make do and mend for tougher times

Popperwell

Why not?:)

It's good to share

Seraph123

my pleasure pops:)

SpikyHedgehog

fuddle wrote: »

Dh and I escaped to a Scottish Island to get married. Just us and our little girl. We only had one then. Why? Because we didn't have the money to get married properly. This was the only way we could do it without having to fork out the money per head for a sit down meal. Our friends and family must have felt snubbed because we didn't receive any gifts. Not one from anyone. Jeeez, I'm filling up, it hurt. I learned wedding etiquette the hard way. Anything you can give should be gratefully received. I find the amout of cash you would like to gift is more than acceptable.

EDIT: DH has won £25 fishing :j It won't be enough to cover the whole cost of the halogen oven but I've been given permission from the boss to take the rest from the emergency fund on the understanding that I sell some of my clothes on ebay - deal! Off to buy my Andrew James 12 litre :j

I can't imagine not giving family or a close friend a wedding gift whatever sort of wedding they had :-( but I bet you 3 had a more amazing wedding than a lot of your family & friends.

kidcat wrote: »

SDG - how hard, its hard to even imagine the pain they are going t hrough ((hugs))

Fuddle - well done, all the talk of halogen ovens is making me curious I will admit, as for the whisk, I would go for the balloon type, I have five all different sizes and they have never let me down. I also have two electric whisks, the first was a wedding present to my parents that mum gave to me as she never used it, its still going strong. The second my mum bought for my birthday the following year - no idea why!!

Evie - I always find it difficult, as when we gift I often manage to get an expensive gift for a cheap prize which looks good, but money is so visible as it were. I would be only able to offer £25 and no more however recently there was a thread on here somewhere which suggested the gift should cost more than the meal - which plainly horrified me, and has made me more cautious. I suppose it depends upon the relationship etc

I firmly believe a wedding gift should be about what you can afford & want to give the couple. I gave my sister & brother in law a voucher for £25 which would have no way covered the meals for the 3 of us, but she thanked me sincerely, & thanked DS2 for the box he'd made for them at school. (She was hurt our other sister gave her nothing though...)

Pooky wrote: »

Do you know, I'd never give cash as a wedding gift (or vouchers) to me a gift is just that, a gift. I much prefer to give something thoughful and unique and homemade if possible. When my best friend got married I made her invitations and place settings for her as my gift and then I framed one of each to give to her as a momento. She has them hanging on her living room wall and everyone comments on them.

What a lovely gift!

recoverydust

must dig out my nana's golden hands i have lugged them round for a while and they have simple patterns in
must use the sewing machine i got in april and hasnt been opened yet. It was an investment so I can make stuff and maybe even sell some....
xx

Popperwell

I spent an hour sewing a leg of some pants to knock about the house in, could even be considered similar to PJ bottoms and messed up. Though not suitable for big jobs, might do for me, a cheap sewing machine like I saw yesterday in Sainsbury's for £49 by Singer...

thriftwizard

Recoverydust, I was running my stall at the vintage market yesterday & two stalls up was a lass selling beautiful, highly-original girl's dresses & pinnies - mostly made from old curtains, many of them bought from me originally! She'd priced them just right to sell there - i.e. not too much above good chain-store stuff - and they weren't too complicated so she was able to keep the price reasonable & still get a decent return for her time & material costs. Her stall seemed pretty busy, and it was a "slow" day for most of us. So, get that sewing machine out & play!

SpikyHedgehog

Evie74 wrote: »

Thank you everyone for the advice. I would normally prefer to buy/make a wedding gift but this has been specifically refused :eek: in the invitation.

When DH and I got married we did have a particular set of crockery which were collecting and relatives who wanted to buy a piece got in touch with my mum for details. But some of the loveliest presents which I treasure most were the surprises and things that people had spent time making for us. One friend painted a picture of the church where we were married, and another sewed a cross-stitch picture commemorating our wedding date - these both have pride of place in my home. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea but I love them because they remind me how special my friends are to take the time and trouble to make gifts for us.

Fuddle - your wedding sounds very romantic Mine was a very traditional village-church-followed-by-reception-in-local-hotel effort. It was quite simple by today's standards - most of the weddings I've been to in recent years seem to have been very extravagant and showy.

SDG - awful news about your friend's DH, my thoughts are with him and his family. This is definitely one of those situations where you hope for a miracle.

Kidcat - the job sounds ideal, but you have so much on your plate already. I don't have the answers but hope that you reach the decision that is right for you and your family.

Fuddle - Yay for DH's winnings! I am going to have to look into halogen ovens now as I'm intrigued...!

My plans for the evening involve flaking out on the sofa in front of Midsummer Murders (:o), and maybe digging out my unfinished embroidery sampler if I CBA.

Have a good evening all

Evie xx

Being rather mean at times, I'd feel like making a charity donation in their name & saying kindly 'i know you didn't want an item so did this for you'. I guess they may need the money for something or be planning to emigrate, & I'm sure have good reasons for only wanting monetary gifts though. £25 is fine!

Pooky

Recoverydust - I often used to buy adult clothes in a charity shop, take them to bits and use the fabric for kids stuff. Long floral skirts used to make a couple of basic pinafores for my girls and pillow cases were ideal too. As they got older I'd buy pretty sheets or duvet covers to make sun dresses/sun tops with smocked tops. I brought 2 sheets last month to make into smocked tops for me too, just not got round to it yet, they take less than half an hour to knock up and I live and die in them this time of year.

