Bloo on Green ~ In which I start the making of something quite fabby !!!!

Hellloooooooooooooo me Loverlies

Here we are again looking at homemade things that are a bit more than special and fun and hopefully better for our world in some way.

I had a thought about candles the other day. I am not sure if i could get away with candle making up here unless it was the loose bead variety but i desperately wanted to do something. Candles are something we use quite alot of and it's coming up to that time of year where candles make all the difference and can make a room not only feel warmer but actually warmer as well.

How was I going to do this ??? I had no idea until looking through an old herbcraft book I can upon instructions for herb candles. Herb Candles ??? really ??? I continued to look realising that you used bought pillar candles and could dip them in water to place the pressed herbs into them ... Well I have to say I think I might jsut be onto something this time. Our budget is worse than little it is non existant right now, however at times we all have a loose £1 coin in our pockets and this is when the £1 shops come in handy. Himself is now under instrudtions that when he picks up the girls in Exeter on a Saturday he is to pop into the pound shop and pick up a tower candle.  I would love to go but it is another bus fare and that bus fare would be our electric for a week so that isn't happening!!!

Instead what I have started doing is pressing the leaves to go on the candles. No I don't have a special posh press that everyone thinks they need to do this I have lots of huge massive doorsteps of books and that combined with some tissue of whatever sort you have in the house in our case it was loo roll will do the job nicely.

Work from the back of the book it makes it easier to do several layers, put down 2 layers of tissue on the right hand page.

Pick your leaves off the stalks. Today I am using Ivy leaves, they mean something to us and they will give a great effect to the completed candle. 

Be choosey with your leaves though and don't use any damaged ones and put whats left in the compost of back where you found it as Ivy will regrow from these stalks.

Lay your leaves out face down on the paper. and give them plenty of room around themselves as you don't want them to stick together by accident, or curl wrongly in the pressing. 

Carefully cover the leaves with 2 more layers of tissue and close the book by about 20-30 pages to start your next layer. 

The book I used has over 1500 pages in it so I was able to use up all the leaves at one go with plenty of room in the bok for more should I want to press some more. Which I will do when I find the right ones. If you are going to use ivy use lots of different varieties I found 4 last night so I will have quite a variety. When it comes time to make the candles I will definately let you know. Until then leave your leaves to press for a good couple of weeks. I may  take less time I jsut like to make sure. They can then be kept in an airtight container layered on the sheets they were pressed with to keep them safe. 

Have fun with this one

xox Love and Light xox

Bloo on Green ~ In which I continue my journey into homemade cleaners by starting with myself

HIPPY THOR'S DAY !!!!

YAY!!! I'm all caught up and here we are at Bloo on Green!!!

Today I have decided to continue my mission to use only the ingredients normally found in my kitchen to make cleaners for the household. Things that aren't chemical based that is.

Since I am off to the Acoustic Festival next week I thought it would be a good idea to get my bits and pieces in order to go away. That is when I realised I didn't have 2 lots of toothpaste in the house. hmmm so yes I scoured my Nanna Lucy's book of brilliance and found a recipe for toothpaste.

Yeap your very own non pumped full of fluoride and all the other things I can't spell let alone say. I always reckon that is a bad sign if the name for an ingredient needs a chemistry degree to decipher it!!

So here we go :~

Pixie's Nanna's Festival Toothpaste

1/2 cup Bicarb of Soda
1/4 bottle Peppermint Extract

Here comes the hard bit :~

Mix them together ....

Put the mix in a container ....

Now use it ... because of reusing the bicarb container to put the toothpaste in I can seal it well and not worry about it busting open in my bag

It will be a little more powdery than you are used to but who cares. There is nothing in Bicarb that can hurt you and peppermint extract is basically peppermint infused vodka or similar clear alcohol.

So this is now off into my festival bag ready to go... I wonder if I can find a way of making my own wet wipes ... hmmmmm ... will look into it for next week

Have an awesome one

xox Love and Light xox

Bloo on Green ~ In Which I get fed up of breaking out in rashes every time I clean the house

Hello me Loverlies and Welcome to Thor's Day

Well I have to admit this week has been a bit of a toughy and when I accidentally sprayed spray and wipe on me and broke out in a rash I said ENOUGH!!!

