£12 Comic Relief Charity Challenge

..possibly a bit mad, but we're doing it again! It's been just about long enough since the last time for everyone to have forgotten what it was like...
So a quick recap if you're wondering what I'm on about - I've squeezed our weekly food shop down to  £12. £12 to feed four of us for 7 days. And that's it. Bar a few basics I have here.

Why? Well the why is for Comic Relief, because that's where all the money I'd usually spend on the groceries is going. We started on saturday - quite a good distraction because that's when my sister left for Australia - we finish at the end of the week on Red Nose Day.

I do like a good challenge and it's going to be interesting, planning, cooking and trying to keep the kids happy. But it wouldn't be much of a challenge if I raided the freezer and the cupboard for the week, so my self-imposed rules are no digging about in the freezer for meals, and no tins or packets except the ones bought with my £12 budget. I'm allowing myself to use up what's left of staples like flour, sugar, oil - and also the opened tub of marg in the fridge, tea bags, 3 onions, half a packet of split red lentils and a few wizened cloves of garlic I found at the back of the cupboard. It's not much extra, and sure, wouldn't it be wasteful to buy more when they're sitting there? Anyway, my rules and hey, it's for charity!

I think I'm pretty good at budgeting, but my grocery bills have been fluctuating a fair bit recently. The Challenge has made me take a long hard look at what I usually spend, and what goes into my trolley - as well as my rather slack approach to meal planning.
We're into our third day now, and the kids are still reasonably enthusiastic, but when they start moaning about the absence of treats and choices (and they will), it'll probably be a good time to gently remind them of the children who can never grab an apple or a biscuit when they feel like it; the children who have barely enough food to live on. Hopefully I'll get them to think about why we're doing this.

So my £12 list is reasonably similar to the one last year. I shopped at Lidl and Tesco's and bought the cheapest of the cheap. Quite a few are the same price as before which really surprised me, seeing as most of the things I usually buy are getting more expensive.

Doesn't look like much, does it..

Small chicken £3.09

milk £1.00

400g ham £1.65

cream cheese 50p

ball of mozzarella 40p

1 kg rice 40p

2x500g pasta 60p

1 kg potatoes 69p

loaf of wholemeal bread 47p

cream crackers 39p

2xtinned tomatoes 62p

passata 29p

1.5kg carrots 63p

4 bananas 32p

2xtinned peaches 58p

1.5kg flour 45p

Total £12.08

There isn't a lot in the way of fruit and veg. I'd thought about buying more instead of the chicken, but I can stretch the chicken to 3 meals, and we're only talking a week. I haven't included eggs because a very kind friend with hens has given me 8 lovely fresh ones, as well as 2 big leeks from her garden. The other advantage I have is I'm just feeding me and the 3 kids, because my husband's away. And I've only one milk drinker too, which helps cut costs.

Things seem to be going well enough, but it's early days! I'm trying to stay one step ahead and definitely doing more baking. I'll post my menu plan tomorrow so you can see what we've been eating. Some things crop up A LOT...Hard really to have much variety.

I think it would be fair to say homemade bread and muffins are the food glue that hold this Challenge together..

Make Mr Twit's Beard for World Book Day

I've never had to think about the kids dressing up as a favourite character for World Book Day. Their school seemed to buck the trend and just didn't bother...until now that is.
So over the past few days I've experienced the same kind of last minute fretting and dressing up box delving I'm sure many parents are well used to. I've heard tales from friends of things getting wildly competitive, with elaborate hand stitched costumes, and jaw-dropping make up, but can't imagine that happening at our little village school. I don't think? Anyway, after all kinds of ideas, I managed to steer my three towards Simple.
The eldest opted for teenage spy, Alex Rider - so just himself really, plus cool shades; the youngest chose Angelina Ballerina - ballet stuff with paper ears attached to a headband, and the 8 year old came up with Roald Dahl's Mr Twit, because that's what he's reading at the moment.

And Mr Twit is all about the beard.

We made ours out of a cereal packet.
I lightly folded the card and drew half a beard, before cutting it out so it looked even.

It's important to leave longish sideburns, because these are going to be folded over and stapled onto the arms of a pair of glasses. We used an old pair of 3D ones from the bottom of the dressing up box. Now, strictly speaking Mr Twit doesn't wear glasses, but it seemed like a good way to keep the beard in place.
Worth trying it for size at this stage, before getting to work...

Angry little elf..

After painting it black, we scrunched up bits of black paper and stuck them on. Tissue paper would have been better, but I could only find brown, so we have a two-tone beard.

Next, the fun part - making lots of disgusting things to attach to Mr Twit's beard. In the book it says, '..there were always hundreds of bits of old breakfasts and lunches and suppers sticking to the hairs around his face'. And mentions stuff like scrambled eggs, tomato ketchup, minced chicken livers, a mouldy old cornflake and the slimy tail of a tinned sardine.  Mmmm, lovely..

Mr Twit's beard

Our sardine tail is card covered in tin foil, a big blob of paint for ketchup, broken crisps and cornflakes, little bits of old sponge for scrambled egg - and then we added our own things, like some spaghetti, baked beans cut out of foam stickers and little balls of green plasticine for peas.

'..because of all this, Mr Twit never went really hungry. By sticking out his tongue and curling it sideways to explore the hairy jungle around his mouth, he was always able to find a tasty morsel here and there to nibble on...'

Suitably yucky I hope!

