Taro

I spent a few hours today at my garden plot at the community garden as it was our monthly Working Bee. I enjoyed our meeting and look forward to pitching in some hours towards grant submissions to better our area and resources. This will also allow me to build on my fundraising skills for future job prospects.

As for my little plot, the sun was harsh and the rocket I planted 2 days ago is yellowing and withering. I have planted other produce in the last 4 weeks which is surviving. Eggplant, mint chocolate, parsley, tomato, crystal apple cucumber, Lebanese cucumber and ginger. Still no sign of radish or sunflowers poking through the ground.

Another plot owner cleaned up over the weekend and discarded 6 taro plants. I saved them from the compost heap and claimed them as my own. I aim to replant 3 and to cook and eat the others. This will be new to me as I have never purchased or cooked TARO in it's raw form before.

I've placed my foot next to the taro in the photograph for you to have an idea of the very large size. Do you have any suggestions for no fuss food preparation of these for my family? I love trying new foods however I am impatient with complicated recipes. Also after reading various information on the taro I feel nervous about toxicity if not prepared well.

Looking forward to your suggestions :-)

Stephanie at Frugal Down Under.

Events & Outings

There are many FREE events in our town. We go to some of them for inexpensive entertainment. This allows us to take part in fun activities individually or as a family while saving our money for mortgage, travel, retirement and the important things in life.

Recently we went to a Easter Egg Hunt and Fun Day offered by the City Council. This was so much fun for Dolly who was loaded up with chocolates, lollies, bandanna, wallet, stickers and other small gifts. There were craft stations, face painting, jumping castles, waterslides and outdoor play activities. We participated in many of the choices available. It was all FREE.

We spent over 3 hours at the event and kept our spending down by bringing our own packed lunch and water bottles. I wanted our lunch to be a treat too so I splurged on fresh baguette, smoked ham and cornichons. We had 1 large generously filled sandwich, a fruit each and a large bag of chips to share. The cost was $8AUS for the 3 of us. A bargain compared to the usual food available at community events and no waiting in long hot queues for greasy selections.

I'm interested to know are you taking advantage of FREE events in the area you live in? What about packed lunches? Do you find yourself going to events with your own food or buying something there because bringing your lunch is too hard or maybe you want to support small local businesses?

Remember to keep having fun, even in frugality :-)

Stephanie at Frugal Down Under.

Thanks For The Advice!

Hello all my Wonderful Blogland Friends,

I want to thank everyone for all the great ideas for the men's shirts. I'll be making a few things and I'm glad I didn't toss them out. So stay tuned :-)

A few days ago we had Barramundi for dinner and there was plenty left over. Organised Castle said I should try making fish patties. At first I thought "Nah - I'm too busy and it just seems too labour intensive for me". However as I had 30 minutes spare to cook dinner I decided to get my hands dirty and give it a go. I also didn't feel like doing my Sunday weekly menu plan / grocery shopping and we had leftover fish that needed eating. To top it all off The Rambling Expat was out fishing so there was a high chance of more fish coming through the door any minute. There was nothing to do but get to it, as I had all the ingredients on hand.

Fish Patties with Tomato, Cucumber, Avocado and Lime Salad.

I tweaked the recipe by substituting lemon for lime and adding turmeric, fennel, spring onions and extra rice. I took me 45 minutes from start to finish as I am a beginner "chef" and they were superbly delicious! We all loved them, had second helpings and would like to make more this week. I have even popped 2 into Dolly's lunchbox for school at her request.

Have you outdone yourself with a delicious meal made of leftovers lately?

A Lunch Box

Just a quick photograph of a lunchbox for school.

Tuna, corn, avocado, mayo salad with cucumber. Bite sized pieces of pita bread and carrot stick.  Nectarine for recess.

I will be making sushi next week once I menu plan and grocery shop this weekend.

What was your lunch today?

1st Day of School Ends With Barramundi

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for all your visits and lovely comments.

Dolly was sooooo excited this morning going to big school. She squealed with excitement at seeing all her old friends. One of her favourite BOYS who she's in LOVE with came running up yelling out her name. Once they were together to shy to hug, he asked her boldly "Did You Miss Me?" She went coy and didn't answer - so me - the big embarrassing mama that I am, said "She sure did, everyday and she still LOVES you!" Dolly quickly hid herself under my shirt. Oh sweet young crushes at the love weary age of 4!

