Finds from the Op-Shops

There are several op-shops to visit very close to where I live. I often pop in if I'm passing to see what is hanging on the racks or stocked on the shelves. Sometimes, I have a specific item I'm hoping to find second-hand and other times I may just be in the right shop at the right time! These are my recent op-shop finds:

A set of four of these blue-ringed pasta bowls. They cost $8 total.  Their blue rings match some plates I bought a while ago. We have used these multiple times already for soup and pasta meals. They hold generous serves!

This floaty cotton top cost only a few dollars. It's a brighter red than showing in the photograph. As it's a very lightweight cotton, it will be perfect to wear in Spring and Summer.  I 💗it!

This book is filled with amazing tales and stunning photographs that chronicle the history of attempts to climb the highest peak on Earth. Published in 2002, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the first successful summit by Edmund Hillary and Tenzin Norgay in 1953,  all three of us were fascinated by the stories and images and have since borrowed more books from our local libraries on the topic. I can't remember the exact cost but it was less than $10.

A t-shirt and a pair of shorts for my growing boy cost $7 altogether. Orange is one of my son's favourite colours and so he has been wearing his new-to-him t-shirt quite a lot. The shorts are a size larger than he currently wears and have been put away until the next growth spurt. 😊

These thrifty finds are all in excellent condition. Bringing them home has benefits beyond the savings of second-hand. They remain in use, the resources embedded in their manufacture have not ended up in landfill and the dollars I spent to purchase them go towards supporting the work of charity organisations, that run these op-shops, in the community. 

In the next little while, I'm on the lookout for collared polo shirts for a growing boy off on school camp and I am always hunting for old embroideries and linen. Who knows what else I'll come across in the treasure-troves that are my local op-shops.

Have you found any op-shop finds lately?

Meg

 

Some Simple Savings

The simple savings we make here don't usually come via a flashy sale with price tags advertising huge discounts. Instead, they tend to reveal themselves in the everyday things we do over and again. These are some of the little savings we've made of late by making, growing, reusing, mending and finding our own:

This plant, grown from a cutting I brought home from my Mum's garden, has filled out its hanging basket. Both the wire hanging basket and its liner were 'rescued' from my stash of old pots that I keep on a table under our house. I am not sure what this plant is called but it has pretty tangerine bell-shaped flowers. A free plant from my Mum's place that's now growing here too.

I stamped a plain piece of brown paper, which came wrapped around a little bunch of flowers I received, with tiny flower heads. I added it to my ''saved" gift wrap along with this silver and black piece that came with flowers too. I think both will look lovely once re-used and tied with black ribbons.

A large dish of lasagne was baked to share as a meal with friends. I used grated zucchini and carrot and pumpkin to add to the very small amount of meat I had to make the filling. I sprinkled the creamy sauce on top with a little parmesan cheese and baked it until golden.  I served it with steamed veg. Warm and chocolatey prune muffins, from a recipe I found in a Grass Roots magazine, with homemade vanilla ice-cream, made a lovely dessert too. As we were feeding two extra hungry teenage boys, this homemade meal saved us quite a bit as I'm sure you can all imagine just how many takeaway pizzas growing boys can eat!

Little harvests from the garden are finding their way into lots of our meals. There are handfuls of crunchy snow peas for stir fries, juicy yellow tomatoes for salads that are also lovely and sweet when roasted. I've made two Silverbeet Impossible Pies now, with silverbeet and spring onion and parsley from the garden, which is just delicious hot or cold, for lunch or for dinner. The little limes, from a tree that I walk past almost every day while out with Sir Steve dog, are destined to become lime curd to dollop onto our homemade scones. At one of the big supermarkets, limes are 72c each. These were foraged and free!

 

One of my favourite op-shops is open again now and I found this black button-up cardigan amongst the racks of clothes. It cost me just a few dollars. I will get a lot of wear out of it because it's lightweight and thus perfect for our mild sub-tropical Winters. I also mended one of my son's favourite t-shirts to extend its life a little longer. 

Making things last that bit longer, reusing what we already have, growing and making our own, buying second hand and keeping an eye out for that which is free or a good bargain saves a little here and there which, over time, adds up to dollars and cents not spent but saved.

Meg

Tea Towel Drawstring Bag

A old and soft linen tea towel and a cross-stitched rosy doily, both costing just a few dollars each, have been re-purposed into a sweet little drawstring bag. 

A sweet bag made with re-purposed linens.

I had been wanting to sew a bag like this one ever since I came across Jude Van Heel's easy instructions in an issue of Grass Roots magazine (No. 244 Dec/Jan 2017/18). I found these beautiful linens quite a while ago and finally sewed them up in a project that took less than an hour to make. 💗

A vintage doily to decorate an old towel.

