Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2020

House_Elf_2

MrsSnowy said:

House_Elf_2 said:

Make do: I have made washing gloop this morning, so, no shop bought washing powder required 😎 It will last about a month, and cost about £1. Yay!

House Elf,what recipe do you use for washing gloop please?
 It sounds interesting and I'm sick of standing in the washing powder aisle trying to work out which is most eco friendly,cost effective,least waste,best for recycling etc
Thank you
MrsS

Good morning,

This is my version, after years of trial and error! 🤓

Washing Gloop recipe:
1 cup soda crystals to 1 bar of grated soap per litre of water. ( I times the recipe by 4, and make 2 buckets every half term. This seems to work out ok for 5 of us).

Boil 4 litres of water in a big pan. (Mine is a huge catering pan usually used for curries). Take it off the heat and add grated soap. Stir until melted. Add Soda Crystals. There will be bubbling from the reaction. (Advisable to wear eye protection). Stir with a big spoon and decant into a bucket. Top up with cold water. Stir well.

The Gloop will set like blancmange. (Depending how much water has been added). Use about 3 tablespoons in the drum of your machine. Experiment!

(Some people add drops of essential oil, or boost the bubbles with Stardrops, but I just go with the basic recipe). There was an MSE thread about Gloop.

It must have saved me a fortune over the years........it has also helped with DS1 eczema.

Make do: Bagsied a jumper DD was throwing out, to wear with my pinafore. DH said I look like Dennis the Menace 😀
Mend: Got the Superglue out and mended a chipped cup and the trim of the work top.
Minimise: Filling bag number 4, this week, for the charity shop.

Have a lovely day 🙂

misstara

Morning MMMers, hope you're all having a lovely weekend and haven't been too affected by the storms.

OH had finally finished painting the kitchen   Next things on the list to do in there are get new lino for the floor and a splashback or tiles behind the cooker.

OH made a start on minimising some of his CDs, the problem is he keeps finding one's that he hasn't listened to for ages so we've currently got 3 piles of keep, go to charity and need to listen to before a decision is made   I suspect the listen to pile will sit there for a long time, however, it is progress.

I've mended a few items - pj bottoms, a jumper and a jacket pocket.  I've finally cleared some space on my desk in the bedroom so I plan to set up my sewing machine properly through there.

Eenymeeny

Thanks misstara and the same to you. I'm just so relieved that the wind has died down a bit this morning. We've had strong winds for over a fortnight now and it actually feels a bit eerie without it!
We have a cd retention problem too. I don't know if this would help you but I put all of my cds onto the computer then made up a memory stick of 16gb worth of 'favourites' It's permanently plugged into our 'music centre' (if that's what it's called these days?) The cds are packed away now so hopefully will be 'moved on' eventually... 
I know this is probably an old-fashioned solution but we are old-fashioned

Siebrie

I retraeded the button elastic through dd2's Burberry jeans. They were a gift (from a colleague whose dds had outgrown these jeans); who buys Burberry for kids????

Wraithlady

Make do: (and kind of minimising) - We have a new bed, and OH didn't know what to do with  the old (rather worse-for-wear) mattress protector. So, I am using it to make a shallowish cylinder to fill with (clean) worn-out socks to pad out my home-made footrest, saving me buying upholstery foam.
Mend: patching a hole in my most comfortable jogging pants
Minimise : apart from the above - we did an online order, and for some reason, we received 2 kg of carrots, not the 1 I had ordered (we only got charged for one, so I'm not complaining). There's only so much soup I can store, so I made a carrot cake to take to friends yesterday. It tasted so nice, I may well make it again today for pudding!

MrsSnowy

HouseElf
Thank you for the gloop recipe,I'll certainly have a go at that.Only me ,but I do all DD2s washing!
Minimising by filling a bag to take to CS next week. Minimised tag ends of veg by making vegetable and lentil soup,that covers CFO as well!!
MrsS

House_Elf_2

Good Afternoon,

Mrs S : Good luck with the gloop!

Make do : We have been given 2 beds for the spare bedroom. DH friend helped transport and rebuild them. We bought a Chinese takeaway for everyone as repayment.
Mend : Superglued the head back on an ornament before putting the glue away again!
Minimise : Bags dropped at the CS. Old towels put into the donation box at the vets, along with treat our doggy refuses to eat! EBay parcels wrapped and ready to go.

Have a lovely evening 🙂

Glad

Hi all, I've been reading through this great thread, I try to live by Reuse, Recycle, Redeploy as much as possible
this weekend I've been redecorating the bathroom, I managed to get a pallet for free and pulled it apart, so far I've made a shelf (there's a socket on the wall for a shaver/toothbrush but nothing to stand them on) and a batten to attach a blind to, painted the wood with emulsion left over from another room, and this week I'll make the blind from some material I picked up in a factory shop
also made a pasta sauce from bits of veg I had and added a cooking apple that needed using up, divided into 8 portions

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

Minimise: Ball of wool - scarf 27 finished

CraftyLittleLisa

I have been absent from commenting for a little bit as I have been trying to catch up and read all the "Lots of Sneaky Ways To Save" Thread.  Anyway, I have finished and have got lots of ideas which I am now going to try to put into practice.  Over the last couple of weeks my "Minimise, Make Dos and Mends" have been:

Minimise:

- Decluttered paperwork.

- Wrote to Royal Mail and various other companies to register for various schemes to reduce the junk mail I get.

- Requested paperless statements from my bank and credit card companies.

- Minimised my fabric stash by making bowl covers, that can be washed after use, to use instead of cling film.

- Decluttered my books and donated them to a book swap they are going to start at work.

- Used one of the many free sewing and knitting kits I have collected from magazines.

- Used a Christmas present I got (a soap making kit) to make some soap to use.

Made Do:

- I put off going shopping for one more day (as I knew I  had to go the next day) and made a dinner out of what was in the freezer.

- Made two meals over the last week using odds and sods in the fridge that needed finishing up (and they were rather tasty).

- Over half term my two nephews visited and wanted to make a toy each so I raided by crafting cupboard and we made an owl and a panda for them out of my stash (this could be minimise as well I suppose).

Mend:

Nothing needs mending at the moment.