Pops - a sewing machine is a great investment if you need to alter clothes regularly (practice on old tea towels/pillowcases etc first to get your stitching straight and even and the tension right. Lidl often do a "mixed sewing pack" for around £5 that contains a good few reels of cotton (and it's great quality stuff), elastic, pins etc. Don't buy cheap thread as it just snaps and clogs the machine.

Someone's offered us a load of free wood so need to collect that today and we've got 8 pallets to pick up during the week (that I'll need to chop). DD1 is off on a outwards bounds week tomorrow doing the young citizenship award so need to help her pack and have promised her toad in the hole for tea as its her favourite, will do it in the halogen (not tried it in there yet). Need to get some bread made too, will make the dough in the BM and cook it in the halogen as it gives a nicer shape loaf.

[Deleted User]

I need to see to my cherry plums today, they all simmered on very low with a tiny amount of water and then I used the big metal mouli, looks like

http://www.cookingmarvellous.com/small-baby-mouli-mill-grunwerg.html?gclid=CMSmxuaF0LECFQUOfAodtlQAfg

but is much bigger and has 4 different sieving plates. Wish I had bought it 30 years ago tbh. The stones separated quite easily and I was left with puree

If I make jam then I will have to add about 1 lb of sugar to a 1lb of puree but I think that will be too sweet, I can make fruit butter with less sugar but that may not keep as well, so I am going to add just a small amount of sugar and bottle in small kilner jars. I`ll do that later today and I`ll leave the plum puree on the tart side of sweet so it will do nicely with the likes of mackerel

I have a book which is my bible on preservation, it seems that all other books are based on it
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Preservation-Fruit-Vegetables-Fish-Agriculture/dp/0112428649/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344154897&sr=8-1
£6.71 and free delivery, its a massive bargain

5 trays of home grown tomatoes in the dehydrator, ferline variety and its nice, gets red quick and trouble free, oh and big tomatoes. I am now picking any orange tomatoes of any variety and putting all the cherry ones in a bowl as they turn quickly. All others are on a padded tray and just covered with one sheet of newspaper in a n facing room.

Am trying something different today with my toms outside under plastic. Blight warning after blight warning here so am quite paranoid about sheltering from rain blowing in but they need air. Went away yesterday and propped doors open as much as I dared and then covered all including floppy doors, with shading net, was very effective and lo and behold one alicanti, which are stubbornly green, started to develop a hint of orange. That fits in with what I am reading ie they need sun to get bigger and shade to get red. Average tomato weight is 6 oz (ferline) but there are others that look about 10 oz in the alicanti area. I am using 2 patioggrows, holding 8 plants and one pop up cheapo sale item from lakeland, holding 3 plants. 4 trusses each in the patiogros and 2 each in the much shorter popup. Have a big amount of good fruits on every one. Outside ones are about half as productive but very good still but I had to cut a manky leaf off yesterday so am more than concerned about blight

Crochet blanket completed and that has used up 2 packs of hairy yarn, its single bed sized and very warm in dusky pink and jade stripes. Yeah, now to knitting and I started a child`s short sleeved cardi with kemps aran sale yarn. Perfect tension on a 4 needle, rather than a 5, and no hand ache whatsoever, lol and I can do it with eyes shut

Dd was absolutely over the moon with all the nicely packed card making stuff I gave her. All bagged in zip locks and labelled and all in a very nice large storage box. Was worth the effort of sorting

Very heavy and dark here, looks very ominous and got to get myself in gear as this weather is lethargic-making. Will switch the archers on, dig out the kilners, re-read what to do and will be done by lunchtime.

Last year I would have been going mad making the likes of ratatouille to freeze but freezer is full so will dry courgettes and tomatoes to join the tonnes of onions and will make it as needed, all winter. Tbh, I llike the idea much better

Last seed sowing is done now, no more until the broad beans much later on. A good time before hot draught from 18th so will also cut the rest of the green celery, by then, to dry and will leave red in which may well be good over winter. Am trying to think of ways to make it easier as watering by hand is very hard. Lol, torrential now, as I speak. Terrible terrible weather

fuddle

That's what I have been using, the lidl pack of sewing materials for £4.99. I have the basic mini John Lewis machine and these have been absolutely fine in that.

I am busily storing all the ideas about how to make children's clothes for cheaper in my head. For one I have some old jeans that no longer fit me that could be made into kids so that is a start. Thank you.

Welcome to our new posters

Special occasion gifts. I would like to learn to cross stitch so I can make lettered memento's to frame. Anyone that can snub a handmade sentimental piece doesn't deserve a gift I feel. I can't cross stitch but it's on my 'to learn' list.

The whole idea of money or gift lists with big department stores doesn't sit quite right with me. A gift is something that someone wants to give you surely, not something to be requested. Anyway, I have a somewhat warped sense of what is right and wrong sometimes, based upon bitterness that things didn't pan out the way they should for me in life. Ah shurrup woman!

I'm a determined happy soul that tries to see the best in life. I try to not let bitterness eat me up as that would make me a misery