Recycling Upcycling Queen

Hello, and welcome to Tightwad Towers Recycling Centre. There was a knock at my front door this morning, my friend Bob was on his way to the council dump when he decided to call in here first in case there was something in his car that I could make use of. Most of it was packaging, but I had to rescue a few things. I'm not sure if I actually need them, but I couldn't see them thrown away. I can probably use the two big frames, but the smaller ones might go to the charity shop. 

I do need a small lamp shade, but I these are going to be too big. Probably charity shop. Three cushions. Don't need them myself, but I could take them apart. They have too much stuffing in them, I could make four cushions for the church. My goodness I've got loads to do now, I'm going to be busy trying to keep up with all this recycling upcycling lark.

I made a sign to go on the lamp post on the High Street near to the Village Hall. It's simple, didn't want to spend too much time on it, as it will only be up for six days, then put away till next year.

Two shopping bags made today, with the fabric from one of the beds. They are a slightly darker shade than they are here on the photo.

So, that's what I've been doing on this chilly but dry Sunday. The days are very short now, it's a job to get everything done in reasonable daylight. I've got to go. There's a ginger cat demanding my attention, he wants to snuggle up to me. Thanks for popping in, we'll catch up soon.
Toodle pip

Recycle and reuse

Hello. I didn't get to dismantle the beds the other day, it was raining, is it ever going to stop! Well it did stop today and as I was passing my friends house, I noticed she had put two of the beds out on the front lawn. That's handy I thought, so after lunch I took my bag of tools and went round there to attack them. 

I slashed the fabric around the edges with a Stanley knife and unscrewed as much of the wood as I could. The tough bits gave way with a bash from a big hammer.  

I am trying to salvage as much as I can, that blue fabric on the top bed is lovely and ideal for shopping bags. I broke it down to manageable pieces to fit in my car, and will sort it out later. The wood can be separated into useful pieces and put in the garage, aka the wood store.

My friend gave me a bag of smellies, she doesn't like toiletries that are heavily perfumed. I will use anything if it's free. The handwash can be used as shampoo and bath foam, the small soaps I will pass on to Janet to be sold on the cat stall. I will wear the socks.

It was library day today. It has changed from a Monday, because the van parks on the health centre car park and they said it was taking too much room up, so they changed the day to Tuesday because it's closed on a Tuesday afternoon. The bin collection day has changed as well. It used to be on a Monday, now moved to Wednesday, just about getting used to the new routine.

I didn't do a walk yesterday because of the rain. People have been asking what next when we have all finished at the end of the year. I think it would be good to have a new challenge, but I'm not sure what. I will carry on walking and will record my mileage on my calendar, and I hope everyone else will do the same. Keeping healthy and looking after your body is not a one year experiment, it's forever. Come next spring and I hope to be doing more long walks.

Thanks for popping in, we'll catch up soon.
Toodle pip

Shopping haul and a job to do.

Hello. It's looking like it might be a busy day, so I'll fire this one off super quick. Last minute decision last night, go for the yellow stickers at Tesco. A good haul, all with 75% off. The man with the ticket machine said not so many people come for them now, it used to be 90% off. This saving is fine by me. Other foodstuffs were bought as well. No need to go again for another couple or three weeks. 

My friends in the next street are downsizing, moving up north, and they need to get the house cleared. There are four single bed bases to get rid of, no one wants them, not even charity shops. The council will take weeks to come and pick them up and they don't want them lying around in the front garden. The plan is that I  dismantle them and salvage any timber that might be useful for other projects and take the debris to the tip.

Must get on with the job. Thanks for popping in, we'll catch up soon.
Toodle pip

A day out at the Festival of Thrift.

Hello. Yes, I was in Redcar yesterday for the Festival of Thrift. Apologies to those who live not far from the site, Cherie and Brenda and anyone else up in the north east, but I did not make up my mind to go until 10pm on Saturday night so there wasn't time to make arrangements. I had been mulling it over for a few days, ever since I saw Max tweeting about it. I considered making it into a two or three day jaunt but was undecided. 

Then I had a closer look at the festival web site and thought a lot of the activities and entertainment was geared up for children and families. Also advertised was food, workshops, films, talks, and shopping, none of which I am particularly interested in. The only things that did interest me was the arts and crafts and the upcycling, not really enough to warrant the time, effort, and cost to get there and back. 

However, when the tweets started coming in after the first day, with reports in the local media, I thought I might give it a whirl. My Saturday was a bit boring so I thought perhaps I ought to get up off my backside and just do it.. 

