Tuesday Treats - Half Term Holidays

It's time for Tuesday Treats again, the weekly feature of great reads brought to you by myself; Ruth; Becky and Chris.  Yet again my turn has fallen on a Bank holiday week and we're currently sunning ourselves/sheltering from the rain in north Wales.

So this will be brief I'm afraid, but these are my favourite reads of the week.

First up is Annie from Mammasaurus.  We both saw the Channel 4 program Skint last week, and I found it a pretty tough watch. What was much harder however was the unbelievable reactions displayed on Twitter.  I found myself nodding in agreement all the way through this sensible and compassionate post.

My next recommendation is the Country Kids post by Coombe Mill.  Running a weekly linky myself, I admire Fiona's dedication to the cause.  Personally I think she deserves an award for encouraging so many families out to have fun in the great outdoors.  I enjoyed this week's post particularly - I've stayed at Coombe Mill Farm and remember the hills well, so I know that cycling up them is for the super-fit only!

I have to share with you this amazing looking cake from Aly at Plus 2 Point 4.  I don't think there's much that she can't make in a slow cooker, and this delicious orange and courgette cake rather proves the point.

I adored this post by A Residence of their trip to the Viking Spring Thing at Sherwood Pines.  Her stunning photos capture the awe and wonder in her children's faces as they watch history come to life.

Finally, I need to mention Ali's amazing craft post at Kids Chaos.  Joining in with Red Ted Art's weekly craft hangout, she came up with the most incredible bi planes made from lolly sticks and pegs.  They really do look gorgeous, and put my little boats to shame - although hers don't actually fly.  Just sayin.

Last but not least, I saw this brilliant video shared by Emily from A Mummy Too on Facebook.  If you Instagram you'll recognise yourself in this hilarious send-up.  Take a look.

That's it from me, enjoy the holidays.

Bestest ever car tune

The good people over at Carcraft are on the hunt for the nation's favourite driving song.

You know, the one that makes you want to wind down all your windows, belt it out full volume and get funny looks from fellow drivers at traffic lights.

In a bid to keep everyone happy in the car, there are a few tunes that are pretty much guaranteed to please both us and our five year old.

Ruby's favourite song is I bet you look good on the dancefloor by the Arctic Monkeys, and I felt pretty proud that at aged 4 she could hold her own singing the lyrics.

We like a bit of Kings of Leon; and The Jam are always good for some car seat boogieing.

Wayne's World stylee, Bohemian Rhapsody has to rank up there pretty highly, although I do get a bit nervous when hubs starts headbanging at the wheel.

We have a CD in the car of local band Sister Ray which is also a firm favourite, regularly requested in the car.  I think the female lead has now gone solo and performs as Genna Marabese - check her out if your musical taste is of an avant garde nature.  I like her a lot.

However, there is one clear leader in the best car song stakes.  Much as I love ANY remix by Mark Ronson, the version of Valerie by much missed Amy Winehouse will always get everyone singing along.  Everyone - even me, who doesn't even sing in the shower.




Disclosure: This is a featured post in association with CarCraft.  All words and dubious musical choices are my own.  Please see my Disclosure Page for further details.

Room makeover on a budget

The people at Moneysupermarket have challenged us blogger types to makeover a room with a budget of £50.  Now, I'm always up for a thrifty challenge, but up til yesterday I feared I'd bitten off more than I could chew...particularly as I'd just fallen off the step ladder for the 2nd time and was doubled up with post-ceiling-painting-neck-cramp.

Can I start off by saying, I'm not proud of this appalling state of affairs, but in the spirit of before and after shots, I have to show the 'before' at it's absolute worst.  Right?  That's how it's done?

                         

Our much neglected downstairs loo, whilst being the smallest room in the house, is probably the one with the most roles to fulfil.  We've done nothing to it since moving in nearly 2 years ago, and I'm sad to say it has been very badly treated.  As well as being our downstairs toilet, it also houses all our coats (and hats; scarves; wellies; smelly trainers etc). Added to that it's the laundry room as the washing machine is situated there, it's where the dog sleeps and has her food and water bowls, and the previous occupants obviously had grand ideas of it being a wet-room - yes there's a shower too!  I guess you'd call it a little undefined...

Because it wasn't serving any of it's purposes well (and it's all too easy to simply shut the door on it), it got used as a dumping ground.  Shoes are slung in there; dirty gym kit waiting to go in the wash gets chucked on the floor; the overflowing coat cupboard meant that coats are hung from any available place, or stuffed on top.  My wine-making equipment had taken over.  Good grief, there was even a string of garlic hanging off the shower - don't even ask me.