After work I arrived home to cooked Barramundi Fish baked in the oven with limes and basil (Freshly caught on Sunday). When I tasted it, it was very sweet. We then realised the Rambling Expat had also added mandarins in error instead of just limes. Creative gourmet style :-)  We ate well. Once the large baked fish was cool I pulled it all apart to save all the left over flesh. I hate the sticky icky job of picking it apart, bone by bone, skin and scales, however the end result is lovely versatile fish flesh ready to be used in various meals.

Barramundi - We all love it in our home.

What do you do with left over fish? Any interesting, easy to make, inexpensive meals to recommend?

Keep Me Rich, Keep Me In Butter

The Rambling Expat went curvet fishing so Dolly and I played with cream.

Dolly LOVES butter but HATES cream, so I showed her how to make beautiful rich butter in 15 minutes with half a small pot of full cream and 2 marbles.

Mmmmm - Who Ate The Butter!? Half Gone In A Flash.

We placed 2 clean marbles in half a pot of cream (plastic pot). And then we shook vigorously, counting for fun and taking turns when our arms were tired.

The cream got whipped and then it changed colour and separated. We emptied the buttermilk out and shook again. Emptied more buttermilk and rinsed our butter with water. We spooned it into our smallest Pyrex bowl and gently folded in a little grinded rock salt. We then placed it in the fridge to harden.

We've had it on toast, we've had it on potato. It is delicious and a great way to use up cream purchased at bargain prices. Also it's a fun and fascinating activity for children.

Are you ready to make some butter just for fun? Go on have a go and spread it thick!!!

Kitchen Cook Up

Hi Everyone,

Hope you all had great frugal fun day. As for me it was a long day... I returned to work, after 4 weeks of recreation leave. It was hard getting my brain focused on the job. I can't believe 2011 went by so quickly and my 4 weeks off went even quicker. I didn't do all the jobs on my To Do List. I actually hardly did any of them at all as I dashed from one activity to another for Dolly's enjoyment or experimented daily with procrastination.

Last night was a hive of activity in our home. Dolly, The Rambling Expat and I cooked as a family. We made potato and bacon frittatas for dinner. We've never made these before but wanted to see if Dolly would like them in her school lunchbox. While Dolly cracked the eggs and stirred, The Rambling Expat and myself chopped and grated to keep her bowl topped up with all the needed ingredients. Once in the oven Dolly and her Papa got onto to the business of playing.

While they played I chopped up left over choice pieces of chicken from the previous nights dinner. I added chopped tomato, cucumber and a dash of mayonnaise, salt, pepper. Mixed and stored in the fridge for the next days lunchtime sandwiches.

Lunch Prep

I placed the left over chicken bits and carcase in my slow cooker with water, ungrated potato ends from the frittata making, celery tops, 1 spring onion, 1 brown onion and a dash of salt/pepper. After 6 hours it was ready to be divided. Half went into a pyrex dish as stock to cook rice this week, the over half in another dish to be eaten as chicken/veggie soup.

Slow Cooking Stock and Soup.

Stock and Soup

Playing over, table set and the frittatas were sampled. They were a hit with the three of us. Unfortunately we used muffin baking trays which I did not grease beforehand so the frittatas stuck, causing angst in getting them out and Oh the drama of cleaning the trays. However as we made double quantity, half of the mixture was placed in a glass pyrex dish and into the oven. These slid out beautifully, no waste and cleaning was a breeze. So I think we will stick to using our pyrex dishes in the future.

Dolly's Dinner, Sampled and Loved. She ate it all!

I Love My Pyrex. Easy Cooking, Storing and Cleaning

2 hours of cooking and cleaning has resulted in 4 dinners and 1 lunch for us three. 2 frittata dinners (just add salad), 1 chicken soup dinner (just add carrot and beans), 1 chicken lunch filling (just add bread) and 1 chicken flavoured rice meal (just add rice).

One happy frugal productive evening :-)

How about you? Any additional cooking lately? Have you been bulking? Cooking any new meals?

The Simple Things

For breakfast toast with Rosella Jam homemade by my friend Kellie. Dolly and I enjoy this so much. Sweet with tang. I love the simple things. Local produce and homemade.

Have you received any lovely homemade goodies from friends lately?