The event practically took over the whole village of Kirkleatham. When I arrived at 11.15am the road was blocked by a massive queue to get in the car park. It crawled along at a snails pace. I was not best pleased after driving almost two hours. The road to the main entrance was closed to all except disabled and trades people, so I followed the signs straight on for the car park. Just as we were coming to a roundabout I could see the queue stretching a long way into the distance, I hate queuing. Just off the roundabout to the left is a Business Park, and being a Sunday no one would be working so I thought why not park there. Good move, others had the same idea. It was a few minutes walk back along the road to the entrance. To be honest, I wouldn't have minded paying £5 to park, but I wasn't going to sit in that queue. 

The event practically took over the whole village of Kirkleatham, it was spread out over several fields, and there were stalls and suchlike inside the Museum buildings as well. It took me a while to Find Max McMurdo next to the big green Gumtree bus. Those of you who saw Shed of the Year will remember him as being one of the judges. His face regularly comes up on the TV as inventor and upcycler on other programmes. Max has a book out, his first upcycling book and it appears to be very popular amongst thrifty people. If you want to have a butchers at it, click on this Amazon link. No I am not getting a cut in sales, I just think he is a thoroughly nice guy who works very hard. 

With a steady stream of visitors waiting to speak to Max, I hovered for a few minutes and watched him dish out his words of wisdom to enthusiastic upcyclers. 

That was tempting, the weather was hot and I could have murdered a pint of cider, but knowing that I had to drive home I supped the watered down apple juice in my bottle brought from home.

There was much to see and do. The solar powered cinema was closed for lunch, and as I didn't fancy being squeezed into a box with other sweaty people I decided to give it a miss. Nice idea though.

Lots of wood about. Two owls for sale, can't remember how much they were though.

There were stalls with all kinds of craftwork. Blocks of wood with letters carved into them, £6 per letter. I did think of getting my name but I am much too tight to part with £30 on an impulse buy.

In the stable block there were artworks from local artists. I must say though that there was only one which looked interesting. One stable had nothing in and was lit up with a coloured light. Another had a moving film of horse racing projected onto the wall with a makeshift steeple chasing jump built of branches in front of it. And two others were empty. It was a bit gloomy in there, with not much to look at. 

There was a little courtyard with vintage camper vans, which was nice.

This one was for sale, 7,000 quid if you are interested. Looks fully restored on the outside but you will have to put your own innards into it. Mind you, thinking about it, it has an 02 number plate so it could be a kit car built from scratch.

Lots of vintage stalls to browse. One thing I can't understand is that once something is given the 'vintage', label how come the price rises, and rises, and rises. Baffles me that people will pay silly money for old tat, when probably family members will have cupboards full of the stuff stashed away somewhere. 'Spose it's a bit like antiques, the older something is the more valuable it becomes.

There were various cooking smells wafting around, and long queues at the stalls. If this was a thrift festival, why didn't more people get organized and take their own pack up from home and have a picnic. It was the ideal weather for it. 

Jam making demonstrations here, and if you took your own fruit you could turn it into jam yourself and take it home in a jar.

The church was used for sewing sessions. Make a patchwork block and it will be added to a quilt.

Choose your pieces of fabric and sit at a machine, someone will tell you what to do. The little girls seemed to like this activity.

I had a peek in the museum while I was there. 

This old dear looks happy enough perched on her stool, with the cooking pot on the fire. Fish for tea tonight.

How about a swing in a hammock. Looks very relaxing, the young lady is gently rotating the line of swinging hammocks on a turntable.

Hairdressing was popular, get your hair done in a vintage style by ladies wearing forties dresses, outside their vintage caravan.  £5 a go.

My overall view of the festival was that's it's a great day out, and if you live close enough you could easily find enough to do for two days. There is no entrance charge, free to get in. The entertainment is free, and a lot of the childrens activities are free. There are drop in sessions if you want to attend some workshops. If you have money to spare there are plenty of crafty type stalls which will gladly relieve you of it. I picked up some cards and have checked out web sites which you might like to take a look at.

Sarah Turner makes hand made lighting, sculptures, and artworks upcycled from waste materials. Mainly plastic bottles and cans. www.sarahturner.co.uk 

Sarah Oatley is a textile artist using a wide range of fabrics, mainly recycled and vintage. www.drawnthreads.co.uk

Abigail Lagden creates fabric sculptures and mixed media canvases, using Powertex.
www.curiously-contrary.co.uk

Scrapstore was there, only they call it Percy Creative Reuse Centre. It's at Commerce Way Middlesborough. Here is their link if you want to check it out.

