Ecothings- Looking at the A Swap a Day May challenge- 5-6 Reusable cup/bottle and Clingfilm

Here's my next installment of A Swap A Day- trying to swap waste and packaging heavy items for more eco-friendly, less wasteful alternatives. As always, these are here to inspire you, give you ideas and just allow me to waffle. If you budget means things are prohibitive, things are harder to swap and you may not be able to  It was lovely to receive your responses on the previous post of this regarding Swaps 1&2.

The next Eco-swap is a great one though one that has not been without pitfalls:

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I'm already behind but I will be joining this #swapaday insta thing. Although we did a swap a month to really get habits changed we have now done nearly all of these so can share! Now to catch up... #sustainableliving #sustainablelivingonabudget #zerowastejourney #goingzerowaste #plasticfree #plasticfreejourney

A post shared by Sustainable living (@sustainablelivingonabudget) on May 2, 2019 at 11:29am PDT

6.  Reusable cups/Bottled water:
The reusable cup and water bottle change is one of the easiest swaps that one can do.  I have reused a water bottle for many, many years now but I made a conscious decision not to buy bottled water at all a few years ago (which is why I found it maddening in Italy where a bottle was brought to your table and opened and put onto the table in a restaurant or where they told you they COULDN'T/DON'T/WOULDN'T serve tap water even when you were ordering a 3 course meal for 8 and were ordering other drinks anyway). 
I've had my glass water bottle for at least 4-5 years (bought in TK Maxx) and various other water bottles before that. My pretty metal bottle has been with me at least 3 years, if not more (Also TK Maxx) and I brought back WOMOTM's reusable water bottles from his flat when we cleared out his flat so we had spares to use for a long trip or to offer other people.  Buying bottled water in a country with clean, fresh water on tap is, to me, capitalist consumerism gone bad.  Why pay for something you have anyway at such a mark up? 
Every morning, I fill up my stainless steel bottle and put it in my bag and drink it on the train.  I posted about the refill station at Shenfield station so even if you are waiting at this main train station, you can refill your bottle- you just need to get into the habit of carrying it.  It is completely habit now, I am used to carrying it so there is no issue.

Reusable cups:   I've been using reusable cups for at least 4-5 years now and used Thermoses (Thermi???) for the car journeys to Northumberland before that.  Consciously, I made a decision back in around December 2017 that I would NOT get a throw-away cup for drink EVEN if I was desperate and I would have to make sure I ALWAYS carried a cup with me.  This has worked out pretty well- even with a train journey to Italy this Summer.  An insulated cup lives in my handbag now. I carry a fairly large bag (well, rucksack) but you can get fold-up ones so it is possible to have one in a smaller bag. I really like those Infographics that show you 365 paper cups compared to one Reusable cup to show a year's usage if you need to drink on the go.  Or wait until you get to house/building with a real ceramic mug?
I've had slightly cunning conversations with builders in the queue at Greggs about reusable cups- I've noticed those in the building trade carrying several paper cups with plastic lids and I always make sure I have a conversation about being glad I remembered my reusable mug. It may not plant a seed but I hope it might....at some point!

7.  Clingfilm:
I'll be honest with you. I LOATHE clingfilm and always have- I have NEVER grasped how to pull a piece of the stuff and CBC banned me from using it as I kept wrecking them (I'll be honest, I only ever used it if someone asked me to use it for something, not voluntarily.)
Instead, I will use a box with a lid, some of my lovely beeswax wraps made by the lovely Ang and my Bassoon friend Mary, a bowl with a lid, a plate but never cling-film.  It's horrid, awkward stuff!

There are countless other ways to store things such as elasticated lids, even foil I'd prefer but I'd prefer not to use single-use materials.
I've got several glass Pyrex dishes with lids- these seem a good idea and now, I even bought a cute fabric sandwich bag with velcro to store in my rucksack at a recent Eco-fair. I've kept snacks in here too!

What have you managed to do on these swap front?  If you haven't, would you consider swapping?

Kxx

Faith, hope and charity swap

Hello there!  I recently took part in another blog-swap organised by the fabulous Lakota of Faith, Hope and Charity shopping and I was really excited to be teamed with the fabulous Clare of Miss Simmond Says!

I was so excited and happy to find a rather soggy parcel put behind my plant-plot outside my door (thanks postman- 0 out of 10 for common sense in the wettest December in memory!)

Upon opening I was greeted by a set of imaculately wrapped parcels in Nativity paper and raffia ribbon!

