AWESOME Recycled Carrier Bag Bunting

Painted Coke Bottles

My husband loves Coke out of glass bottles so once in a while he treats himself to a 6 pack of them. This weekend he treated him self as I had bought some cider and nibbles for watching Eurovision (YAY Denmark by the way).
After he had gone through them I saw them sitting in the recycling box in the kitchen and thought that they were too nice a bottle to just throw away so I looked for some ideas on Pinterest for reusing them. I finally came across a pin which suggested spray painting the inside and using them as vases. There was a similar pin using a syringe thing to squirt acrylic paint in to bottles too.

Peppermint Foot Scrub

Summer is well on its way so I'm told! So that means its time to start breaking out the sandals and flip flops. My feet aren't the most pretty things so its nice to give them a bit of a pamper.

The original pin of this is from Amy over at The Idea Room and a post from way back in 2009. Her recent Brown Sugar Scrub recipe looks great too. Think I need to make a pretty label for my scub too!

Ingredients:

• Enough granulated sugar to fill your pot or bottle
• A swig of olive oil the recipe also says you can use coconut oil
• A few drops of peppermint essential oil  you could use other oils like vanilla or strawberry like me
• food colouring optional - see below

1. Fill your jar or bottle almost all the way with the sugar then tip it in to a bowl
2. slowly add a a small glug of olive oil and stir you want the sugar to be ever so slightly wet - like damp sand.
As Amy notes in the original post, the olive oil makes the scrub a bit of a yellow colour so I also added a few tiny drops of red food colouring to conceal the colour.

3. Add a few tiny drops of essential oil.
I didn't have any peppermint essential oil so was going to use some peppermint essence I use for baking instead but then I remembered I had some strawberry essential oil upstairs. Strawberry fits better with the pink colour so I went with that. (NOTE: I did a small tester with the peppermint essence and it was fine too. The only tiny difference I found was that the food flavouring was less oily and a little more watery but as you only need a tiny bit it didn't really make a difference to the overall mixture.)

You have to mix everything in really well or you end up with tiny red flecks where the colouring isn't completely mixed in.

I'll spare you the horror of the pictures of me applying the scrub to my feet but I will say this: my feet feel amazing. A few more rubs with this and a bit of moisturiser and my tootsies will be ready to see the sun.

Oh and because I used the strawberry oil my feet smelt like strawberry & lime Kopparberg cider which puts me in a summer mood ANYWAY! So I'd definitely say:

Nature Scavenger Hunt

 

The link on Pinterest goes to The Taylor House and the original version of the scavenger hunt list.

Well my printer ink has dried up so the list was hand written up on a piece of paper (excuse the bad handwriting).

The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the kids didn't want to go out. As soon as the words "special game" were uttered they were up and ready to go like a shot.

We didn't really have anything to collect our treasure in so we used small carrier bags (it also meant we didn't end up with huge sticks or lumps of rock as I made the rule "if it can't fit in the bag - it doesn't count"). In hindsight I guess you could use tupperware tubs or old chinese takeaway boxes so yuo can see what you have got.

So we walked down to our local nature spot - the ponds. They used to be old clay pits that got filled in with water and later on that water was used in the production of glucose in a factory nearby. Now its used mainly by fishermen and dog walkers. it's very peaceful.

We got off to a good start finding catkins and moss for our fuzzy things and worked our way down the list. The kids really enjoyed hunting for things and I did wonder if they would actually find everything but they did! 

 After we had managed to get everything on the list we walked home. We had been out for 2 hours and rain clouds were gathering overhead. The kids were ready for their lunch and I was ready for a cup of tea! 

We had a great morning and this is definitely something we are going to do again when the weather is nicer and I think I'll create a list of things to find at the beach for the next time we go to the seaside.

In conclusion:

Whats this blog about then?

Why hello!

So what's this blog all about then? Well like a lot of folk I enjoy Pinterest the pinboard-style photo-sharing website (as Wikipedia refers to it). If you aren't familiar with how it works you see a picture of something you like you "pin" it to a virtual pinboard. other people see your "pin" and if they like it they will "re-pin" it and so on.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. I like using Pinterest. I've discovered some amazing stuff on there. Some I've tried, some I've lusted over and some, some things I can't even try because I'm stuck in the UK. Certain ingredients aren't readily available in this country without buying them from specialist retailers or online. The second hindrance for me is I live in a small village. Our local supermarkets and shops in the nearest town aren't the best and sometimes even trying to find something like Chorizo or fabric pens can be a right chore. We don't even have any pound shops here!

Get to the point already! Ok ok! Well I want to see if I can replicate some of the fantastic pins i've seen. some are straight forward but others may require stuff that's not readily available to me. I'll give stuff a go and see how they turn out.

I'm going to set myself a few rules:

1. Nothing to be bought specially online or from a specialist shop. Only stuff I can get in the usual high street shops in this country. No trips to Hobbycraft for Freezer paper or Candy Melts. That sort of thang.
2. No splurging. Like most people these days, I live on a tight budget. I'm not going to skint myself trying things so thrift is the key. I'm not spending £6 on something I'm going to use once when I could spend that money on booze and cake.
3. It has to be of use. Whatever the pin it has to be of use to me, my family or friends. I'm not going to be hand felting tea cosies out of my own muff hair because nobody is going to want that shit. Same thing goes for any recipe containing Quorn or tofu.
4. It doesn't have to be a something that's made. Lifehacks count too!

What this blog is

A bit of fun, a giggle. Its about trying new stuff

What this blog is not

Endorsed in any way by with Pinterest.

I really have no idea how I will get on. This could go horrificly tits up but its worth a go!