The colours in the rosy doily, the pinks and the browns and the greens, match in with the stripes of the tea towel so I think they go together quite well.  

Simple stitches sew the doily onto the tea towel.

Sewing the doily onto the tea towel was very easy. I used simple running stitches, sewing in and out of the little holes of the doily, all the way around until it was secure.  Then it was just a matter of sewing up one side and across the bottom of the folded tea towel to form the bag. A simple casing at the top, leaving room for a drawstring to run through it, and it was time for a ribbon. A lovely long blue satin ribbon, that came tied around a recent birthday gift, was perfect and so it was reused as the drawstring to finish off this sweet and simple project.

A satiny ribbon for a drawstring.

A tea towel drawstring bag like this could be used as a project bag, to hold a knitting or stitching project, or as an alternative to wrapping paper. Ours will be used to hold the gentle goat milk soaps we have collected to give to a special Grandma celebrating a birthday not far away.

What have you been making lately?

Meg

p.s.  You can visit Jude Van Heel, who lives in a sweet cottage in Tasmania, at Instagram:  @fairywrencottage

Plastic Bag Ban?

A simple children's story,  A Bag and a Bird, from the amazingly talented author and illustrator, Pamela Allen, tells a tale of the potential danger that plastic bags pose to our environment and our wildlife. In her story, it's an ibis that gets tangled in one of these lightweight nightmares but it could just as easily have been a pelican or a turtle or any number of other sea creatures. In this story, all ends well but we all know that isn't so outside of the fictional world of children's picture books.

A simple story about a big problem.

The harm plastic does in our environment is, I think, widely known and commonly accepted. So today, when a ban on lightweight plastic bags comes in to force in the Australian state where I live, I found myself asking the question, "What took so long?" As with many things, the wheels of government turn much more slowly than if we just make a personal decision and act on it.  

A little flyer from our local shop.

While lightweight plastic bags, the kind you often (used to) see piled up in supermarket trolleys are now banned here, and in other the Australian states, there are still plastic bags to which the ban does not apply. Heavyweight plastic bags, thin plastic produce bags, bin liners and garbage bags are still going to be available from retailers in the state where I live. Like Cheryl, over at A Simply Good Life, I think that these "acceptable" plastics will just end up in landfill eventually. Why not ditch these plastic bags altogether? Here are the things we do at our place to avoid using plastic bags:

Instead of bringing home groceries in any kind of plastic bag, I have collected fabric bags, some made from organic cotton and some from reclaimed cottons. I 💚 that these can be used over and over again and that they can be washed if they get a bit grotty. I send them, shredded into small strips, to the compost bin when they are beyond repair.  Perhaps, you might be lucky enough to have Boomerang Bags operating in your community and will have that source of reusable bags to use. When I go to the market, I take my basket and a few fabric bags so that I don't bring home any plastic from there either.

A few of our plastic bag alternatives.

Instead of throwaway plastic produce bags, we have a set of little mesh and cotton drawstring bags. I bought mine from an ethical online store, when they were on sale, but they can be readily sewn up from mesh fabric or even old curtain material. Here's a tutorial and a pattern (scroll down through blog post to find it) for how to make them. 

My market basket.

One common question that seems to have been on people's minds, in the lead up to our plastic bag ban, has been, "What will we line our bin with now?" We don't line our little kitchen bin with anything anymore but Liz, over at Eight Acres, uses sheets of newspaper to line hers. We use sheets from the little local newspaper, that lands on our driveway every week, to wrap any "icky scraps" before putting them in the freezer. Now, we don't have many "icky scraps", because we compost our fruit and veg scraps and our dog takes care of most of our meat scraps, but I find that by wrapping and freezing what we do have to dispose of, there's no oozy, smelly stuff in our bin. A quick rinse out and it's ready to go back under the kitchen sink. I just have to remember to put any wrapped scraps in the wheelie bin on rubbish collection day.

Perhaps, remembering to bring along reusable bags when shopping will be one of the biggest challenges in the early days of this plastic bag ban. Having lightweight plastic bags, to plonk our purchases in, is something we've all gotten used to at the checkout. There was a time though when plastic bags did not exist, as hard as that may be to imagine given the way plastics are such an ever-present part of our lives now. That means though that we can get used to doing without them again too.  Perhaps, there will be a happy outcome, just as there is in the story of A Bag and a Bird.

Do you have a plastic bag ban in place where you live? What alternatives do you, or are you planning to, use?

Meg

First Pickings

It's a wonderful feeling picking that first homegrown lettuce from our Autumn veggie patch.  After the lettuce-drought of Summer, when it's way too hot to grow lettuce in the garden here, the fresh, crunchy leaves of our own lettuces signal a return to cooler growing conditions and more abundance from the garden. Hooray!

The first lettuce and chard from our Autumn veggie patch.