Here they are: 





How beautiful and generous Clare was (she managed to find things that suited me so well and miraculous within Lakota's set budget!)
A lovely handmade card sent a message from Clare followed by one of my favourite items- a gorgeous beret! I had been thinking for ages, how much I'd like a mustard coloured beret as a hat would be a way for me to wear yellow without my usual fear of it, and how fab I received one as a gift- it also came embellised with a home-made badge by Clare!
 2 cute exercise books which I can't wait to use, a fun green crayon necklace (I love quirky jewellery!) and some pretty green bead earrings and a Ladybird Little Lord Jesus book!
One of the gifts had to be handmade and Clare had me a beautiful felt and button velvet holly headband which she made especially for me!  I of course, wore it for the last day of school for the Carol service, teamed with a green and red outfit!





Thank you so so much Clare for an absolutely perfect and thoughtful parcel! If you don't know Clare's blog already, why not?  Get thee thence to her blog to say Hi!


I also wore that fabulous wool beret on the penultimate day of school teamed with Orla Keily top and my new gingerbread brooch from Jille!



Here's what I sent to Clare (plus some 18th century repro fortune-telling cards which I thought she might make into something!).  I made the Hello-Kitty earrings which may look simple but caused me unbelieveable hassle (like with Jille's earrings) with the eyes and whiskers that would not stay on- in the end I used stained-glass paint outliner which did the trick! Acrylic paint (blue) is supposed to stay put but oh no, this batch decided that vintage pearl buttons are too shabby for them to stay put!


Hope you are well and happy!  Have you done any swaps recently?  Do leave a link in the box-I love having a nosy!
xx

Crackerswap

Why hello there!  How are you?  Well, I do hope! 
I recently took part in Tracy at Mad about Bags' Christmas Cracker swap 2012. Tracy is the absolute queen of swaps, so it was only a matter of time before she organised her own one! It was a lovely idea, making the cracker!

I was paired with fellow teacher, the lovely Jille

I was overwhelmed with how beautiul her presentation was with her cracker.  Despite being through the post, it arrived immaculate!  A gorgeous patterned cotton material with a light-pattern, it was wrapped in a beautiful piece of organza gold ribbon with a funny joke and a lovely handmade flower brooch made by Jille attached!


Inside, I found this gorgeous  arrange of brightly coloured items, so well chosen for me, she's obviously read my blog to find out what I like:
Starting from top left: fun chilli earrings (I adore novelty jewellery), perfect polka dot and rainbow ribbons I intend to wear in my hair, a beautiful Jille-made flower ring, Jille-made cutest plump robin decoration with polka dot button, beautiful-smelling orange organza bag, choccie bear, the prettiest selection of assorted buttons, ribbon and flower sequins, the most brilliant Jille-made custard-cream keyring and finally, a Jille-made gingerbread brooch! 


Here they are altogether


I absolutley adore the items, you chose them so so nicely and carefully, thank you so much!  Who knew you could cram so much into a kitchenroll tube!  Such time and care have been taken with these items, so many wonderful hand-made items!  Thank you Jille!

Here's what I sent to  Jille.


Bag of assorted buttons, Christmas peg, embroidery threads, beaded bracelet, red polka-dot shoe-laces (I noticed on her blog that Jille said she loves red polka dots), a set of gold-patterned scalloped squares for card-making- I thought she'd appreciate the fact that I recycled some Christmas cracker-exteriors from our church-Christmas dinner out to make these!


Photo 2: Sheep zip-puller (Jille seems to love animals, silver ribbon, choccie puddings, beaded keyring, Cath Kidston polka dot handkerchief (which can be used as a scarf!),  
I wrapped the cracker with a piece of Asian material which I hope was of a size that could be used for a stole/scarf (if hemmed) or could be used to make something- I liked the sequins as they seemed festive!

I confess, inspiration was pretty lacking in the making stakes, to my utter shame.  I made a snow-flake felt Christmas decoration, I decided to try and hand-paint some red buttons to give them a polka-dot effect which took ages to do it right- I had to keep wiping off dots that went askew time and time again and repaint without disturbing the 'good ones'.  It was all fine until I decided to paint the other side and just couldn't seem to get it right.   In addition, I made a fanned-brooch with another polka-dot addition.  I adapted the design I tried of this before by scalloping the edges with patterned scissors as well.

Linking up to Lakota's Ta Dah Tuesday with these makes and Annie the Felt fairy's Make a month 2012
Have you done any swaps recently?  Let me know in the comments box, I love having a nosy!!!

Faith, hope and charity swap - what I sent!

