so wet, they all needed cleaning and then the plants needed a little TLC. They look so much better.

The lavender is still looking beautiful, so I cut a few more stems to strike. Not sure what I'll do with them, but lavender is very easy to strike. It takes a bit of time, so I need to be patient, but it's worth it for the free plants. Lavender plants start at $7 from the nursery.

​What did you make, bake, grow and sew last week?

Good morning!

Welcome to another Make It Monday round-up.

Last week kept me busy working in the kitchen. There was a pumpkin to process, and potatoes, and mince. I ended up freezing the mince, I ran out of time to pressure can it. I may get to that this week.

I made another huge pot of chicken soup. Thomas in particular has taken a liking to it and has been having it for his lunch every day. I love that - it's full of good veggies like onion, carrot, celery and celery leaves, turnip, lots of garlic and made with my MOOed chicken stock and canned chicken. I used the pressure cooker to make 6 litres at a cost of $2. Using homegrown veggies and MOO stock, the cost was the chicken! You can eat well for very little cost. This soup cost 33 cents a litre to make, or 8 cents per 250ml serve! If you think you can't feed the family on a budget, rethink the ingredients you use.

Lunches were creative last week, to use up bits and bobs in the small freezer. Sandwiches, wraps and rolls with various fillings. Muffins and biscuits from the freezer. Fruit from the fruit bowl, including oranges and mandarins off our trees. Our fruit trees are all in pots. I grow the dwarf varieties so they love pots, and while they may look a little squashed, they provide us with plenty of fruit. 

All our meals were cooked from scratch, using ingredients in the pantry. 

We celebrated a family birthday with MOO parmas, wedges and coleslaw with ice-cream for dessert. In our family, the birthday person chooses the dinner, another reason an ingredients based pantry works. 

The garden was just more weeding, feeding, turning over. I checked over all the pots, and made a note of which plants need to be put into bigger pots. 

I picked more rosemary and rhubarb. The rhubarb has been especially giving this winter. 

I cut out some aprons and some pot holders. This week I'll get them sewn up. 

What did you make, bake, grow and sew this week?

​Good morning!

It has been very cold here, and very wet. I know it's winter, and it should be cold and wet, but I must be getting old because this year I've really felt both!

We kept the house warm with the fire going. Someone asked how much we pay for firewood - we don't! During the summer we collect firewood, bring it home and let it season for a year so it's nice and dry and ready to burn. It's not a chore to us; we turn it into a day out with a picnic lunch, and who doesn't enjoy a picnic?

I made pizza bases, using the bread maker for the dough. 

All our meals were cooked from scratch, using what we had on hand. No one was hungry and no one turned their nose up at any meal. 

I juiced lemons and froze the juice. The peel wasn't nice enough to zest, but it was perfectly good to drop into a jar of vinegar for lemon cleaning vinegar. 

Veggie peelings went into the freezer to make stock. 

I picked more rhubarb and stewed it, then froze it. During summer I'll mix it into plain yoghurt for breakfast. 

Not much happening in the garden, thanks to the rain and the cold. Keeping on top of the weeds is keeping me busy for a few minutes each day.

My lavender (don't you love how it's "my" lavender) is looking gorgeous. I picked a few more stems  to strike. They are really easy to do, and who wouldn't love a pot of lavender as a gift? I know I would.

No sewing done, not even mending last week. 

Last week I had sorting and tidying the craft room on my to-do list and for the most part it has been sorted and tidied up. I still have the fine detail sorting to do this week and then everything will be organised and in it's place, easy to find and use. That's the plan anyway!

A lot of time was spent in the craft room, making samples, and writing up tutorials, and cutting and packing card kits for my Card Buffet yesterday. It was a really nice afternoon, beautiful women creating beautiful cards, letting their inspiration take over and making my designs their own. It was a lovely way to spend a cold and wet Sunday afternoon.

Good morning!

Last week flew by. It was so very cold here, and wetter than a winter has been for a while. We are now living in a home with water views, the back and front yards are just floating. Poor Lacey-dog stepped off the pavers onto what she thought was grass and sunk! She was so funny, didn't quite know what to do for a second. 

I didn’t get any crafting done last week. I did get the kits prepped for this coming Sunday's card buffet, a big job that I was happy to cross off my list.

More was accomplished in the kitchen.
*I cooked a big pot of chicken and veg soup in the pressure cooker. Half a small chicken fillet, lots of onion, celery, carrot and potato and plenty of stock went into the pot, 30 minutes later we were eating delicious soup. I used the hand mixer to shred the chicken and you'd never know there was so little meat actually in the pot. 

*Made pizza bases and used two of them to make BBQ chicken pizzas for Hannah and I for tea on Thursday. 

*Cooked all our meals from scratch using what was on hand. 

*Served toasted crumpets with the soup to make it a more filling meal. 

*Picked rosemary from the garden for Hannah.

*Packaged 6kg of chicken fillets for the freezer.

*Bought mozarella, ham and salami from Savemore. Spent half an hour repackaging and vacuum sealing into smaller portions and put them in the freezer. The saving on the salami alone was $22, the cheese $26 and the ham $18.  A $66 saving and enough in the freezer for a couple of months.