The first silverbeet and rainbow chard has been picked too. Ready for using in omelettes, quiches and perhaps some of these delicious Hortopita parcels, all nutritious silverbeet-y filling and flaky filo pastry. Mmm...

As the season "grows on", more food will come from our veggie patch. Things like Tuscan kale, beetroot, snow peas, beetroot, spring onion and leeks...

 Broccoli

 Spring Onion

 Beetroot

Snow peas

Tuscan Kale

... and more varieties of lettuce too!

Lettuce with a speckled leaf.

How are things growing at your place?

Meg

Home Food

Our kitchen is often a hive of activity! There seems to be always something being chopped, grated, mixed, stirred, fried, blended or baked in what is the heart of our home. Up at the island bench I love, which looks out to a distant horizon, I make the food we love to eat. Home food! There are so many benefits to cooking and eating this way. Benefits way beyond the deliciousness and naughtiness of a big bowl to lick ... 

A very lick-able bowl.

(That's chocolate pudding mixture in there!)

Each morning, starts with a nourishing breakfast. Perhaps an omelette or toast with egg and bacon or mushrooms. Perhaps warmed slices of a nutty, breakfast-y bread made days before and frozen for those busier mornings when someone has to be out the door a bit earlier than usual. Granola in the warmer months and porridge, with warmed blueberries, when it's colder. Always a fulfilling start to the day no matter what's on the table.

A slice of  nutty banana bread for breakfast.

An omelette with spinach and leftover roasted veg.

Weekday lunches are prepared and packed in a mini production line upon the kitchen bench (I have never quite mastered the night before packing of lunches). Leftovers from dinner the night before or fresh salads and always a sandwich or two! Weekend lunches are more leisurely, rounds of toasted sandwiches or fresh Turkish bread, if I've been to the little local shop that sells it, spread with each of our favourites. Weekend lunches are made whenever we are hungry and eaten with noses in our local paper or a good book.

Leftover roasted chicken and salads for lunch.

Snacks for morning and afternoon teas are mixed and baked on the weekends for the work and school days ahead. This week, it was Anzac Biscuits and a simple cereal slice. Often it's muffins, pear or banana, studded with little chocolate chips. 

A batch of little muffins ready for the oven.

Each night, at our little wooden dining table, we sit and share a home cooked meal. Nothing fancy, just simple food we enjoy. Over these meals, the highlights of our days are shared and the things we are thankful for are voiced. If we are cooking for a crowd, we still keep it simple and just increase the quantity!

 A quick macaroni & cheese bake.

A stir fry with lots of healthy vegetables.

A nourishing salad with lots of greens.

Many homemade pizzas!

Home food is real food! It's the way we eat most of the time. Cooking and eating this way doesn't mean that we never have takeaway or that I've never resorted to opening a packet of very convenient biscuits. Of course we do and I have! These are rarities though and not our normal, everyday way of preparing and eating food. 

Home cooking not only fills our tummies, it nourishes our bodies and our hearts. Beginning with the breakfasts that provide sustained fuel for the day ahead through to the homemade meals around our table at night, that bring us together and over which we talk and laugh, I know what's in this food. I know what ingredients I've used and how it's been cooked. I know those lunches made with leftovers prevent waste and save us money. While there's more washing up involved (Let's be realistic!), I also know there's a lot less food packaging and plastic too. I know that the birthday cakes I make my boy and the cheesecakes I make my husband are  baked with all of my love. I know the meals we cook and contribute to share with friends are made with a fondness for those we hold dear. In so many ways, home food is good for our family, our bodies, our wallets and our planet. 

Chocolate pudding to share.

(Imagine generous scoops with dollops of cream!)

Now, back to that big bowl in which I mixed this chocolate pudding. I absolutely did lick that bowl! I was home all by myself so there was no-one to see me really...except Sir Steve dog who knows that chocolate is no good for dogs:D

Have a lovely weekend. What will you be eating at your place?

Meg

From the Farmers Market

Once a month, on a Sunday morning, a street in a nearby suburb is blocked off as local traffic makes way for the stalls of a farmers market. 

A local street is closed for a farmers market.

Up the street and back again takes you on a happy, crowded and mouth-watering stroll. There's fresh, seasonal fruit and vegetables displayed on trestle tables; their vibrant colours so inviting. (I never feel this way about the fruit and veggies at the supermarket!)

Baskets of fresh Summer vegetables.

(No styrofoam trays and plastic wrap either!)

As well as fruit and veggies, there's nuts, cheeses, meats, breads, cakes, fudge, flowers, coffee and much more. 

Lots to choose from!

There's the wafts of delicious foods cooking as you pass by. Everything from fresh Turkish breads and spicy sausages to hot crepes and little poffertjes (little Dutch pancakes). Following one's nose at the market can often lead to all kinds of delicousness!