Hello there!  How was your day?  Mine was very tiring but ok! I spent most of the morning (my non-contact time) trying to sort out the instrument lessons for children next year- it's a complete headache!  This evening was Exhibition evening at school where essentially turn the school into an exhibition zone for the parents to see the children's artwork, topic books and anything arty! 

My 6-7 year old choir sang (only half of them as the others didn't turn up!) around 10 songs and did brilliantly.  Honestly, the older kids could really learn from them about performance presence, committment and enthusiasm!  The drumming club performed as well, some Brazilian samba and African drumming. 

ANyway, I've had thing post kicking around for a while, so I might as well publish it now!

I recently posted what Helen, my lovely Faith, Hope and Charity swap partner had sent me and here's what I sent her.

I tend to find, one of the most time-consuming elements of a swap is all the wrapping and frantic hoping that your gifts wont be crushed to smithereens!
Please notice the recycling of Jubilee bunting tablecloth for some wrapping!

I made this card to say Hi!  As is synonymous with Kezzie crafting- pretty much everything is recycled except the black card! (it says FHC swap!)

The Jewellery parcel. 

Helen said she liked locket necklaces so I was pleased to find this one.

One item at least had to be Jubilee themed and handmade, so I made these British flag coloured button earrings.

I really wanted to find Helen a pretty dress.  One item was to come from a charity shop at least, so I decided to look for something nice.  I was looking for ages and I kept thinking I'd found something great but then there'd be something wrong with e.g. wrong size etc!  Finally, I found this pretty Wallis dress in her size and added a a red belt to it to make it Jubilee coloured!!! I was nervous if she'd like this or not!

A bookmark (handmade) and some customised red pens  (i.e. add blue ribbon to make them Union flag coloured!) for Helen's teaching career which is soon to begin!!

I experimented with making a concertina-brooch. This was made from some lovely Union flag papers and a button with a brooch back.  It was pretty stubborn to get the thing to stay stuck!

I was handmaking some bath-fizzers for another swap and Helen said she liked baths so I thought to send her one of the bath bombs! I have to say thanks to my Mum here because she makes these herself and she very patiently supervised me making these with silicon heart-shaped moulds and I'm pretty sure that like anyone who supervises me doing something practical, she wanted to strangle me at the end! They use all natural oils including rose oil, rose maroc, sweet almond, olive oil, lavender oil, geranium oil, natural food colouring, sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. With a Neal's yard rose bud!

Since Helen is training as a teacher,I sent 2 teaching books, one of which was really useful on my PGCE.  They looked pretty ugly so I bought a little folder to put them into to pretty them up!

All in all, I was pleased with what I had managed to compile here and really glad she  liked it!

As several items were handmade, I count this towards my Annie the felt fairy Make a month!

Have you done any swaps recently.  Put a link in the comments, I love having a nosy!!!!

Faith Hope and Charity swap... (and a peek at my Chap outfit!)

Hello there!  Hurrah, it's Sunday evening, that time of doom and gloom!  But I will not be downcast, because I have lots of fine thoughts and happy memories to think about! 
Yesterday, I went to my local town to pick up my Faith Hope and Charity swap parcel from the lovely Helen of I accidently spent my wages in Topshop, who excitingly for me, is soon to be a teacher too! She's lovely so you MUST go and check out her blog!
 Inside, I found all manner of Union flag covered parcels!



 First up was this beautiful card (which made me think wistfully of hot summers!) in which Helen had sent me a lovely message and explained each of her presents (I hurriedly put it down  at that moment to resume reading after opening them!)

 I adore bunting and I adore Cath Kidston- therefore, what could be more perfect than beautiful bunting made from Cath Kidston in two of my favourites- stars and flowers! Such a thoughful gift! (One shouldn't have favourites, but this is my favourite gift!)

 Helen very sweetly worriedly (and unnecessarily I might add!) mentioned in the card that she hoped this homemade heart was more shabby-chic than shabby which it certainly was.  She sewed it herself and it looks brilliant and it smells gorgeous!!!! It's scented with rose.  Such a great handmade gift- I am too scared to try to make one of these- my sewing is hopeless, so I am very impressed that Helen did!

 She made me laugh in the card with this present of Cath Kidston tissues as she said, 'Imagine my despair when I saw you'd received the same ones in your other swap!'.  I am always in need of a tissue and these ones are so so pretty, you can never have enough! No despair necessary, they are a perfect gift, even if I'd received them in 10 swaps!

