Make do, Mend and Minimise in 2021

annieb64

I'm  not trusting DH with my hair. I've  trimmed a bit off the fringe but the rest can wait.

MrsCD

Ooooooh I hope it's not too short for you! I'm at the point now where I just don't care how long it is. It's sitting just curled up on my shoulders and it can wait for now. On the other hand, my DH is desperate for his to be cut, but I'm too much of a wimp to try.

Laura_Elsewhere

MrsCD said:

Ooooooh I hope it's not too short for you! I'm at the point now where I just don't care how long it is. It's sitting just curled up on my shoulders and it can wait for now. On the other hand, my DH is desperate for his to be cut, but I'm too much of a wimp to try.

Here's advice I gave friends almost a year back - half a dozen or more of them now cut their own hair and say they won't bother paying to have it done in future! And by "cut their own hair" I mean men living alone who have literally cut their own hair... 
So if you still don't want to cut your OH's hair, and he is desperate, give him these notes and tell him they've worked for other men...  

I used to cut hair for friends in our teens and twenties - probably the two most useful things I learnt were:

- you can always take a bit more off but it's a !!!!!! trying to glue it back on... so take off less than you think.

- don't cut across with your hair just lying against your head as normal. Think of how a barber cuts it - they lift the hair up, with comb or fingers, and then cut as though levelling off the top of something, so the hairs are all slightly different lengths when they then lie down again. If you just cut across then you get all the hairs the same length which is ideal for a 1920s fringed bob hairstyle but on the rest of your head will give you a great Norman-French pudding-bowl haircut...

So I would sit comfortably in front of a mirror and then start by finger-combing your hair all round. Have whatever parting you normally have, if any - and just lift a bit of hair with your fingers or a comb and take a little bit off, repeat nearby, repeat nearby, repeat nearby. Stop and have a look, finger-combing it as needs be. If it's looking fine, go ahead and repeat on the other side of your head.

You'll need to do the back by feel and guesswork, but on the plus side if you mess it up you won't be able to see it...

It's not as scary as you think. Really not. And then wash it to get all the little bits out, and be prepared to have to trim a few bits over the next couple of days.

If you want to take quite a lot of hair off, I would still start by taking only a bit of the length off - it will mean you get some practice so that when you do make it much shorter you can get it nice and even.

You'll cut each area more than once anyway - by repeatedly lifting up different nearby areas of hair, you'll lift some bits more than once, so what you end up with is a fairly even cut all over.

And one friend described how he did the back of his head: "sitting on a low stool in front of the full-length mirror with my laptop over my shoulder showing the back of my head on the web-cam, and a bright lamp to illuminate it. But blimey, it was hard. I've never been able to train my brain to manoeuvre scissors in mirror-image."

Hope that helps!

MrsCD

Thanks Laura. I might have a go at the side bits sometime soon.

dolly84

Make do - gave DD's bedside cabinet a revamp with paint we already had in, I did buy a roll of the stick back stuff in a gloss marble effect for the top, it looks really good although we do need to buy some new knobs yet.

Minimise

2 dvd's and 12 cd's - Freecycle

Fragrance oil - used up

3 cushion inners - fabric recycling

3 cushion covers - donation bag

Teddy bear t shirt - fabric recycling

Stove top kettle - Freecycle

6 books - Freecycle

3 sheer curtains - fabric recycling

thriftwizard

Make do: I'm quite chuffed with this one! DS3 is expected back momentarily, to stay for anything up to 18 months, clutching his doctorate and a vast collection of academic books. He wanted his room done up like a study-with-bed, basically, with several big bookcases, a wingback chair (found on Freegle) and a BIG desk. For space reasons, the BIG desk has had to be quite a lot smaller than he'd envisaged. I searched & searched, and would have bought new, but couldn't find anything that would fit the available space that wasn't white & plasticky, the only style he absolutely didn't want. But I did find a free !kea desktop on FB Marketplace. So I've cut it down to size, ordered the legs from !kea at minimal expense, added a lip at the back to stop things falling off (wood from the garage) and came up with the idea of a small pegboard for keeping his stationery in order and off the desktop. Pegboard is suddenly almost impossible to get hold of, but I asked on a local "giving & recycling" FB page, and a friend popped an offcut down to me the very next morning. A bit of jiggery-pokery with my trusty jig-saw, some florist's wire, some small screws and black paint, et voilà! We have a desk...


And so much stuff has been minimised, I've completely lost track. I've been selling stuff on FB Marketplace & Ebay, giving stuff away on Freegle & FB, and a fair bit has gone to the Tip too. A smaller desk, a bureau, a large TV, piles of clothes, a chair - you'd think there'd be some space visible now! Seems I'll need to keep going for quite some time...

2Scratters

Make do - still dining from the house stocks
The cushions on the settee have always overhung the edge (it was a pre owned purchase) The gentleman of the house was very tall, I have always assumed that was why the cushions were as they were. Both of us being just average height our legs always dangled. So finally took a brave step and I cut off a slice from the back of the cushions. lt does look so much better and works better too.✨
DH used a flag and some small flag cobbles to go around the flag to make it a bigger area for the bird stand/table.
Mend - treated the bird table hubby got me back in December was I was on a low ebb. He wouldn't let it be put out till we treated it too. This all turned into a little big job
Minimise - have been getting small bits out, did a small declutter of the everything goes in drawer when looking for some hooks for said bird table, was a good 2 handfuls of whatever DH cleared out some mixed waste metal from his shed and GDs bmx bike, waiting for scrap man to collect. Had to incidentally minimise the bird seed in the tub that I had mixed with the suet feed mix, needless to say that's why it comes in seperate bags!🤦‍♀️

dolly84

More things have left the house and garage.

Minimise

12 used tins of paint, either empty or nearly empty - given to 2 men at the tip as they were taking all the used paint tins.

Large pile of towels and sheets - given to the same men as the paint as cover up cloths.

Random metal bits - recycled

2 Gardening books - Freecycled

Bracelet - donation box

Bralet and cami vest - donation box

Odd sock and uncomfortable underwear - into a bag for next trip with fabric recycling/donation for rag

Sudoku book - recycling

Crossword book - DH took to work to complete

Banking folder - bin

Old and discoloured pillowcases - fabric recycling

Old shower curtains - used as cover up cloths but not the waterproof type so they have gone to the tip

We are able to see spaces in cupboards and drawers now.

Laura_Elsewhere

@thriftwizard that looks ace! 

dolly84

thriftwizard - it's amazing what you can do with a little bit of imagination.

As you know I am in the process of simplifying our home, I've been doing it for quite a long while and it really is a process, I keep going over the same areas every so often and find I can let more things go each time.  I've been watching quite a few people on Youtube and one guy said the following statement which really resonated with me so I thought I would share:

"The accumulation of physical possessions is not the greatest thing you can do with your life."

If only I had realised this sooner.

On that note some more things have left the building.

Game - Sold

Skirt - Sold

Riding Jacket - donation box

2 blouses - donation box

Iron - I kept this in the loft in case my new one broke, I couldn't remember why I had replaced it (years ago) so I got it out and turned it on, it works dry but on steam setting the water just leaks from the bottom, I always use steam so this is going to the electrical recycling bin at the tip.