Yep, it was time to tackle this mess!

    

The simplest, quickest and cheapest way to improve a room is to have a damned good sort out.  De-clutter; re-organise; re-arrange and deep clean.  So that's what I did.  Everything that didn't belong in there was given it's marching orders, then the place was scrubbed from top to bottom.  The windows were cleaned inside and out.  The washing machine was cleaned inside and out; the floor scrubbed; the tiles cleaned and buffed to a shine.  Vanish is great for stain removal and luckily I'd been sent some so I used that to deep clean the dog's bed.

Ordinarily I wouldn't start painting on a quick makeover, but there was no choice here.  The walls were covered in filler and bits of bare plaster where the previous owners had removed something from the wall to take with them.

Both the walls and ceiling were a dull buttermilk colour, so I used some white emulsion I had left over from previous decorating to paint the ceiling, and asked nicely for a pot of bright yellow paint for the walls - well, it was doing nothing in my father-in-law's garage!  It has made SO much difference.  It's so much brighter and lighter in there now, and it feels sunny and cheerful.  It's not a colour I'd use in a room that you live in, but here where most of the walls are tiled, and being a room which won't be occupied for any length of time, it's fabulous.

 


I'm not a huge fan of net curtains, but being downstairs and having a toilet and shower, it needed something, so I chose sunny yellow voiles for the French doors, and they too give a lovely light to the room.

Although this room is actually a new extension, the previous owners loved their period features and obviously spent a lot of time sourcing items from architectural salvage yards.  The improvements allow these antique pieces to shine.  I added a vintage toilet roll holder which I picked up at a car boot sale for £1, and various other stuff I've obtained over the years!

The canvas was from BHS, and the song is special to us, so I had to buy it!  It makes me smile every time I see it now.

The washing machine was already housed inside a tall cupboard, and now I've sorted out all my laundry products, it's great to have them all on-hand, but out of sight.

The whole place is clean, fresh and organised.

Finally, it is what it should be.

Total spend:

Loo roll holder - £1 car boot sale
Canvas print - £15 BHS
Voiles - £5.85 eBay
Shower curtain - £10.99 Dunelm Mill
Coat Hooks - 3 x £3 from Tiger (mounted on skip-found wood)

Total = £41.84 - the rest went on chocolate chip cookies for the worker's many tea breaks.

What do you think?  Better before or after?  What are your top tips for thrifty decorating?

Disclosure: Thank you to Moneysupermarket for providing the £50 for this makeover challenge.

Sailing down the river - lolly stick boats

The challenge for this week's craft hangout with Red Ted Art was lolly sticks (or wooden coffee stirrers if, like me, you have kleptomaniacal tendencies when in local coffee shops).

Some fabulous ideas shared again, check out the video and links below.

I wanted to make something we could take outdoors and play with, to extend the activity further.  I tried a kite but it was a disaster (combination of size of kite; lack of wind and distinct lack of high hills round here).

So then I struck on the idea of making little boats that we could take to the river and race.

They are super-easy to make.  For speed I used a glue gun, but if the kids are involved and you have a little patience, PVA glue will work fine.

You can come up with all manner of designs with the humble lolly stick and for older children it's good to experiment on what designs and size works well, what floats best and what sails fastest.

Kids can personalise their sails with drawings or stickers or you can use decorative paper, tissue paper or even re-use old plastic bags.

Then take them to the river and...on your marks...get set...GO!

This activity brought out rather a lot of competitiveness (particularly from Daddy it has to be said), but rather like a jockey-less horse, my view is a capsized boat isn't the winner - even if it does come first.

We had some rather persistent interference from a local swan too, so next time we'll take bread to throw him off the scent.

We had such a great time sailing our boats and it's definitely something we'll do again.  Just as soon as I've purloined more sticks.

**Think safety first near water***

Click on the links to see instructions for all these craft stick ideas:

Beautiful bi-planes by Kids Chaos
Red Ted Art's Traffic light biscuit pops and superhero puppets
Craftulate's Craft Stick Magnets
Plus 2 Point 4's snowflakes
Easel photo holders by Zing Zing Tree

Magpie Monday - Dyeing for a new lease of life

Today's Magpie Monday comes from a plea for help from a friend.

She had a whole load of lovely Egyptian cotton towels which were too good to throw away, but were beginning to look worse for wear.  They were actually a wedding present so have done remarkably well for 9 years of use, and were in considerably better nick than most of my towels.  They were still soft, fluffy and absorbent, but were no longer sparkly white.  So instead of getting rid of them and buying new ones, she asked for my help dyeing them.