Cooking From The Garden

If you can cook some or all of your meals from your garden then you are saving some pretty pennies. You don't need to eat fancy meals out of decadent recipe books each day. Gathering from your garden, looking at what you have at home and making do is extremely satisfying and enriching.

However recipe books may inspire you with new ideas on how to use your produce. This book from the UK I borrowed from the library has inspired me as it has ingredients that I can source locally and from my garden.

Do you follow recipe books or do you become an inventor/creator in your kitchen?

Frugalicious Lunch

The party is over, the gluttony of the festive season has ended, The Rambling Expat had his birthday and now there are no more excuses until Dolly's birthday at the end of February and that will need to come from the weekly groceries budget.

Penny pinching does not mean unhealthy bland foods for us if we keep gardening. I want to show you the delicious lunch we had which cost us 1 cup of Rice, 1 table spoon of Olive Oil and 3 cloves of Garlic, the rest came from the garden.

The photograph is not magazine beautiful but the meal was an explosive taste of delicious flavours and extremely moorish. When I finished weeding, pruning and planting, I filled my basket with with just enough produce to make lunch for 3.

I stir fried in a little olive oil:

• garlic (shop bought)
• lemongrass (my plot)
• ginger (communal plot)
• chili (communal plot)
• chocolate mint (my plot)
• snake beans (my plot)
• brazilian spinach (my plot)
• basil (my plot)
• eggplant (my plot)
• malabar spinach (communal plot as mine has died)
• sweet potato leaves (friends plot)

Served on a bed of rice. (My rice bag was shop bought).

For dessert we had pawpaw with lime. The pawpaw was from the communal plot and the lime I found on top of our green waste pile. I don't know who threw it there or where it came from as I don't think there is a lime tree in the botanical gardens. But it was in perfect condition so I took it. And happy I was to do so, as I love lime squeezed on rice, fruit, veggies and in a glass of water.

Lunch for 3 cost about 50 cents and was delicious. Cutting back on food costs means we can still have a great lifestyle, be healthy and save for the important things in life such as Dolly's future education, retirement, cutting back on work hours and a house.

Are you doing some penny pinching too?

Cyclone Making A Come Back, Op Shopping and Gardening.

It seems the cyclone will be heading our way as it has changed directions yet again. We may have gale force winds Christmas evening. However Darwin may miss out on being directly hit. It's a wait and see game with preparations thrown in. So far it's only predicted to be a category 2, but big enough to cause damage where I live.

This morning Dolly and I left the Rambling Expat at home for 2 and a half hours and headed to our local Salvation Army Op Shop (charity/thrift shop) (which I find over priced) and looked for the half price items (I was searching for heart shaped buttons). I was out of luck however we did make a few purchases.

• Dolly purchased a Tinker Bell costume - $2.50
• Baby socks & hat for her Dolls - $1 the lot.
• I purchased a skirt for $2.50 because the light cotton, bird print fabric was too pretty to leave behind.

Total Cost = $6 (hat missing from pic)

Fabric is a light cotton with pretty birds.

Dolly and I then went to our garden plot to catch up on gardening as I haven't done any in over 5 weeks. The garden plot helps to reduce our groceries costs, is a healthier option to sitting at home watching TV and has way less food miles then items from the supermarket. We weeded, pruned and fed the chickens spinach. As I went to place green waste in the compost bin I carelessly thought wow look at that pretty snake.

WHAT!!! Stopped myself in time as I realised SNAKE! Stepped back and withdrew my hand. I think this is a small Golden Tree Snake - not dangerous. But I still don't want to be bitten.

Golden Tree Snake?

She was keeping an eye on me for the rest of the time at the plot.

This is our lovely produce: If purchased in a supermarket this would easily be over $25 worth. I am so lucky to have a garden plot.

Healthy, Local and Organic.

• Basil from my plot and a friends plot (for pesto).
• A handful of a new type of snake bean I have been growing (to eat with lunch tomorrow).
• A few chilli's from another plot as their tree was loaded (to add to various dishes in next few days).
• Eggplants (I want to make chargrilled marinated eggplant if possible).
• Pawpaw (for snacking).
• Banana from our home garden (for snacking). These trees will blow down in gale force winds.

We ended the day with Dinner at Grandmas and then Dolly, Grandma, The Rambling Expat and myself driving around in our little car to see all the Christmas lights. Dolly had begged to do this and was thrilled by each house she saw twinkling. She asked if we could do the same. I said no and explained the financial cost and ecological waste involved.