 The next present was really useful as I lost my coin-token from my keyring some months ago and it was really irking me to have an empty keyring plus this one is so so much cuter than my lost frog one!

 The next present is absolutely adorable, a tea cup and spoon necklace that Helen found in a charity shop!  How could she bear to part with it?  It's so dainty and cute and totally me- I love this type of quirky necklace and I especially love tea-cups and pots!

 Here's the whole collection, looking lovely despite being on my messy table!

 Ahrgh, I forgot to take a picture of the notebook- look underneath that lot to see the fab Union-jack notebook!  This is a brilliant gift for me as I always want to write  notes, music, lyrics, lesson ideas, and anything that suddenly inspires me

Thank you so much to Helen (if you want to see what I sent Helen, click on this link.  I will do a post later though.)  for such a lovely parcel and being  a great swap partner and a big thanks to Lakota for her superwoman organisation skills with dishing out the partners!

Today, I spent much of my day at the Chap Olympiad in Bedford Square!  It was raining much of the time but we had a rather spiffing time.  I will post photos once I've had a chance to sort through them!

Here is a brief sneak peak at what I wore (Post Olympiad hence why hair and other accessories are missing.  When CBC sends me photos, I'll show you the proper thing!

So what have you been up to on this rather chilly but grand day?

Mary Poppins' Handmade heart swap - What I made! Epic make a month!

2 days ago, I shared what I had received from the lovely Tracy at Mad about bags as part of the Handmade heart swap.  Today, I thought I'd share what I made and a few details of the how and why! 

I admit, I was a little apprehensive when I first signed up at the prospect of making all 5 gifts, all with a heart theme! My crafting regularly consists of cards and now very simple jewellery.  Nonetheless, I signed up, after Mary encouraged me.  Then I found out I was with Tracy and I was scared again.  Because, despite the fact that Mary said, things came from the heart and it didn't matter how experienced you were, there's still that part of you that wants to do the best that you can for someone and you yourself know when you feel you haven't made something the best you can.  I do struggle with insecurities in my abilities, even things that I consider I am good at!  Tracy sweetly reassured me similarly and I just thought I had to give it a go!  Even though I stressed over it in my head for 3 weeks, spent about 20 hours making everything over 3 days, it was a worthwhile challenge- it's been lovely getting to know Tracy.

So here was the pile of finished goodies!  "What did they contain?" I hear you ask!

Well, Tracy said she liked a nice cup of tea!  So I remembered that I had been to a ceramics workshop at Christmas and made a Daisychain fruit bowl (in fact, I don't think I ever published my post about the workshop...).  So I bought a plain white mug, some peel-off stickers and some ceramic paints.

Firstly, I stuck the stickers to the mug (which was unexpectedly time-consuming lining them up!)

Ceramic painting mug
Then I used a sponge and ceramic paints to paint colours that Tracy said she liked (the handle was a bit lumpy so it caused issues!).  You had to leave to dry for 24 hours.

Subsequently, I peeled off the stickers and saved them for later...

Finally, I baked it in the oven for 35 minutes.

And voila, it came out looking slightly shiny!  It's now dishwasher safe!

I filled it with some individual tea-bags before wrapping it up.

Stained glass tea-lights
For my second gift, again, I tried to think of crafts that I hadn't seen Tracy do on her blog and I hadn't seen any stained glass painting and thought that she might appreciate some tealight holders in her favourite colours of turquoise, green and purple.
I have to say, these were by far, the most problematic make of the swap!  They were so so so time-consuming and very very stubborn. Painting on a curve was not easy!

I bought some mini shot glasses. Then I attempted to use my stained-glass black relief outliner from Anita's crafts which refused pointblank to come out of the squeezy bottle.  So, I poked it with pins to no avail.  Finally, I took the lid off and just tried to paint it on with a paintbrush.  I maskingtaped a template to the inside and painted the black outlines over about 3 hours, which was hard on a curve.   The next morning, I filled the gaps with 3 different colours.  I obviously hadn't entirely sealed the borders between them enough as there were several leaks.  Finally, after leaving them to dry half a day, I painted the rest of the glass in one colour.  I did the same with 3 of them. Then put in tea-lights with a couple of spares in each one.