DYLON machine dyes come in a huge palette of colours, and she chose China Blue which is fresh, clean and bright, and will also match her bathroom decor.

If you've never tried machine dyeing, then I'd urge you to have a go.  It's easy and quick and as long as you follow the simple instructions, you can't really go wrong.

First we weighed the towels dry to work out how much dye we'd need.  There were 2 huge bath sheets, 1 bath towel and a 2 hand towels, so we split it into 2 loads and used 2 packs of dye in each machine load.  The towels were then washed as you have to add them to the drum wet.

Into the machine drum we added 1 kilo of salt and the contents of 2 packets of DYLON machine dye.  Then the wet towels are added and we ran a 40 degree wash.  Once the cycle is complete, wash again on 40 degrees.  And that's it.  It really is that simple.

Using DYLON dye won't damage your machine.  Once you have finished, run another wash at 40 with detergent to make sure any residual dye is gone and then your machine can safely be used again as normal.

So if you have any cotton towels; bed linen or table cloths that are looking a bit jaded, but are still in good condition, don't chuck them out but try giving them a new lease of life with a DYLON colour.

NB: always read the instructions before use.

Disclosure: I have an ongoing relationship with DYLON - please see my Disclosure Page for full details.

Have you rescued or reused something this week?  Grab the badge and link up.

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Win a Discovery Pass with the Forestry Commission

Regular readers will know that as an official Forestry Commission blogger, we visit our local woods often, and I want to encourage you and your family to do the same.

Not only is it a magical, adventurous place to spend time but a recent scientific study has now proved what I've always firmly believed - spending time in the great outdoors is good for you!

"...new research reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine now provides scientific proof that walking in nature and spending time under leafy shade trees causes electrochemical changes in the brain that can lead people to enter a highly beneficial state of “effortless attention.”

"...Entering this state of effortless attention can occur in a variety of ways—walking in the woods, hiking along a trail in a totally natural environment, or sitting by a stream watching water tumble over rocks. It seems that the experience of being in nature is transformative in and of itself—it can cause a person’s emotional state to be uplifted and mental balance to be restored. Being in nature is truly refreshing in a very deep, meaningful way." 

A discovery pass is a great way to gain year round access to your local Forestry Commission site in England, as well as helping to contribute to it's maintenance.   It gives you free car parking; seasonal newsletters and a range of discounts both on and off site.  The cost and benefits offered vary from site to site, so check out the forest map to see what's available in your locality.

If you'd like to win your very own Discovery Pass and open up a world of woodland adventure, complete the steps on the rafflecopter below.

One winner will be chosen at random after the closing date of midnight on Friday 24th May 2013.  Open to UK entrants only.  The prize will be supplied and fulfilled by the Forestry Commission and the winner must respond with their full contact details within one week of being announced.  The winner's name will be posted here and announced on Twitter.  Only one person per household may enter.  No correspondence shall be entered into.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What does 'buying local' mean to you?

We've all heard the expression, but what does it actually mean in practise?

Does it mean you buy your spuds from the farmer's market rather than the corporate giants?  That you frequent your local coffee shop rather than one of the chains?  Or is it broader than that?

I tend to be drawn to products from companies and businesses with a local connection.  Let's face it, there isn't much in the way of manufacturing left in this country, but I still find myself parting with my cash easier if it is a brand who is part of my community or has some kind of home-town connection.

I live in Bedfordshire.  Always have.  So have my parents and my in-laws.  I've lived and worked in Luton, as have my parents; my partner; his parents and our siblings.  For us, brands like Electrolux, Vauxhall and Whitbread (or Charles Wells for the Bedfordians) will always be thought of as 'local' even if they are global industries.

The Electrolux factory was manufacturing vacuums and washing machines in Luton from 1927 - 1998, and even though they no longer produce goods on site, it is still home to their headquarters.  It was a huge part of the landscape of my partner's childhood, being practically on his doorstep.  He remembers community events in the sports and social club, and meeting the Spurs team and Ossie Ardiles there after a game against Luton Town.

So for me, if I'm looking for a new washing machine, induction hob or even a pint of beer, I like to go with a company that is supporting the local economy and workforce.

How about you?  Do you feel a sentimental draw to certain companies connected to your home town?

Disclosure: this is a featured post brought to you in association with Electrolux.  Any musing and reminiscing is purely my own.  Please see my disclosure page for full details.