Little Lavender Pillows

Little lavender pillows, sewn from squares of beautiful fabric and filled with fragrant dried lavender flowers, make simple and lovely handmade gifts. 

Little handmade lavender pillows.

Surrounded by the serene scent of lavender, I sewed up half a dozen of these little pillows in an afternoon. From the offcuts of a favourite Nani Iro fabric, printed with soft purple, yellow and white flowers, and an organic calico for the backing, I cut pairs of six inch squares. 

A pair of squares ready to be sewn into a little pillow.

Just some simple straight sewing around the edges, leaving a little gap in one side to turn them right side out, and they were nearly done. Each little pillow was then filled with a mixture of rice and dried organic french lavender flowers, which I purchased from a bulk foods store. 

Dried lavender, mixed with rice, for filling each pillow.

Once filled,  I slip stitched each little pillow opening closed. This YouTube video shows how to sew slip stitch which is ideal for closing up openings in pillows like these with an invisible stitch.

A little handsewing to close each pillow opening with slip stitch.

One little pillow is almost finished.

These little pillows release such a relaxing scent. Tied in pairs with simple ribbon or nestled into a basket with some lavender bath products, they would make a simple gift for anyone who finds the scent of lavender to be a calming and soothing one.

Meg

Five Frugal Things

I began my more frugal journey with Rhonda Hetzel's Down-to-Earth blog and book and since then have gathered lots of ideas from many more blogs and books. I really enjoy reading about the simple everyday savings that people make and that I can do in our home too. Here are five frugal savings I've made of late:

Homemade lavender room spray.

I made up a simple and fragrant lavender room spray following the instructions I found on Wendy's blog, My Abundant Life. I mixed up cooled, boiled water and a small amount of water soluble lavender oil (from the supermarket) in a little spray bottle that once held a face toner. This room spray is simple, cheap, took very little time to make and smells beautiful without all the chemicals one would find in a tin of air freshener. I 💜it!

Delicious home baking.

There's always something baking at our place. Lately, some of the delicious mulberries from our dwarf tree, which we picked and froze by the handful, have found their way into homemade apple and mulberry pie. Mmm! The sweet orange juice, squeezed from my friend's homegrown fruit, has been the star ingredient in batches of orange breakfast muffins. A delicious way to make the most of gifted produce. Not one, but two chocolate slices were baked while the oven was already on. One was shared with friends for afternoon tea and one was sliced and frozen for another day. Everyday, inexpensive pantry staples, like flour and cocoa and coconut, became a home baked treat with a simple recipe and some time. 

A little sweet gift.

I made a simple little notelet card, for a loved one in lockdown, by reusing the front of an old greeting card, some homemade paper and a piece of ribbon from my stash. A tiny bar of chocolate was wrapped in some saved tissue paper and, together with my notelet and message, was sent on its way in a salvaged envelope. 

Magazines from the library.

Many years ago, I would faithfully buy this magazine every.single.month. I still enjoy reading it and looking at all of the beautiful country-style homes inside the pages, but I no longer buy it. Instead, I borrow it from the library. This magazine costs $8.50 at the supermarket so over the course of a year not buying it saves $102. I still get to enjoy it but for free!

A second hand bargain!

Two sets of this children's construction material were purchased second hand. Both sets are in excellent condition and cost at total of $50. A single, new set can cost more than that! All these plastic pieces will be used and enjoyed often instead of ending up in landfill. As I use this material regularly, in my work, I consider this a bargain as well as a saving of resources. 

None of these things, on their own, lead to jaw-dropping savings but a more frugal mindset has made me more resourceful, creative and conscious of what I do spend money on. That does lead to healthy savings over time, for us and for the Earth too.

I'd love to hear about the ways you save at your place.

Meg

Shades of Pink

Different shades of pink, from delicate and pale to bright and deep, ...

 Pink petals of a Cranberry Hibiscus bloom.

Pale pink strawberry  smoothie.

Deep foxglove pink.

