It’s rough being a BOY in a sea full of girly blog tutorials and sewing ideas. …
For whole of february, Made is teaming up with Made by Rae for a whole month of boy only tutorials and ideas – including: boys clothing, crafts and toys + 12 guest bloggers – sounds exciting.
To kick start the month made has a boys backpack made from men’s cast off pants, and made by rae has a tute on how to refashion a men’s shirt into a little boy’s shirt.
made has some awfully cute pirate lounge pants and the most fantastic 90 minute stretch top (above). Go join the blokey fun – I will be checking in during the month to see what else they are up to.
Kimberly wrote in with this link to her pattern for making an insulin vial cosy: A friend’s mother had dropped and broken 2 of her insulin vials within a week, spilling all her insulin, so upon my friend’s plea for help, I crocheted a little cozy for her to try and protect her vials if she happened to drop them again. I thought others might find this useful, so I wanted to try and put out this pattern to reach as many people as possible. Get the pdf for this here (scroll down the page).
snickerdoodle has a neat tutorial showing how to customise your own house slippers. Here is how to make your own pattern – and here is how to sew up the slippers.
With all concoctions and homemade remedies around the place (mmm chai concentrate + calendula eye compress, dry skin remedies and from remedy quarterly (new quarterly self published mag found via design*sponge), a whole page of online remedies (the print version looks delicious too), I thought it high time I reviewed this book.
Natural Alternatives for You and Your Home: 175 Recipes to Make Eco-Friendly Products By Casey Kellar. Krause Publications (August 3, 2009).
With so many books published – and websites offering free advice – on natural alternatives – does this book offer anything unique to readers? For me books always offer something unique that you can’t get from the internet – the ability to pick it up and take it away (don’t get me wrong – I love the instantaneous ability to self diagnose that the internet gives – don’t you? – scary but true…).
There are few things I love about this book though that I have seen lacking in other similar books, such as cost comparisons with making homemade remedies like home made insecticides with a store bought version. Also there is an excellent index and glossary of the basic ingredients used in the recipes (like borax and essences and oils etc), as well as a guide to natural herbs, extracts and oils + of course a multitude of recipes for pets, for home cleaning, for skincare + beauty, for colds and flu.
Extract from book:
Tangle trouble:
A little bit of mayonnaise works a a hair de-tangler and conditioner. … work a tablespoon of mayonnaise in the hair and leave on for a minute. Use a big-tooth comb to comb through the hair and remove snarls. Rinse well. Leaves a great shine and it does not burn the eyes.
[Ingredients of mayonnaise are basically egg + olive oil ... all good for the skin. ed]
Karina sent in this link to her PDF pattern for her adorable heart designed messenger bag – so cute!
Francesca wrote in telling us about her underspace storage idea:
The concept involves keeping jars, repurposing them as craft supply storage containers, and storing them away (and in the case of a small house: out of the way) by nailing the lids onto the under space of a shelf. Whereas this is not an entirely original concept, (I first saw it in a friend’s shop for storing hardware) I’ve used it in the house to store craft supplies, and I’m even beautifying the jars for display by engraving them with a Dremel tool.
