A Productive Weekend

Wednesday Greetings dear friends & readers

It was a long weekend here in New Zealand as we celebrated Queens birthday Weekend.

The Mr was away riding Moto X, which meant that instead of spending time in my kitchen preparing & cooking meals ............... I got to spend time in the kitchen creating far more interesting things .................

3 were Green Tea & Lemongrass, 3 were Calico fragrances

I had some soy wax leftover in a plastic bag which I was keen to use up, so I made another batch of soy candles.

 I realise now I had been adding the fragrance too soon, while the soy was still hot, & hence burning off alot of the fragrance.  I waited 10 minutes for the soy to cool this time & achieved a much better result.

I had a new oil I was keen to try - "Calico" .... such a gorgeous fragrance!!

Waiting to harden a bit & have the wicks trimmed down

I also spent time making up another batch of homemade laundry liquid

I hadn't actually used up the batch I made back in March but found that I had given lots away to friends to try.

Plus I came across a further two cut glass decanters in a box of the Mr's junk things !!

The two taller decanters on the right are the newly discovered additions

 This is now the 2nd batch of laundry liquid I have made ... I have so far learnt two very important things.

Firstly, do not go off & leave it unattended on the stove (as I did) as it will indeed boil over & make one big huge gloppy mess !!

Secondly, do not leave the milk bottle containers filled with it sitting on the kitchen bench (as I did) as your Mr might very well come home, grab it to pour in his cuppa & words will come out of his mouth that I simply cannot print on here !!!!!!!*********!!!!!!!!! 

As I constantly add lawn clippings to my raised vegie gardens, the Mr suggested I needed to add some lime to sweeten the soil before I did my winter planting

I drove out to the farm & came home with four 20 litre buckets of lime which I dug into to my vegie beds 

Then as my moon calendar told me it was ideal planting time, I planted broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages & a fresh punnet of silverbeet & spinach ... all good hearty winter fare.

I also dug out some herbs that had become woody & replaced them with new ones. 

I found a Mothers Day Garden Voucher in my wallet, so off I trotted to the Garden Centre & purchased some potted colour pansies to revamp my cane pram for the winter

  This little miniature wheelbarrow was hiding abandoned under a tree so I planted it out with a punnet of pansies in "antique" shades

And my dear old parsley pig, which was lying neglected under the house, got a scrub & a fresh parsley plant to cheer him (& me) up a bit

 I recently finished a further 3 dishcloths from this free pattern here

 I took them to my friend Joyce who kindly crochets around the edges for me in exchange for a batch of my 
apricot fudge slice which she loves so much !!

I used to have a small wooden stool beside the bed in my spare room, however during one of my frequent change arounds, I borrowed pinched it for somewhere else
I needed to find a replacement & this wooden table was in my sleepout - a $5 purchase from Hospice last year

 

The top was somewhat wobbly, but this was soon remedied with a generous squeeze of PVA glue underneath & a heavy weight sat on top for 24 hours. (No, not Blackie either .... I can hear you Willie!!!)

I applied 2 coats of my chalk paint "pale duck egg" shade, then lightly scuffed all the edges

 

Such a transformation from a tatty $5 table .  .  .  .  and .  .  .

 Just perfect for the space I needed it for !!!

And lastly dear friends, I got to spend time looking after one of my favouritest little people on the entire earth

 My dear little grandson Sid, who is now a whole 9 weeks old & is pondering life in general !!

  Happy Wednesday to you all dear friends

 May you have a wonderful day ... thank you for stopping by here today

with Much love & friendship to you all,

Julie & the furry ones x0x0x