I left about 3.30pm and decided to take a look at Redcar seafront while I was there, but I'll leave that for another post. Thanks for popping in, we'll catch up soon.
Toodle pip

A day out up north

Hello. It will be a short post tonight because I'm a tad tired. I've been out of the house for eleven hours today, driven 220 miles, and walked around for seven hours, now I am falling asleep. Here is a little clue as to where I've been, I went up north to visit an event and this big green bus was there. 

Pictures tomorrow. Toodle pip and goodnight.

I like purple frogs

Hello. There is the most stunning sunset tonight, but it will be gone in a few minutes. Strings of orange slowly sinking, with parts of the blue sky visible behind it, and dark clouds hovering yet hardly moving at all. Now the orange is turning to red as it drops below the roofs across the road. . 

So, what have I done today. It was time for Mr frogs makeover. I put a very pale green undercoat on him first. I thought I might leave it that colour but it looked a bit boring, so I thought why not jazz him up a bit. This colour is called Positively Purple, it's a Dulux tester pot, it looks blue on the photo, but it is purple. I found the easiest way to paint it was to put the wheelie bin in the middle of the lawn with an upturned pot underneath him. He is at the right height, no bending, and I could walk all the way around him, reaching all parts, with very little effort. 

The mat he is sitting on is a bit broken round the edge, but it doesn't matter, can't complain, it was free. I painted his eyes, yellow. .

While I had it on the brush, I painted Mrs Tiggy's eyes as well.

Who says you can't have a purple frog and a green hedgehog, ha ha.

Snacking today was two kiwi fruits, a nectarine, with a splodge of  plain yogurt. 

Look, I've got runner beans, yippeee. A kindly reader put some dried beans in a goody bag parcel she sent me. Thank you, and now I have beans to eat.

These are doing really well, £2 from Aldi.

And I have a few of these pretty flowers in the beds. The bulbs were from Poundland.

How are you all doing with the walking? Only five more days to the end of the month. The target for the eighth month is 666 miles, and I am on 650. I doubled up today and walked six miles. Might have to do that again.

I'm struggling to keep my eyes open here, so I'd better sign off. Thanks for popping in, we'll catch up soon.
Toodle pip.

A big thank you

Hello. I've got some pictures sorted out for you, and to keep a record on my blog about the time my shed won the best Budget Category in the Shed of the Year. I could not show you this one of me and George before because I have my rosette pinned to my bag, and it would give the game away. I did so enjoy hugging him, now I'm not so sure which one is more huggable. George is taller, I like tall men, but I like William's cheeky grin and floppy hair. I bet George would look nice with a beard, he should give it a go. 

I've made a little video to thank everyone who voted for my shed.



Next are some photo's I took from the TV screen while Paul backtracked and paused the recorded programme.

Someone asked about the William picture. I was asked to do that by Plum Pictures the film company, they thought it would be good fun. I didn't want to do it because I am not very good at faces, I am more a landscapes, trees and flowers stitcher, but I said I would give it a go. I have added some stitching but it needs a lot more. If it gets finished it won't look like William, because I can't do faces. I am thinking of making it into a 'Wanted', poster, more of a joke that a portrait.

The ones with the blue button at the bottom of the screen are those that Paul took with his phone. 

 I must say that the Summer House/Beach Hut looks magnificent on a large flat screen. The colours were dazzling.

And this is what I won. A plaque which is now in my kitchen front window for the time being until I can decided where to put it permanently. Note the red lettering, I am customizing it. The dark letters are a bit boring, a touch of paint will brighten it up. 

A perfect rosette in pink.

And a mug for my morning coffee.

Ooooh William, I didn't know you cared. 

He's gone, I am alone once more. It was nice while it lasted.

That's it, it's all over.

Cheers, thanks to Janet and Paul, my best friends in the village.

When I stood on the stage at the end as George was about to announce the overall winner I knew it wouldn't be me. I built mine in about six weeks, some of them had taken a lot longer, and had a lot more work and detail in them. There were far better sheds than mine. West Wing was a very worthy winner, I loved his eco shed with the secret door. So pleased that Oliver's shed on the allotment won his category. I liked Povero, the artists massive shed with all his artworks. I liked the home made sheds the best, those that had been built from scratch by one person.

What next? Oh, I'll find something else to do. I've got four spare doors out the back and two pieces of poly roofing plastic, might build an extension. I'm pleased that so many people have been inspired by my 'have a go', outlook on life. It's true, you don't need loads of money to have a good life. The only limitations are those you impose on yourself. Have a go, and let's see more ladies in Shed of the Year, next year.

Thanks for popping in, we'll catch up soon. Have a nice weekend.
Toodle pip