*Between rain showers I rugged up and weeded and dug over the garden beds, dug in some compost and planted parsnips, turnips and beetroot, and sprinkled silverbeet seeds over the top. We'll be eating silverbeet and beetroot in a few weeks. 

*Picked some lemons and mandarins from our fruit trees. Picked rhubarb from the garden.

What did you make, bake, grow and sew last week?

Good morning!

It's Make It Monday and while I don't have a lot to share, I didn't waste travelling time while we were on holiday. The crochet hook was busy!

Before we left home I packed a bag of yarn, a pair of knitting needles and my set of crochet hooks. And a pair of scissors - trust me when I say it is frustrating to need them and not have them in the bag.

​Lots of daisy dishcloths were finished, some for the linen cupboard, some for Hannah and some for the present box. 

​I learned a new stitch for dish cloths and love it, thank you to my friend Rosanne for sharing with me. The test dishcloths have been added to my kitchen basket and now we're home, I'll get started on some for the present box.

​The little lemon tree had lemons on it ready to be picked, so I did that yesterday and juiced them and froze the juice straight away. I gave them a good wash and then zested the skin too, and put it on a sheet of baking paper on top of the fire to dry. The house smells lovely, and I have a nice little pile of lemon zest to use in baking.

This week my plan is to sort, tidy and declutter the craft room. It needs it, there's a lot of piles of fabric, yarn, paper, stamps, tools, vinyl - you name it, it's probably in a pile in that room somewhere and needs to be put away. 

Next on the list is the garden. It's full of weeds, they have grown very fast in four weeks. This week is going to be very cold and wet here, so I'm thinking 10 minute spurts in between rain showers will be my plan of attack. Gumboots, gloves, beanie and coat are by the back door ready to be donned to keep me warm. 

Now we are in the downhill run towards Christmas, it's time to really get stuck into the gift making, card making and baking (or at least planning the baking). December will be here in the blink of an eye and as the plan is to have everything finished and be ready to kick back and enjoy Advent and the Christmas season, I need to be a little more diligent towards getting the gift list crossed off. 

Even a few minutes each day can get a lot done in a week, let alone 4-1/2  months.

That's my week, or three days for me.

What have you been making, baking, growing and sewing while I've been on holiday?

Good morning!

My apologies for being absent the last few weeks, I had a family emergency to deal with and as you know, for me, family comes first, ahead of crafting.

That means not much was done. Some I shared in the weekly Cheapskates Club newsletter, but when I had time to sit, I was exhausted and crochet or knitting, or card making just seemed too hard. 

Things are a bit better and getting back to normal, so I have been making and baking. No sewing, and a very little growing. 

And that's OK. We don’t need to be go, go, go 24/7, even when we are too tired to think straight. Part of being a responsible adult, as well as a responsible homemaker, wife, mother is knowing when to stop; when to say no; when to rest. Because often if we go down, the whole family goes down. So if you're ever feeling overwhelmed, take time to regroup. Get some rest. Turn off the unnecessary. Focus on yourself - it's not selfish, it's good commonsense.

This last week I've been catching up with cards for the Happy Mail project, and working on some for a future card buffet I'm holding, and it has been wonderful to sit at my craft table surrounded by paper and stamps and dies and ink pads and let my creative side loose. 

Some of the cards from the May card buffet have been used for happy mail. 

​
I had some fun playing with DSP and stamps and dies and cardstock making samples for the July card buffet. 

​Baking: not a lot! My One Bowl Chocolate Cake is my go-to recipe, and two batches were prepared and baked into little loaf cakes in my silicone mini loaf pans. I love these, $5 each from Kmart (and they're pink!), they make six little loaf cakes from one quantity of cake batter. I count one mini loaf as the equivalent of two cupcakes when I am serving them. 

Then there were some bananas getting too soft, so they became banana and choc chip mini loaf cakes. What can I say - the mini loaf pans were out, so I used them again. I sprinkled choc chips on top before baking, rather than having to ice them. They were a hit for morning tea.

We pretty much stuck to the meal plan; everything needed was in the pantry, and I didn't have to think about what to prepare for dinner, or what to tell anyone else to prepare. Having it on the fridge just makes life easier. 

Growing-wise, potatoes are coming up all over the place and as we don't have a planned garden this winter, I'm letting them go. The rosemary is still growing, and I've been picking oranges and mandarins from the fruit trees. The raspberries have been cut back. The rhubarb is going well. I cut back the hydrangeas so now they just look like dead sticks in the pots, but they will come back in the spring and provide beautiful flowers again. And the bees are still buzzing in the lavender. I really want to cut it back, but while the bees are buzzing around I'll leave it and hope it survives the winter. 

And the only sewing I've done is to mend a pair of track pants and darn the heels in a pair of wool socks for Wayne. 

It feels good to be back on track. We are officially on holiday, so I have a big bag of things to do as we travel around. I'll try to post again next week, although it may be a day or so late, depending on internet reception.

Please share what you've been making, baking, growing and sewing, I love to see everything even if I don't comment, and you all help to motivate me.