So I sat and scoured the internet and I looked through my Nanna Lucy's book of bits and found a wonderful array of homemade cleaning products. Over the next few weeks I shall be making them all, but since our budget is what it is I shall be making one different type of cleaner each week for the next 6 weeks and share the how to's with you here.

So here we go with this weeks offering :~

Orange and Lemon Vinegar AKA Spray and Wipe

If you are like me you save EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING. I even save citrus peels to candy or add to marmalade or cakes. Everytime we have them in the house and peel them the peels go in a box in the freezer so they are safe.

Now I know alot of you will say is that why use brown vinegar or malt vinegar rather than distilled. Well I shall tell you, distilled vinegar is relatively recent and to be honest this is the more tradtional vinegar to use and nooooo it doesn't leave stain marks at all cos you only use it on spray and wipe surfaces not on the carpet!!!!

So ingredients are :~

Citrus Peel to fill the jar, bucket or other type of container or your choice.
Malt or Brown Vinegar to cover the peels completely.

Like these here :~

- First off fill your jar with peels up to the top

- Then fill the jar with vinegar to cover the peels

- Leave the mix for a week in a dark cupboard

- Strain the mix and put in a spray bottle if you wish or a bottle of your choice.

Just use this as you would for the chemical spray and wipe, if you prefer the distilled or white vinegar feel free to use that instead. It is a matter of choice and no other reason at all ...

So enjoy it, try it out and see how it measures up to the chemicals. If you are worried about the smell I know the vinegar smell evaporates very quickly and to be honest I'd rather smell citrus oils and vinegar than bleach anyday of the week!!! Besides it's not like you have to keep it locked up either if a child drinks it no harm done and to be honest they would probably pull a face and not go there again. Lesson learnt and no trips to A&E to get a stomach pumped !!!

Have an awesome rest of your day

xox Love and Light xox 

Bloo on Green ~ Being Green isn't just about recycling

Hey Loverlies welcome to this episode of Bloo on Green.

I have to admit I really had to think about this one. I was going to make something but have put it aside for now as other things came to mind over the last 2 days that really made me realise that being Green isn't just about  recycling things to make other things, or rather upcycling as it is now poshly known as !!!!

There are many ways to recycle and make use of what you have about you or what others no longer have a need for. We think nothing of hand-me-down clothes for our kids, but for some reason many of these same parents turn thier noses up at going to the charity shop or second hand clothing store. Some of these shops are treasure troves of gorgeous fabrics and kids clothing and even grown up clothing at prices that we should NEVER go past!!! For example the Barnados shop in Plymouth near Sainsbury's ALL the clothing is 99p !!! 99p!!! you can't buy a cup of tea for that in most places now and I bought a brand new never been worn before pair of jeans from there !!!

Our local Brainwave charity shop is amazing!!! It's where I find most of my fabrics and bits for my kitchen and house in general. When it came to Yule we were able to obtain beautiful carved wooden trays and other bits and pieces for the kitchen for under £10 and it meant we were able to serve up everything for everyone and have spare serving platters etc. ooooo not to mention the beautiful glasses we got as well. £2 for 6 !!!

These are all items that normally would end up as landfill yet someone had the smart idea to set up these little charity shops and I tell you what I would much rather give my money to them than to sme massive corporate that is churning out too much stock and charging massive amounts for it!!!

The great thing I love about these shops is that all the items in there or many of them were once loved by others. Each and every item in there has a history and for the fraction of the cost of an antique shop we can decorate our home and get the essentials and sometimes fun things too ...

Vinyl records appear to be disappearing slowly and only known and loved by collectors. The second hand shops round here tend to flog a box of the for £10 .... a box being LOADS !!!! I love the thought of this, we can keep the ones that are worth keeping and turn the others into cyberpunk armour and other melted vinyl crafts!!!

The wonderful  little shops are like treasure caves and you never know from day to day what you will find. Today we were there and purchased a complete set of encyclopedias for £2 and 3 board games, a couple of other books and a matchstick blind, something I have been looking for for months that I could afford so we can make the felt for my partners grooms party for our Handfasting.