How was your day? Did you have any time for the garden or other inexpensive pursuits?

Slow Cooker Left Overs

I'm back into some slow cooking for time saving and frugality due to cheaper cuts of meat working well slow cooked.

I prepare and place everything into the slow cooker by 7am. Dress for my busy working day and Dolly for her school day. Turn it on Low as we leave the house and dinner is ready when we return 9.5 hours latter. We plate up and eat. Easy and Fuss Free for a Busy Household.

I slow cooked a roast, a couple of small steaks and vegetables in one pot. After we ate dinner, I filled containers with left overs for 4 quick meals this week.

• Fall apart steak to serve with rice.
• Left over roast and veggies to eat with salad night 1 and pasta on night 2.
• Roast and veggies for Rambling Expats lunch.

Home Made - Take Away

I'm keeping within the budget of $100 a week shopping for groceries. My aim is to cut back to $80 the next 4 weeks and use up everything in the fridge and freezer to start the new year afresh with a nice cleared and clean fridge.

I'm tightening the belt again money wise and need to stop buying any frivolous junk food. If/When I go part time my wages will be slashed by 30%. That is huge and scary. How's your budget coming along? Does it need tweaking and reworking like mine does?

Note to my readers in Australia, Don't Forget to Enter my Air Wick Aqua Mist Giveaway HERE to go in the draw to win a $200 Voucher!

Snake Bean Community Garden Fundraiser

On Sunday I lifted my head a bit before 6:00am, chopped down 6 banana leaves, cut them and washed them in preparation for a Snake Bean Community Garden fundraiser where we would offer them as plates, instead of paper plates. The beauty with these is once someone has finished their cake they can just toss their "plate" in the garden.

Preparing Banana Leaves for Serving Cake

Quick Cut and Rinse

Then off to the Botanical Gardens to drop off tables and chairs and home again to get my family to the event. The Friends of the Botanical Gardens were having their huge yearly plant sale. So our garden group piggybacked their amazing day with a cake and tea stall right in the path of all their customers. Our group is made up of many talented and variously skilled people; some made cake, some made preserves, some potted plants and some harvested produce from the gardens. I'm not good at that stuff so I had found another way to contribute.

Some of Our Group Members Packing (and tasting) at the End of the Day.

The previous week I called Bunnings and spoke with the Community Activities Officer asking advice on how to apply for a donation for a raffle. The bubbly Janet explained how I had to apply and what type of stuff I could request. So my friend Tif made a gorgeous letterhead for our group and I was able to write up an official letter asking for garden donations for 1st prize. I was so thrilled when Janet from Bunnings called to say she gave us a wheelbarrow full of gardeners delights!!!

Donation from Bunnings!

Tif was able to get a 2nd prize of a Bokashi Composting Bucket from a local shop Eco Solutions (they also donated plates and cups to serve our goodies). And as a 3rd prize we have a box of fresh produce from the garden and a bottle of local honey that I was donated from a local bee keeper I know at Humpty Doo Apiaries.

Donation from Eco Solutions and Humpty Doo Apiaries.

I've never really asked for donations before and I started on an impulse with the honey, which built my courage up to ask Bunnings for a donation to. I'm so impressed and amazed with the goods we were donated and am very thankful. Our fundraiser brought our Snake Bean Community Garden more then $1000 in the 4 hours of selling raffle tickets, cake, tea, coffee, ice tea, plants, fresh produce and preserves. We will use the money for chicken feed (we have 5 chooks now!), a new sturdy ladder, maybe tools and other items to make our garden a happy educational and productive place for us and the general public.

Produce from the Garden on Sale.

As for Dolly, she spent roughly 4 hours with the chooks calling one Penny and nagging her to eat her spinach. The Rambling Expat went home early, did the dishes, did the laundry and cooked an amazing dinner in the slow cooker of locally hunted Magpie Geese from a fishing buddy.

Another happy frugal day, surrounded by happy people, jobs done at home and Dolly reveling in free play with her buddies outdoors. I plan on a quieter week this week and travel for work next week. How about you? Keeping up with the tightwads or competing with the Joneses?