Little Dutch pancakes cooked while you wait.

(Soft, hot and drizzled with maple syrup ... Mmm!)

There's the farmers and producers themselves, standing behind their stalls or out in front offering samples of their amazing food. If you ask them, they'll tell you when, where and how it was grown or made, when it was picked or baked or bottled, why it tastes so good! The conversations to be had about food and produce, with the people who actually grew or made it, are one of my favourite things about the markets. It's how to find out where your food comes from and what's in it or on it! 

Tom grows apples in his orchard near Tenterfield (about 3 hours away)

 & his free samples were fresh, crisp and delicious!

And ... just as you go over the railway line to enter the market or just before you cross back to leave, there's a guy wearing a fluro high-vis vest. You can't miss him and for relatively few bucks he'll sell you a copy of The Big Issue with a "Gday!" and a smile. His presence reminds me that there are many in our community who fall on hard times (for whatever reason) and that abundance (in whatever form) can be shared to make someone's life that bit better. 

Lots of fresh food, and food for thought, from the markets.

In my market basket, along with my copy of The Big Issue, there was pumpkin from a farmer who also grows sunflowers too.  Two types of bananas from the grower who helped me choose some that are ripe now and some that will ripen over coming days. There's corn so sweet you can eat it raw on the cob and sweet potatoes sold at the stall that has the most beautiful classical music playing in the background. (I talked about pianos and guitars with that grower, not veggies this time:) Little new potatoes and lettuce and capsicum came home with me as my garden has none of these growing over the Summer. (Try as I might, I am rarely successful at growing capsicums!) An armful of Tom's crisp and crunchy apples made it into my basket too, his free samples were soooo good!

Do you buy some of your fresh produce at a market? If you do, what do you love about your market?

Meg

Handmade, Homemade & Homegrown

Looking back over the past couple of years, and moving forward into this brand new one, my priorities in living a simpler and more sustainable life with my little family remain the same.  If I had to name the biggest change I've made it would be that much more is handmade, homemade and homegrown here now.  The mass produced has far less appeal these days. Making and growing things at home or sourcing them as locally as possible out in my community is an important part of our simpler life. 

One of my knitted washcloths in a rope basket with soap made by a local crafter.


A little apple taking shape on a re-purposed bag.  
(Motif by Melissa Wastney.)

Since beginning to simplify, I have embraced the handmade through knitting, stitching and sewing myself and through supporting those talented folk (with my $) who live in our community too. My sewing skills have improved. I've made a dress, a couple of tops and a skirt! My next project is to sew a pair of cushion covers from two touristy linen tea towels I picked up at an op-shop. They will be a birthday gift for my Mum. (Ssh!) I have also done some simple embroidery and, in the coming year, I want to learn and practise some new stitches. I also want to learn how to sew in a zip!

A delicious homemade savoury tart for dinner.
(Leftovers for lunch the next day too!)

A sweet & simple strawberry cheesecake for dessert.

(Don't ask me where that first slice went!)

Homemade meals have always graced our dinner table but now there are a lot more basic ingredients in our pantry and a lot more baking coming from our oven. That just-baked smell that wafts from a freshly-made batch of biscuits or a nourishing pie gets tummies rumbling round here! I am still to master the art of making bread though. While I can make simple focaccias and pizza dough, I'm a long way from a loaf of bread that isn't as hard as  a brick! So, this year I hope to learn how to make edible loaves of bread. (I think I will need some help!)

A recent harvest from our garden. Salad days!

Homegrown blueberries ripening on the bushes I grow in pots.

Many of the meals we make include some homegrown produce picked from just outside our back door. We don't have a huge veggie patch but, on our ordinary suburban block, we can grow some of our own food. At different times of the year, there is an abundance of produce in our patch and at other times it may only be a bunch of herbs that I can harvest. This year, I want to keep cutting down on the inputs we have to buy in for the garden. The lemongrass and Canna Lily that I planted  last year for mulch are growing well now so we'll  lay that down over the soil when I get round to chopping and dropping it. I want to set up another worm farm, the extra one my generous neighbour gave me in return for some homegrown veg. I'd like to plant a lemon tree! My garden is a source of joy, fascination, contentment and nourishment in my life.  I want to keep on growing food because it makes me happy. 🙂

A knitting project and a good book keep me company at the park.

If I had to name the most important ingredient that has allowed us to do so much more here for ourselves, it would be time.  Time to sit and knit a while. Time to mix and blend and bake. Time to tend the garden and turn the compost. Time to think about where "things" come from and what happens with them when they break or are no longer of use. Time to consider alternatives. Time to say "G'day" to our neighbours. Time to be together and to really appreciate home. 

I hope you will have time this coming year to spend on something important to you. 

Happy New Year!

Meg