Linking up with Red Ted Art's Kids Get Crafty

Jumper Challenge - Part 2

Ok, so there wasn't a huge amount of jumper left after Part 1, but enough for a few small things. I still had both cuffs - these make great fingerless gloves, but for some reason I was set on having a go at a dress for my old Sasha doll, now loved to bits by my daughter.
Looking at the cuffs, I could just picture one of those polo neck jumper dresses from my childhood, do you know the ones I mean? Tight, pure acrylic ribbed top with a roll neck and a little pleated skirt - oh I remember them so well!
Perfect for Sasha from the Seventies.

The ribbed bit of one cuff makes the top part of the dress, with the start of the sleeve becoming the skirt. I cut the other cuff in half for the sleeves.  The beauty of this is there's very little sewing to do - just the seam up the sleeves and a hem around the bottom of the skirt - I used some flowery braid to cover the stitches. Then cut holes for the arms and sew them in. The end of the cuff is the roll neck bit,  and I think it rather suits her..

Seventies Sasha

I'd made hearts in Part 1 and wanted to try a few more small things that were a simple shape, like mice and birds.

Lavender bags, hanging decorations, pin cushions, a cat toy? PLENTY of possibilities!

And there was even enough left for the pygmy owl keyring.
Flowers from the embroidered braid made good owl eyes I think, and saved me having to cut tiny circles out of felt which is such a miserable, fiddly job..

Not too shabby for an old jumper

Linking up with Lakota's Ta-dah! Tuesday

The Scandinavian snack squirrel

squirrel bowl by Ylva Olsson

What can I say?  It's Swedish, quirky, there was 40% off, and the squirrel was always going to be coming home with me.
Now you're possibly thinking, sure that's lovely but what's the big deal? And it is the kind of thing that could easily have ended up at the back of a cupboard. But I had plans for this little ceramic dish, and as strange as it may sound it's actually become a pretty important daily feature around here.

Squirrel now sits in the middle of the kitchen table, and before the kids get back from school I fill it with some kind of snacky treat. The original idea was for the snack to be healthy and wholesome, but in truth it seems to be on a sliding scale of healthiness, depending on what I can find in the cupboard, and how long it's been since the last shop..

All three love it, and charge up from the bus, with the youngest usually shouting, 'WHAT'S IN SQUIIIRELLLL!'
Sometimes I have to charge ahead, due to a slight snack oversight, grabbing a bag of raisins on my way to the table.
And squirrel seems to possess some kind of magical power, because my fussy eater is munching through dried fruit he wouldn't have even glanced at before.

They do have the usual bread or biscuits too because they're always ravenous, but squirrel has made this hectic part of the day a little more fun.

Healthy squirrel

Nutty squirrel (with a hot kick)

Fruity squirrel

Bad squirrel

Rolling out the trolley

Jumper chopping has been put on hold for a few days so I can finish doing up my trolley. It's been sitting about in the kitchen for ages and was starting to attract piles of clobber - a spare space doesn't stay spare very long around here.
I knew exactly what I wanted to put on it though, I wanted to cover the trolley in my small collection of vintage knitting patterns. Well it seems such a shame to tuck them away in a drawer.

I've been buying them for the classic and totally fabulous pictures rather than the patterns. Some really are in a league of their own.. in a League of Gentlemen kind of way..

I bought an extra bundle from a charity shop for a pound, and at the counter the lady said, 'You're going to be busy!' I just nodded enthusiastically - didn't feel right to tell her I was sticking them on a piece of furniture.

The trolley came from our local auction and only cost me £2. It did need a thorough clean and a few repairs before I primed and painted it with a chalky emulsion - lovely shade called moonstone grey. Luckily there was enough in the tester pot for two decent coats on the legs and around the edges.

I spent quite a while cutting and arranging the patterns before getting the glue out. One great decoupage tip I was given recently, is to use a piece of kitchen roll to smooth down the picture, gently rubbing over the paper continuously, to push out bubbles and wrinkles. Time-consuming but definitely worth it - plus it reduced anxiety levels.. There are still a few bumps, but shouldn't be noticeable when the sewing machine goes on top and my sewing box has a new home below.

I kept the pieces on the drawer black and white for some of contrast, and picked out plenty of fairisle patterns because I love a bit of fairisle.

Now it just needs a few coats of clear varnish and a good spray of WD-40 on those squeaky old wheels..

Linking up with Magpie Monday at Liz's
 and Lakota's Ta-dah! Tuesday 

The Gallery - Boys

I remember standing next to a rather fraught mum in a supermarket who was trying unsuccessfully to stop her son whacking his brother with a roll of tin foil.  She looked at me wearily and said,   'Boys. They can make a weapon out of anything.'
I nodded and smiled and looked down at my then tiny little chubby cheeked gorgeous bundle of first born boy. I honestly hadn't a clue what she was talking about.
You see at that point I only knew about girls. I have three sisters, just about all my cousins are girls and our little baby was the first boy to join the family in years.

I now have two boys who can make weapons out of anything.

Typical boys really.

And as frustrating as these sometimes rough, grubby, lazy, messy little treasures can be, I think I've got the measure of them.
I know what makes them happy, sad, bored, helpful. I know what they'll listen to and what they'll probably ignore.
I know they won't dwell or be too devious - apart from stealing biscuits, which they're pretty useless at because they never hide the evidence. On the whole I feel I know where I am with my boys, and that makes things a little more straightforward. At the moment!

They do still surprise me though, with sudden spontaneous hugs, sweet little notes and the occasional disarming compliment. I'll never forget coming downstairs, dressed up for a night out, and my then 3 year old saying, 'nice shoes mummy!'
Sometimes my boys leave me speechless.
Just not always for the right reasons...

The Gallery theme this week is BOYS!