Saturday Fun

Saturday I had my neighbours over to for a sniffy party to try a new Air Wick - Aqua Mist product that I was sent to test and review. I decided to splash out a little with our 10am nibbles as I've never had my neighbours over "officially" before. I offered lovely cheese Blue Castello and Goats), prosciutto, biscuits, wasabi peas and chips. I pulled out a bottle of bubbly (someone gave me in exchange for spinach and guppies that I had offered on Freecycle), a bottle of orange juice and lemonade. 4 neighbours couldn't make it due to; Bali, Flu, Early Shift and Yoga. But I went ahead with the other cool cats from my block and The Rambling Expat.

Delights on Offer

Some of The Gang

Dolly and I blindfolded everyone with some of my old scarves and Dolly sprayed the air. Dolly has sooooo excited to see them all blindfolded - nose in the air sniffing and commenting wrongly about the smells, it was hysterical. I was the only one who could see her jumping up and down in crazy excitement bursting to tell them what the scents were! But she's amazingly strong will-powered at keeping secrets. It was a very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours and I was able to treat each of them to their favourite scent to take home which was a bonus. It was a fun morning for me :-)   I would do it again.

Blindfolded, Sniffing and Trying to Determine the Scents.

After our sniffy party Dolly and I headed to Children's Week Activities for some FREE fun. Here is what she did:

• A Hip Hop Dance Lesson
• Rock Climbing
• Rock Crafting
• Got a sausage
• Got an apple

I kept saying "Don't go higher!!!" My very own adventure girl.

There was so much more to do but we were short on time. Other great activities on offer were; pottery, jumping castle, face painting and balloon art. I also talked to an organisation about foster caring as it's something I have always wanted to do since I was a teen. I'm too busy at this point in my life but it's good to arm myself with knowledge now.

Free Crafting

How was Saturday for you? Any friends over? Tried a new "product"? Created some crafty treasures?

Busy And Quiet

Tonight I have spent 3 hours finding and creating items to create gifts for Dolly's teachers for Teachers Day on the 28 October 2011. If I was more organised this would have only taken 1 hour. The searching for stuff has used up my precious hours and frustrated me. And that is why I need to declutter and be better organised!

This is what I've been working on tonight. I'll let you see the finished gifts tomorrow, when they are dry, assembled and ready to go into their little gift bags. I think they are very cute.

Mystery Gifts

Tonight we also ate dinner with our neighbour Mr T. He has a BBQ and we had a barramundi that The Rambling Expat caught over the weekend in crocodile infested waters.

The Rambling Expat and Bara

It was a quiet night for us as our friend Franck passed away this afternoon. He was only 42 but had a heart condition. My mum and I, visited him last week in hospital and he was happy to be getting out this week but he had a turn for the worst. I'm now preparing Dolly for her 1st funeral. She has decided she wants to come and I believe in being gently honest with my daughter about death. Being a mum is not always easy with these decisions.

What did you do tonight?

A Subversive Plot: How to Grow a Revolution...

I saw this on Hazel Dene. It's complimented many of the books I have been reading lately. It's powerful and thought provoking so thought I should put it up to. Enjoy.

Chatting

Ms Dig was in our home town. So we caught up in a park that way Dolly could run around while we chatted. Ms Dig brought the Pizza and we brought the chocolate biscuits. She has made a super interesting career choice as she is an archeologist. I am envious of those who work in their area of passion. I'm now over 40 and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Do any of you have this problem too?

Ms Dig, The Rambling Expat and Dolly.

Not everything is my life is fun as on our return home I spent 30 minutes decluttering a huge pile of papers. I reduced it with this pile for the recycling bin.

Waste of Trees - Gone to the Recycling Bin.

The rest is in a folder with the aim of a nightly 5 minute "deal with it and file chore". Paper clutter is my constant battle. My aim if for a tidier home by Saturday as I was sent product to review by Soup and will be inviting all the people from my block to come and do some blind sniff testing. I can't wait - it should be fun. They don't read my blog, so this will be a nice surprise for them.

My Review Goodies - To Sniff and Gift to My Participants.

I have been sponsored by Soup and Air Wick to review the nice smelling product. So stay tuned to find out my real thoughts on the new Air Wick Aqua Mist. I will also have an amazing Giveaway for my Australian readers, so FOLLOW ME to not miss out my notification. (Many apologies to all my overseas readers this time around)

Have you ever been contacted to review a product? What did you think? Was it Fun or an Extra chore?

