Glue, Glue, All Types of Glue

Everyone is fast asleep and I spent some time alone fixing and creating with glue.

Dolly has a musical instrument that has been sitting on the table for 2 years!!! Yes, 2 years with the intention of fixing it. It took only 10 minutes. A bit of craft glue and elastic bands and the job was done. Why does it take me so long to get these things done...

I prepared Dolly's lunch box (vegemite sandwich, 1 plum with lime, 1 nectarine with lime, 2 crackers and veggie sticks) and decided to go cute. I used paper glue to stick a small image from a vintage book onto a scrap piece of paper. I also stuck on a butterfly (I used my shape cutter) and wrote a little note. Popped it into a snap lock bag (that I will reuse) with a little chocolate egg amongst the healthy stuff. Dolly will be so excited to find this surprise on her 1st day of big school tomorrow.

For Dolly's 5th birthday Party I have completed another gift for the pass-the-parcel. I purchased a gold belt from the op shop (thrift/charity store) $1, cut off the metal bit that goes in the belt holes and craft glued to form a circle that will fit a 5 year old head perfectly. I then glued a broken brooch from when I was 15 (a good year-1985) and 2 beads to create the precious jewels. Now it's a Prince crown for one of our boy guests.

And ONE LAST PROJECT FOR DOLLY TONIGHT... Dolly carefully wrote a lovely letter for the fairies living in our garden and left it on the table overnight in a sealed envelope. If forgot she did this. She was very disapointed this morning. I explained that it had rained so heavily the fairies could not come as their wings would have been hurt. Tonight I drew flowers, cut them out, wrote a note and glued them together. Tomorrow morning she will find her letter gone and in it's place a fairy flower letter.

Glue is useful and allows you to be frugally creative by fixing stuff and making stuff with items inexpensively obtained. I encourage you to take a couple hours to fix and make stuff. It's a gratifying feeling and entertaining too. Where is The Rambling Expat in all this? He's in bed on his stomach with a pinched nerve in his back. Must have been all that fishing ;-)

Are you glueing anything?

Neighbourly Help at Hand for Leaking Taps

Hello Those With and Without DIY Talent,

We've never had to change a washer on a tap before EVER as we have never owned our own home or lived anywhere long enough to have to. But this has changed. We purchased our home in 2007 and smaller things here and there are starting to need repairs.

Last weekend out of the blue our shower was trickling. Not just dripping but actually running a trickle that was filling a bucket within 5 minutes and our kitchen sink was dripping too. It was Sunday. We didn't have the knowledge, tools and confidence to fix it ourselves. Plumbers are expensive just for the call out in our city due to the lack of tradies and on a Sunday - doubly more...  So after having a major stress about it, we decided to ask our neighbour Handy D if he knew how to fix leaking taps. It was our lucky day!!! He was home, knew how to fix the problem and had the tools for the job.

Handy D fixing our shower taps.

So over he came, turned off the water to all the flats, fixed our problems while we watched and learnt. It took him 30 minutes all up. We were thrilled and are now armed with the know how for next time. We gifted him $50 for using up his precious time. He was happy, we were happy... Win-Win all round as we now have the know how too.

Do your neighbours have skills they can share and teach you?

Happy DIYing,

Stephanie @ Frugal Down Under.