Rose bath fizzers:
 As I found out Tracy was a busy Mum, I thought she might appreciate something indulgent like a soak in the bath.  Again, I hadn't seen she'd made any bath-bombs (although one of the pictures in her header could have been....) so I thought this might be a nice idea.
My Mum makes bath-bombs/fizzers so I asked her if she would teach me how to do it for this swap. She madly kindly consented to.
She thought that rose bath bombs would be a good one as pink hearts and all that. 
With much supervision frustratedly wrenching the spoons out of my hand, we heated olive oil (over a saucepan of water) and added rose, lavender, geranium, rose maroc, sweet almond oils and some non-water based red food colouring.  In a seperate bowl we mixed bicarbonate soda and citric acid.  Next, we took the bowl off the heat and mixed the solids in slowly with the liquids (this was the moment of spoon wrenching) until they made a firmer mixture.  

Next, using the heart-shaped silicon moulds I'd bought, I spoooned the mixture in and pressed/packed it as tightly as I could. I don't think I did it as well as I should have- it was hard with the heart shaped moulds which kept moving. Mum says that normal circular ones are much easier.

Finally we added Neal's yard rosebuds with a drop of rose oil on each.

I packed them in clingfilm as they need to be kept out of contact with water.  They smelt really nice and I was glad to give this a try!

Heart box and cards
It is clear from Tracy's blog that she has an eye for pretty things, so I wanted to make something pretty for her in her favourite colours.  Since card-making is the craft I indulge in most, I thought I'd make her some cards and somewhere pretty to keep them.

I took a small textured brown box; some acrylic paints in purple, green, dark turquoise; some silver outline stickers; some mini gems; a heart shaped punch and some stickidots.
I
I drew pencil lines where I wanted to apply paint to the lid.  Then painted strips of different colours on the lid and the bottom in green (acrylics) using a sponge to get an even finish.  Left to dry.

Then I created a stencil using a heart punch (see below) and applied a line of green hearts to the lid

Then I added some outline stickers to mask the boundary between colours.
After that: I punched some silver mirror card hearts and layed them on top of each other with 3d pads
The final touch was adding 3 little gems to each one with sticki minidot.

I have to say I was really pleased with the results.

The cards:
To go inside, I measured and cut cards to the size of the box, punched a heart border down the side of each.
Next, I created hearts out of 4 different envelope inards and attached to white card, cut with scalloped scissors.  Finally, to ensure Tracy could use them for any purpose, I added some Best wishes stickers.
The design is one I have made for Engagement cards on quite a few occasions and it adapts an idea I think I got from Papercraft inspirations magazine many years ago.

I HEART TEA charm bracelet:
Tracy said that thought she doesn't wear much jewellery, she likes a nice bracelet or two.  So I tried to find some purple buttons to make a base-bracelet with jump rings.  Then, I added a purple glass heart I had  bought the day before.  Remembering Tracy's love of tea, I added a tea-cup and milk-jug charm which I had from a doll's teaset I'd bought for the purpose.

Here it is wrapped up in some recycled organza and chiffon ribbon.

Jubilee heart decoration:
It was only as I was wrapping everything up, that I caught sight of an article in the Docrafts magazine that showed how to make a gorgeous paper/card heart. I thought it was so pretty!
It was easy to make with different length strips of paper which I secured with a bulldog clip after making 2 teardrop shapes with some red satin ribbon sandwiched in a loop between.  The ends were tied in a bow at the bottom.  To stop the heart from getting crushed, I put it in a recycled thorntons box which I painted and put a heart on.

Bruges chocolate:

I still had one lolly-pop left from Dumon chocolatier in Bruges (2nd best chocolatier in Bruges) which I hid in the box under the heart as a surprise.

 Knitted heart
Sadly, not by me!  But it was too cute and I thought Tracy would like it!  Some choccie and a badge from the British heart foundation which matched the recycled map envelope I made. 

Did you wonder what happened to those heart stickers that had been painted on the mug?  Well, I stuck them to a black card to make a greetings card for Tracy.  I couldn't possibly throw them away!

Here's the whole collection: (Thanks to Tracy for this photo and the knitted one.  You can also see the Thorntons protecting box to the right).  I always include little cards explaining what things are and why I chose to made them.  I always think its nice to know how and why someone chose something for them!

So I survived my first totally handmade swap and I am so glad that Tracy liked what I made for her. I've been thinking about it constantly for 3 weeks now!  Thank you Tracy for being such a lovely swap-partner. You are welcome to go and check out Tracy's pretty blog!

  I think June's Make a month with Annie the Felt Fairy is more packed than any other month!  I may just flake in July! 

So what do you think?  And what have YOU been making!

If you haven't made anything, what WOULD you like to learn to make?  I'd love to be able to make mosaics and make dresses and other lovely sewn items!

Linking to Lakota's Ta Dah! Tuesday as I am feeling pretty happy with my crafting attempts!