Poverty Awareness Week

Dolly and One Mob.

We went to a Poverty Awareness Week Community Dinner hosted by My Sisters Kitchen. We placed our $10 donation in the bucket for the 3 of us. (The buckets seemed sadly empty for the number of people in the venue). I had also packed our own cups, plates and cutlery in my basket for the event to avoid having to use any wasteful plastic and paper items keeping to my eco ethos.

We queued to serve ourselves at the buffet loaded with Nepalese and African type dishes cooked by My Sisters Kitchen refugees and new migrants. We guessed what the dishes were and ate our spicy meal, (Dolly could only eat the non spicy salad and white rice). It was a bit overwhelming hot for me at times, so I had wished I had not served myself so much. Nevertheless I ate all of my meal with teary eyes and a burning mouth. LOL.

Dolly and My Plate (The Rambling Expat is Busy Eating His)

There were also community groups performing to entertain the crowd. The Tongan Youth Group sang, played music and danced to the sounds of their islands. We also really enjoyed One Mob, a group of Aboriginal men from the Arnhem region.

Demonstrating Traditional Dance.

It was an enjoyable and feel good night of food tasting from other cultures without the restaurant prices. We supported the important community project through our donation and our presence. And it allows us to dialogue with our daughter about poverty, the issues that surround it, what we can do about it and how lucky we are, to not be living in poverty.

Do you try and attend community events that support others and inspire you or your loved ones?

Dolly Made Dinner

Sunday afternoon was unpleasant as I have had a red puffed up irritated eye. I was hoping to just relax at the nice cool clean library while Dolly played and looked at books. But I had asked Dolly early on in the morning if she wanted to cook in the afternoon and she happily shouted "Yes!" So the library was ignored and cook she did!

I gave her the ingredients and talked her through the process. She rolled, cracked, grated, measured, stirred and poured. (The Brazilian Spinach from our garden was placed uncooked in the mix).

All Mixed and Ready to Bake.

Mmmmmm, Dolly on Her Way to Master Chefdom.

 2 hours from her commencing, we ate and it was delicious. The spinach leaves peeking out of the quiche were thin and crackly. Just divine.  The best part is she said to me "I don't like spinach". To which I replied "But you LOVE spinach quiche you make yourself" and to that, my influenceable daughter replied "Oh yes, that's right" and gobbled it all up :-)

It then rained, so to end our day we went puddle jumping and umbrella twirling. It was so much fun. Loving the simple things in life and the changes in weather. The library was not missed. My eye was irritated either way and my 4 year made our family the most yummy frugalicious dinner. I am living the good life on days like this and Dolly is skilling up for life.

Do you have tricks to get your family to eat their greens? Any skills your children are eager to learn? Have you been jumping in puddles lately?

Being Good and Frugal in October

I'm being really good so far. The only frivolous stuff has been a little junk food from the super market at my desk (chocolate and chips).

I menu planned for the week and my groceries were only $75 (including a $12 bottle of laundry liquid).

Layer of ratatouille, egg and topped with cheese. Mmmmm.

I have shopped at the garden plot 1st. One of my garden neighbours is off travelling Nepal for a few weeks and told me to help myself in exchange for me watering the garden. So this has allowed me a few more goodies then usual.

Shopping at my plot 1st. Dolly snacking on Snake Beans.

Dolly was on school holidays for 1 week and we went to lots of FREE activities including arts & crafts, out door Life Be In It activities, computer games at our local Officeworks and a movie under the stars (Rango).

Outdoor Life Be In It team encouraging kids to be active.

15 minutes on the Computer Games at Officeworks Kid Station.

Free Movie - we took our blanket, drinks, pop corn and lollies.

Our lastest couchsurfing couple included a qualified hairdresser so I received a hair cut & dye whilst Dolly had her hair done each day in exchange for the couch.

Ready for School Rapunzel style.

And tonight I commenced work on a 2 year old Birthday gift out of old clothes and scraps. Dolly was invited on very short notice to a party this Saturday morning at 9am. Not much time to create but pushing myself along. My mum picked up the Softies Magazine for only 30 cents at a local op shop, just for me :-) Of course the mags instructions are all with new fancy pantsy bits and bobs. But I'm repurposing old stuff that needs a second chance and hopefully it will turn out looking presentable.

Creating on a Tight Schedule - Yet Again.

How is October fairing for you?