A fluffy pink puffball.

Playing with pinks for a quilt patch.

Bright pink salvia bloom.

...are such pretty variations on a sweet colour.

Meg

Vintage Food Tins

I 💗 vintage tea and biscuit tins. With pretty designs or distinctive logos, rusty edges and battered lids, they take me back to those olden days before plastic became ever-present and persistent in our lives. I can imagine my grandmother prising the lid off a tea tin and scooping out the leaves for the teapot! 

Many such tins were on display in the kitchen of an old cottage at the historical museum we visited recently. Some once held iconic products, like Arnott's biscuits, Weetbix and Uncle Toby's rolled oats, that we can still buy today.

Arnott's biscuits began way back in 1865. 

(It is no longer an Australian-owned company.)

Weetbix were first produced in the 1920s. 

Images of Australian animals decorated tea tins.

A flowery design on an old sugar canister.

A display of old tins on a shelf.

(Doors, windows & lids shaped like rooftops.)

The Uncle Toby's company was founded in 1861 as Parsons Bros.

(Nestle acquired Uncle Toby's in 2006.)

 

Before pre-packaged goods, like these from yesteryear and those we find at the supermarkets today, my great-grandmother would have done her shopping at the local grocer. Bulk foods, kept behind a long wooden counter, would have been measured out according to the order she made with the grocer. She may have brought her purchase home, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string...how times have changed!  

Meg

p.s.  If you'd like to take a walk down memory lane, to the shops of old, this link may interest you:  

Living History: How Shops Show Their Age  

I especially enjoyed reading about Bickmore's General Store, at Kurri Kurri, on pages 21 & 22. There's a photo of the shopkeeper behind a long wooden counter!

The Gympie Gold Mining & Historical Museum

We moseyed our way back home after our time up at Rainbow Beach.  As we were in no hurry, we stopped off at the Gympie Gold Mining & Historical Museum and spent a couple of hours exploring all its old buildings and collections from yesteryear. As well as its Gold Display, based on the discovery of alluvial gold by James Nash in 1867 and the subsequent establishment of the township of Gympie, there are many old buildings on site that house fascinating displays that take you back to very different times...

                                                           An early slab hut with an earthen floor.                                                              (My son asked, "Did people actually live in here? 😀)

Horse drawn sulkies.  (Imagine... no cars!)

The Cream Shed

(Different churns for making butter by hand are inside.)

An old wooden cottage with verandah.

(This cottage was the home of Australia's 5th Prime Minister, Andrew Fischer.)

Old pots & pans & kettles for cooking.

(I think this might be an old kerosene stove??)

A hand-operated washing machine with a wringer.

(A step up from a washboard but still very time consuming.)

A collection of old-fashioned telephones.

(No mobile phones in those days!)

I find taking steps back in time, albeit sometimes to a past not all that distant (I remember my family had a rotary dial telephone when I was a girl in the 1970s), emphasises for me just how quickly some things, especially technology, seem to change now. It reminds me too, as in the case of the hand-operated washing machine, that life may indeed have been simpler but that doesn't necessarily mean it was easier!

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The township of Gympie "sprang up" after the discovery of gold in the region. As in other places, this discovery brought economic prosperity. Gympie is even credited as being the "town that saved Queensland" due to the boom that followed James Nash's discovery. Today though, mining (and in particular, coal mining) is a much more controversial industry as there's more at stake than simply "striking it rich" in in this age of climate change.

Old balance scales for weighing gold.

Gold mining shares.

        Panning for...rocks!

While we tried our hands at panning for gold, all we discovered were lots of little washed rocks unlike the two lucky prospectors who found Queensland's largest nugget (The Curtis Nugget) in the area over a century and a half ago. Our visit to the historical museum was still very worthwhile though; wandering through the old buildings and looking at all the artefacts and photographs gives you a sense of days gone by and an appreciation for some things, like modern washing machines 😊, that make life today easier in some respects. 

Meg