So there you go, recycling doesn't always have to be about the crafts we make or the things we do, it's about helping others as well. Which makes you feel pretty damn good about your choices when making purchases for your home or those in it.

Think twice before spending a massive amount on something brand new that just goes into the pocket of some corporate bell head !!! Look into your local second hand shop or charity shop. See what you can find and do some good at the same time.


xox Love and Light xox

Apologies ~ In which I get kidnapped by Himself

Hello me Loverlies and welcome to Thors Day

Normally here we would have Bloo on Green... however Himself (my loving and dutiful parnter whom I love and adore) saw fit to kidnap me this evening and force feed me awesome food and and beautiful wine and to be completely honest I'm not sure playing with sharp objects is a good idea at this point!!!

It was utterly wonderful though and as we celerate one of our numerous anniversaries, which in all honesty we haven't been able to do more than save the good ingredients and make a meal at home for the last year and a half. Not that I';m complaining because to be honest they have been some of the loverliest evenings I have ever experienced in my life!!! Tonight was made wonderfully special, as I sit here typing my apology to you for not getting Bloo on Green done this evening my belly is sighing with contentment and my head is swimming a little with utter bliss ... or was that the Rose ??? Either way tonight has been a most wonderful evening and to make sure we don't go to bed squiffy we are going to curl up and watch a movie.

This does mean however that tomorrow you will have 2 POSTS !!! as Himself and I have decided to do the normal Bloo on Green in the morning and the Ode to Friday in the evening.

I just hope you can all wait that long !!!

Love you all ... go spend some time with someone you love more than anything, even if you haven't told them yet.

xox Love and Light xox

Bloo on Green ~ In which a little town in Devon is saved from the evil empire and I makes some scoops for flour and whatever else

Happy Thors Day me Loverlies!!!

Well what an exciting day yesterday was !!! In fact you might have even seen our loverly little town on the news. There has been a big fight between the towns people and MVV/Gilpin's who want to put an Incinerator Bottom Ash sorting facility across the road from where we live. In fact its less than 100 metres away. Not to bore you with the details but yesterday was the hearing for the development management commitee to rule on the planning permission. Well guess what !!??!! WE WON!!! YAY!!!! 6 votes to 5 but we won !!!

This now means that our beloved Greater Horseshoe Bat population won't be at risk (and just by the way it is the biggest population of them in Europe) and our kids aren't going to be breathing in the horrific dust and dodging trucks to cross the road.

Anyone who says that locals can't have a say and change things haven't tried!!!

One of the wonderful spouts of gibberish the MVV were using was to say because of our attitude we don't want to recycle... WELL REALLY!!! This Thursday slot is about to prove them wrong!!! and I will continue to prove them wrong for the rest of my days!!!

Due to this I wanted to find a way to reuse our milk cartons. A really useful way that can be very helpful and show there are many ways to reuse those things tha tend to get chucked out to the recycling.

Today we are going to make scoops.

Scoops have millions of uses, of course scooping in their main use but if you are clever you can use them as a tool to help you with all kinds of jobs. In the garden, in the kitchen, in the bathroom all over the place really and if you are really stuck for a dustpan a homemade scoop works for that too.

So here we go ... How to make a homemade milk bottle scoop :~

Right well first off wash your chosen bottle out thoroughly the last thing you want is to have a stinky stale milk smell happening.

Next draw your cut mark around the bottle as shown here :~

Then cut around the line carefully either using scissors or a stanley knife, please be careful though 5 fingers are better than 4 at this stage!!!

Once this is done you should have 2 pieces of your bottle that look like this :~

The large piece is your scoop and from here you can use it for whatever you see fit or need it for. This can be done with ANY size milk bottle so you can have teeny ones for flour and sugar or medium ones like this for compost or using in the bath for your hair.

"What do we do with the top bit???" I hear you cry, well this is quite fun actually because now you have a very useful funnel that fits quite neatly over the top of a squash bottle or inside a jam jar or anything else you might need.

So there you go 2 for the price of 1 haha

oh and as for the lids, keep them safe somewhere we will do something with them another day. 

Have a fantastic rest of the day, enjoy finding uses for your scoops and funnels.

xox Love and Light xox