December 1st 2015 - Smells like christmas.....

.....it smells like christmas they say!  Makes your house smell nice they say! 

Errrrrr....... NO IT DOESN'T it STINKS!!!

I can safely say that adding the ingredients to either a pan of boiling water or slow cooker and leave on low makes your house smell nice and of christmas is a load of rubbish.  I added the ingredidients to water and put on the hob and left it.  Within 10minutes my house smelt horrible and I was feeling sick.  I turned the hob off and put the pan outside in the rain!

I have had to light scented candles and spray air freshner to try and cover the smell up!  This is most definately a pinterest fail!!!

BUT on a good note it's decemeber 1st and this means only 24 sleeps until santa comes!!!

November 30th 2015 - Christmas gift box

I have spent today playing about with bits of paper and cardboard trying to make christmas gift boxes for my SJA cadets to make on wednesday night.

I did have a tree shaped box that I planned to use but when I printed them and tried to make 1 it didn't stand up so the template shape is wrong.  So I had to look for a replacement.  The replacement works ok and I have printed them off ready.

Each box will have a couple of sweets placed inside them.

November 29th 2015 - Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

Since we moved to where we live now we have started to recycle much more than we did before.  This isn't because we have more facilities to do so or they are closer or that we have choosen to, its just sort of happened.

We have a small crate outside that the bin men collect every fortnight.  In it can go tins, glass jars and bottles and newspapers/magazines.  Ours doesn't get put out all the time as its never really full.  We have a brown bin for garden waste, plus we have 2 compost bins at the bottom of the garden but these are used more in the summer than the winter.  Then the local supermarkets have other recycle points for plastic, cardboard, glass etc so we take to these when we go shopping.

My fireplace surround is made from recycled wood that was the gate over the drive way (we had to remove the gates as our car was too wide to go through them.)  The gates were treated in a thick black substance which we sanded off, we cut the wood to fit the whole in the fire and then varnished the wood in a natural pine stain.  It is fixed to the wall with haard as nails.  It looks lovely, much better than the big fire sticking out into the lounge.

Part of my decking has been made from pallets that a local company was getting rid of - listed as ideal for DIY projects or fire burning.  They let us have a 2nd lot as well so that we could finish it.  Again it was cut to size, sanded and treated with a wood stain and then varnish.

(picture was before it was stained)

I have used more wood from the old gates to make a 3 tier shelf unit that sits on top of another unit but being 3 tier means I can put alot of junk items on it.  I don't have a photo of it as its full of odds and ends and not tidy at the moment.  The last of the gates was used to make 3 shelves over a doorway of which the was sealed as not needed nor accessable from outside as has a shed infront of it.

We have made pillows from clothes that no longer fit the kids so they have them on their beds as scatter cushions.  Here is the crocodile that was a onesie:

The latest recycle project comes in the form of the old kitchen lino.  There wasn't anything wrong it and it would quite happily have lasted a few more years in the kitchen BUT I wanted a new 1 that matched the colour of the walls and woodwork.  So we rolled up the old one and stood it by the back door and laid the new 1.  Today we emptyied out the outdoor storage cupboard that technically isn't outdoor anymore as we knocked the wall through so its accessable from the kitchen instead of outside.  We swept the floor, filled in gaps around the old door with sealant and then fitted the old kitchen floor to the cuboard.  This involved lots of cutting and moving etc, it's not perfect but hubby is not a floor fitter!  BUT if it makes it a bit warmer in there than walking on concrete then its worth it.  It also helped us to get rid of loads of rubbish and junk that had been dumped in the cupboard and was no longer needed.

November 28th 2015 - Workington Winter Wonderland

Workington is a town near where I live, it has more shops than where I live so we go over quite alot.  Today was the towns Winter Wonderland and Christmas Light switch on.

It was very cold, very wet and very windy.  This meant that many of the planned events throughout the day had to be cancelled for safety reasons.  A lot of the stalls couldn't stay as the wind kept blowing their goods around or actually demolishing the gazebos.  The local theater allowed some of the stalls to move into there for most of the day but not all of it.

It was a real shame about the weather but there was still lots of people about in the town which is good.  It was nice to get home in the warm afterwards.

November 27th 2015 - 3-in-1 sofa bed

Following on from a post a few days ago of changing the boys room around to make more space and buying a 3-in-1 sofa bed I can now report that it has arrived.

2 big boxes with the postman outside the door in the pouring rain!  Good job neither were heavy or it would have been a 2 man job to lift them.

We have a blue and silver version of the 3-in-1 sofa bed as boys room is blue.  My 1st thoughts were they were not going to be very comfy as  didn't look that deep.  But when we opened it out and I sat on it, it is actually comfy.

the 3-in-1 sofa bed is made all in 1 piece of foam and covered.  It can be stored folded as a cube, opened out with the small ends up as a low sofa or opened out fully with the small ends as a sofa bed.  This is going to be stored as a cube so that the boys have room to play etc and it will only be opened out when people stay.

The boys have all laid on it and said that it is really comfy and we have had arguments over who was sitting on it to read.  The cat has also given her seal of approval and has been laid on it asleep since we got in from the school run.

The only downside is its not long enough for adults to sleep on and we thought it may be as it was listed as a uni/student sofa bed.  but if we have to buy a piece of foam the same depth then we will do, but as its mainly going to be used by the kids and their friends its not a big problem.

November 26th 2015 - Beef Stew

As the weather is cold and wet and horrid I have made a lovely beef stew in the slow cooker today.  All 3 of the kids when they came in from school asked what was for tea as it smelt lovely.

It tasted as nice as it smelt and apart from some gravy left in the slow cooker there was nothing left. 

November 25th 2015 - Christmas Crafts

 I was at the school for family learning today and we were doing Christmas Crafts and making things that could be given as gifts.

There was loads of options for them to do.  They had the option of making tree decorations from sewing kits, making christmas pictures, and many more.

Lil man made a reindeer from brown paper and added magic reindeer food to it and needs to sprinkle it on christmas eve.

The middle one made a christmas bauble but as this was still very wet it got left at school to dry and 1 of the teachers will give them out later.

Lil man decorated a mini treasure chest and said that him and Daddy are going shopping for a diamond ring me to go in it.

They both  made snowman countdowns to christmas.  This confused lil man as he thought it was from today and didnt realise it was from dec 1st, but we explained he was fine.

The boys also decorated cakes as melted snowmen but these got eaten.

We also made candy cane star decorations which involved a hot glue gun to fix them together and to fix the decorations onto them.