Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2016

Lynplatinum

Evening all,

Savingpennies - I really like the sound of your knitted decorations!! What fun!! Are the patterns very complicated? Do you think they would be suitable for a 'returning' knitter??? I fancy starting on something small and I was wondering if they might make good Christmas presents? I wonder if they have Christmas ones? (Appologies for mentioning the C word but I will be mostly making for that event and need to get started - if I am doing while listening to the radio I will not doze off and hopefully this will help me to sort out sleep patterns - which I am getting there on)

tighteningthebelt - a lot of people do talk to me. I have not led the easiest of lives one way and another but some fantastic people have listened, helped and advised along the way and I hope that by passing on the good kind sensible advice I can make folks load a little lighter and pass on the gifts I have been given. (Includes folk on here BTW :A )
Soooooo today! Had a fab day out with my friend and we went out for lunch and then a lovely walk in the park in Newquay with her little woof (everybody now ahhhh So that cost me £10+ pence left over from last week. So that is my entertainment allowance for next week gone. But that is fine because I have no other 'going out's planned but will spend another £10 ish if an unusual opportunity comes along. Otherwise will go down the sani and bottle of water route!
Also I need literally nothing from L!dil this week. I might need some milk later on in the week (and maybe some fruit - no I dont - its blackberry season!! And the walkies will do me good!) but although I have only been in the house for 2 months I have built up a load of food that can be made up and I need to use up eggs!! So that's some brownies that need to be made then :rotfl:
So am planning a 'payback' scheme for my overspend last week of £20 - between £5 and £4 per week - mostly out of the food budget!! To do this I will use the 59p offers in L!dil and any in ASDA when I walk up that end of the town + the amount I already have in!
So food will be making do
Mend - my mind by getting a couple of drifts of paperwork sorted
Minimise - me?? it was a gentle walk today so perhaps not but on the other side of the argument - the dinner aso filling i have only had a slice of bread and jam for me tea! Also have a tidying fit putting stuff away so minimising clutter!

Anyway frugalling and MM&Ming on tomorrow as well!
Take care all.

nursemaggie

Lyn there are hundreds of Christmas ornaments to make. Look on the knitting thread. Sorry you will have to go back quite a way two or three years.

Google knitting for Christmas/free patterns and you will probably find lots that way. There are probably lots on "Ravelry". The Christmas thread will probably have some patterns or sources of them. The there is Jean Greenhow. Not sure if I spelled that right. She may have been dead a few years but he old website is still there. There are some lovely stocking in her Christmas book.

Good luck you will be knitting them for months.

poppy811

This thread is already helping. Managed to finish ironing and put away, mend some trousers and the cuffs on a jacket and prepped and froze some tomatoes and beans from the garden! When you think how low and listless I have been that is quite an improvement so thanks for all your encouragement.

mrs-moneypenny

Morning all.
Glad today is a good day poppy.

I've filled another bag for the Cs so five will be leaving the Hes tomorrow. Just got to nip 4 carrier bags full down to the local clothes bank and a bag full of batteries into local shops recycling bin.
Think that nimising sorted for today.

Picked last of the runner beans from the garden so will have them for tea with something.

Need to sew a button on ds2s jeans so that will be today's mending.


Hugs to all that need them and I hope everyone's day has something good in it.

Lynplatinum

Evening all

thanks nursemaggie for the knitting reccomendations - its also part of my strategy for winter nights when I cant go walkies - sit knitting rather than eating and watching TV!! People always comment on my nice nails - these too are a way of stopping myself eating while TV watching - there is no way you can dip into a packet of crisps or unwrap a choccy bar with wet nail varnish! :rotfl:

Well done Poppy!! Ive been good today as well!

I had to stay in for the arrival of my new washing machine - Ive been here for 10 weeks (including 10 days away) and have used friend's washing machines 4 times to do a towel and bedding wash (roughly once a fortnight - there is only me in the bed and I wear PJs so it doesnt get that dirty). So have been washing out my clothes by hand every other morning - true old style!

So I have:
Made do: cooked a Caponata from scratch with ingredients already in house and ate some of the cooked butternut squash in a wrap with feta for lunch.
Minimise: me (got in my hour's walkies this evening) and also my stock pile of key rings.......
Mend: Now, when I moved in here there were quite a few screws in the walls of the bathroom so I bought little 'plaques' that look like beach huts but which had hooks attached (at £1 each in a sale I think to buy all the bits to make em would have cost more) but the hanging bits were too small to go over the screw heads. Now, somehow I had aquired and bought with me loads of key rings - so I took off the tags and threaded through the ring bit of the key ring instead - sturdier and free!! They are now hanging from the screws (obscuring them) and have a flannel hanging from one and a jam jar tied round with string (saw this done in a a shop - they were charging £6 for a jam jar tied up with string in a 'parcel' format so it would hang as a container!!) which contains spare toothbrushes! Have also written fancy old style label for it and 'tea bagged it' to age the label!! V proud of self for adapting something I was about to throw out! :beer:

Sorry long post again!
Frugaling onward to morrow - nite all
BTW anyone seen any posts from Jackie O? ? Hope she's OK - its unlike her not to comment - unless she's pottering else where on the forum?

Floss

Think JackieO has gone to Bonnie Scotland for her family reunion.

Did a good bit of foraging yesterday - elderberries, sloes (massive ones!) and crab apples. Guess what I will be doing while the Archers is on today!

Lynplatinum

Evening all

Thanks for reminding me where Jackie O is, Floss and well done on the foraging!! That is my plan for tomorrow as I have run out of fruit other than some cooking apples and a blackberry and apple crumble beckons!!

Today have been enjoying my new washing machine! :rotfl: Even caught myself watching it going round at one point!! You'll have to excuse me but I'm a bit in awe of modern technology as I have been washing my clothes by hand for 10 weeks! all bedding and towels were washed at friends (4 friends over that time). Really appreciate being able to do my own - but was v grateful to friends.

Making do; mending and minimising: have spent the day restoring picture frames - two of them (50p in a church sale) removing glass (they were good quality wood but gone tatty) and painting the frames a bluish grey (left over form painting the bookcase) - two of them putting in screws for hanging thread (the family photos had previously stood on a shelf) - one of them changing the picture and putting a hanging thread and screws on it. So the rather horrid screws in the walls that the previous owners had left have now been covered with lovely family photos and a really great poem on a beautiful card that me Mum sent me once. So v pleased with this as its another NSD.

Food - again from stores and a repeat of the caponata made yesterday (chilled and stored in fridge for today) Only down thing was that the beetroot I had planned to have with feta and salad for lunch had gone off - it looked OK yesterday

but on the plus side I still had some roast butternut squash to substitute instead!
Plan for tomorrow is to go blackberrying
Anyone else foraging round about now??? And if so, what?
Foraging and frugalling onward!
Nite all

candygirl

Floss wrote: »

Think JackieO has gone to Bonnie Scotland for her family reunion.

Did a good bit of foraging yesterday - elderberries, sloes (massive ones!) and crab apples. Guess what I will be doing while the Archers is on today!

I dread to think! :rotfl:

Floss

candygirl wrote: »

I dread to think! :rotfl:

Lol! Himself doesn't get the Archers so am able to listen in peace while doing stuff!

candygirl

Floss wrote: »

Lol! Himself doesn't get the Archers so am able to listen in peace while doing stuff!

My lovely, but ever so slightly weird , neighbours all pile into the shed to listen to it.,Granted it's a big shed but .....:eek::rotfl: