I've Had Enough Of It Now .... Too Much Sitting Around ..Onwards and Upwards With The Thrifty Crusade.!

Hello there ... 

Hope the festive few days was all you had hoped it would be.

We had a nice break .. nice company .. nice food .. all very nice.

(Do you like my pretty Christmas Roses ... a little Christmas Day posy from a Gentleman friend .. blooming like crazy in his garden...)

But to be honest .. I've had enough of it .. there is only so much sitting around a Girl can do ... 

I find it all a bit boring.

 So this morning I took down the Christmas cards .. lots of pretty ones this year .. such a waste just to put them in the recycling bin.

How about a Thrifty Snippet .... not had one for a few weeks ... 

and I know we all love Thrifty Snippets...

 I cut the front of the card from the backs .. 

and any part of the design/picture that lends itself to a Gift Tag shape ... is cut into a gift tag.

I found a bit of odd blue embroidery thread and poked some through the 'tags' ready for attaching to next years gifts.

I only cut a few tags .. enough for next year .. 

And the rest of the scrap card ... backs of cards etc .. any plain blank pieces I keep for my shopping lists and whatnot. 

I find they are an ideal size to slip in my bag .. and sturdier .. they don't crumple up in the bottom of the bag as flimsy paper has a habit of doing. 

Me .. being me .. and a bit 'obsessive' as Hubby P would have it .. or 'careful' ... as I like to think.

I have a list in my hand as I shop and as I put things in the trolley I write the price on my list and add up as I go along .. stiff card is easier to use/write on than paper.

After all I have only so much money in my purse .. my intention was to spend just X amount .. 

so a Girl has to do her sums ... 

or else a Girl ends up in a right pickle with her money ...ha ha!

So Thrifty it is folks .. lets try and hit the New Year running .. with as few a debts as possible ..

New Year.. New start ...

So lets share our Thrifty Snippets .. and aim for a Healthier and Wealthier New Year...

XX

George .. Dresser And Cristmas Wreath Thriftiness..

 Hello there ...

Well.. yes .. a very busy day here today.

But first of all .. thank you for all the nice comments about George .. I will pass them on to him.

He is indeed a light Sussex .. he was raised .. from an egg ... by my Aunt who lives over the hill ..

There were a few cockerels in the batch .. and of course they needed re homing ... 

more than one in a run and they fight like crazy.

When she first asked if we could take one I said unfortunately .. No .. we had our dear old Rocky ..

Ancient as he was .. he still saw himself as a gladiator .. and there would have been trouble.

Sadly we lost Rocky .. as age takes us all .. he just faded away.

George was still looking for a home so we offered to take him.

He is quite at home and romancing the Girls ... who knows what spring may bring!

The weather today was awful .. so Hubby P decided to work at home rather than try and trade ...

He has so much to do ... there is always so much to do..

 More bits of the rustic pine dresser .. ready to be fitted..

 A glittery Hubby P trying the doors for size ...

He's not always just so shiny .. the flash on the camera caught the fluorescent strips on his 'allovers'....!

Dresser is coming on nicely ... I have found some nice rustic .. make do and mend-y type handles for the doors ... 

 Hubby P made them from spoons years ago.

I do love a handmade thrifty thing!

Speaking of which ... I found this in a box of house clearance stuff.

 Quite pretty in itself ... but I thought it would look quite nice as a wreath ... 

with a bit of greenery around it.

I had a foray into the wet garden and pulled a handful of branches from the manky looking leylandi tree in the hedge .. 

and a couple of sprigs of Ivy from off the wall ...

 nothing fancy at all ...its all I could find really.

 I fastened them around the pine cone 'wreath' with sewing cotton and a needle ... and yes ..

 you guessed it .. because it twas all I could find.

A few bits of bright ribbon added a burst of colour ... 

and I thought .. well that will do.

After all its just going outside to brighten up the doorway .. 

it will get blown about by the wind.. and rained on ...

 it will be fine.

A fine Thrifty Thing .. twill do us nicely ..!

Take care .. Bye for now x

Use It Up an Eat It Up! Thrifty Snippet!!

Is it raining with you? 'tis a bit miserable here!

We went to the carboot sale today but I'm afraid I haven't anything exciting to show you, any goodies were a bit thin on the ground, and rather too expensive for me. Still - can't expect Treasures every week!

So I thought I would share a Thrifty Snippet or two with you.

Well really it was just a case of 'what on earth can I make for tea' when I knew I ought really to go shopping - although I couldn't face a busy supermarket today. I hate shopping at the best of times - and Hubby P was busy playing - oops sorry - - familiarising himself with his new sanding machine, a noisy power-tool thing-y, so shopping was out of the question.

Very little fresh veg left in the fridge, and some rather 'sprout-y' potatoes that needed eating up.

So - that's healthy/low fat oven chips made from the potatoes (chunky chipped, par boiled and roasted in the oven with brushed on olive oil).

What to do with the end of the cucumber?(now don't be rude)

I chopped a goodly amount for our salad - only Richard and I had oven chips and salad, Hubby P statin 'a Man can have too much green stuff' so he chose something else - more manly!

Now when I was a girl - 'in the Good old Days' - maybe? In my Grandmothers kitchen, and ours/my Mothers, during the summer there was always a dish (in my Grandmothers - I can 'see' it clearly, it was a huge cut glass dish) of cucumber and onion in vinegar - its a lovely pickle to have with just about anything, I eat it by the ton.

Its very simple - just use oddments of cucumber (skin cut off and chopped) and onion and put them in a dish/jar (I use a sealed jar - it can make the kitchen smell a bit pickle-y otherwise), pour some vinegar to cover them and I add a bit of sugar, give it a stir.

I keep adding to the jar whenever I have an odd bit of cucumber left, or bit of onion - or I just make more because I love it - especially on cheese sandwiches!
Eventually of course you have to start afresh with new vinegar - the vinegar will get cloudy.

Next out of the fridge was the last of the carrots, a cabbage and I always have a few onions - so coleslaw it is then.

Grate the carrot, finely -ish chop the cabbage and onion, and mix with a bit of Mayo.

Now Richard was hovering around in the kitchen (asking why I was taking pic's of his tea? -
I suppose it is strange behaviour!) - anyway I asked him to pass me the mayo from the fridge and he said that he preferred my coleslaw when I make it with half mayo and half salad cream. Well - things being in the desperate state they are - shopping wise, I said we didn't have any salad cream unless - we had any in the Saddam Cupboard.

Now the Saddam cupboard goes back a long way - when the children were little and the News was full of the threat from Saddam Hussein, and any conflict with him may lead to shortages - so I had a cupboard where I kept extra tins of food - extra emergency rations.

I suppose I was brought up (living in the 'wilderness' - no easy access to shops etc) with full cupboards, not fancy expensive food - just basic staples.

So the Saddam cupboard is still a feature - and the name stuck, its not a huge cupboard, but it holds all the necessary to get us by.

But as you can see - no salad cream! - Bad Mother!

So we had Coleslaw made with just mayo - and very nice it was too.
(pleanty left - we didn't eat the whole dish full)

Plenty of lettuce - did I mention I have a greenhouse?!!!

Today a friend kindly gave me some homegrown new potatoes (they do look rather good - tomorrows tea?) and some Garlic - rather small but all the same very garlic-y, and very welcome.

I decided to make some Garlic oil with it - I have quite a bit of garlic in the fridge, we don't eat it at every meal, so the garlic oil would utilise the fresh garlic - preserve it I suppose.

I made a lot of this oil when I grew garlic myself, a couple of years ago - I shall grow it again next year - did I mention I now have a greenhouse?!!!

Simply peel the garlic cloves and pop in a clean jar, pour some olive oil over them (or whatever oil you use to cook with) - in a day or so the oil will be flavoured by the garlic and you can use it to cook with. You can also of course use the cloves themselves, just fish them out of the oil, give them a chop up and add to your stir fry or whatever.

As you use the garlic oil from the jar top it up with fresh olive oil - lots of garlic-y power in those little cloves.

Its just one way of using up the garlic - I don't know about you but the ones I buy soon seem to sprout - give the oil a try, scrummy used when frying mushrooms - well, that's if you like garlic of course!

Sorry if its been a bit of a 'same-y - cooking-y' post, just thought it would be a bit different - Richard says 'hope you enjoy pictures of His Tea!' I think he thinks we are all mad!!!!

xxx That's all for now xxx Take Care xxx