A warm Derbyshire welcome to Trudie's Cottage, K Fan, Lisa Heath, Tree Hedgewytch and Marie Barlow on Blog Lovin. Nice to see you here. Please comment away and tell us about yourselves.
When I started to write this post I was just about to watch a Watchdog about how to save £1,000. " Bet I've heard it all on blogland before. However it doesn't hurt to have a look does it? I see jack Monroe is on the programme and as the family she is working with spend £160+ on food a week you just know they are going to save loads!" I wrote.
Well, unsurprisingly, I learnt nothing new. I DID know that if you stripped a car down to a shell, leaving just the driver's seat and then drove along the motorways at a steady, highish speed you would save money on petrol, but that's of little use to us folk who use the car when we are collecting food for ourselves or the animals or making a local journey to friends, picking the children up from school with an occasional trip to Cornwall with a loaded car!.
Now that Christmas has past I will talk about Christmas presents!
What do you buy a man who has all he needs?... Answer.. Nothing!
A dear friend of ours (DF), who we consider as family, is very comfortably off. As he always spends Christmas day with us and we have a big present giving session, I give some consideration as to what to give him and he is always the recipient of a homemade present. A couple of years ago I made him a tea cosy, with an embroidered picture of his old house on the front and his name on the back, last year I made him an apron with a drawing of his new house on the pocket and this year I knitted him a dishcloth! I found some old proper dishcloth cotton in my old yarn stash. After I knitted all the available cotton into a cloth I made a loop and put a label on saying "proper dishcloth". I then made him some polishing cloths from an old soft shirt of David's which I put with a jar of home made furniture polish. To complete the parcel David found a photo that he had taken ten years ago of DF's cats. (One of these cats went missing five years ago) he printed out and framed the picture. DF tells me that this present has been the subject of discussion at many functions he has attended and is deffo his favourite present this year!
Some of the presents I received this year were items to keep me warm. Hurrah! Have the seen the weather forecast?! Pics to follow in my next post.
Here is a pic of the wax I processed this week.
The winter is a good time to sort out the odds and sods of Beekeeping jobs. The one ounce bricks are made in a mould that I bought many years ago and I put for sale alongside the honey and eggs. The rectangular lump is for a guy who makes his own hand cream and the round lumps are for my next polish making session. The jar, which was given to me by a friend who only uses goose fat for roast potatoes, contains beeswax polish. (I made three)
How I make this polish. -
To each ounce of wax I use 100 mls of olive oil
I place a metal (could be glass or pot) dish over a saucepan of water and put on the hob to simmer. Into the bowl I pour olive oil (cheapest) and bring the oil up to just hot. Keeping it at this temperature, I slide in the clean beeswax and gradually melt it in the oil. While this is happening I put wide necked jars into the oven to warm a little. When the beeswax is fully melted and stirred into the oil I pour it carefully into the warm jars.
This is my preferred recipe as it uses natural, simple ingredients and still has a faint smell of honey.
The early maincrop tomatoes, onions and tall (for cutting) snap dragons are now in the propagator, So I feel that the gardening year has started.
Back soon
Gillx
I wish I lived near as I would come and buy some of those neat little Beeswax bars and give them to my Penny Pincher friends for Christmas.
ReplyDeleteIf I am ever passing by I will drop some in on you, or if you are in Derbyshire you could pop in! I use the small bits to make button thread and to waterproof seams.
DeleteGill
I make hand cream in a similar manner .. I infuse comfry in the warm oil .. sieve out the plant extract then add the beeswax. Simple and effective.
ReplyDeleteVicky x
Do you use olive oil ? I would guess that you use more oil to beeswax than I do for the polish. I grow comfrey so could have a go at some handcream. I have just remembered that I infused some calendula flowers in olive oil last year. I could look that out and use it couldn't I?
DeleteSome of the "money saving " tips I find are just silly....also do NOT like a Lot of the cheap meals, which are cheap, but also unappetizing....not a vegetarian, so some of those meals are not appealing. I can cut back on meat, but an abundance of lentil loaves at Christmas was not something I would enjoy...rather have a salad! I think you need to figure what works for you, add lots of vegetables you LIKE and just use common sense. Just making things from scratch helps!
ReplyDeleteLove your beeswax! Looks like gold to me! The homemade gifts, I find, are usually the best liked and most appreciated. Years ago, I had no idea what to give my uncle, so wrapped up a flannel lap quilt I had made..he was almost in tears when he opened it and asked me how I knew he was always cold?
they do look like gold ingots don't they/! I never thought of that before.
DeleteWhat a treasure for your uncle and you must have gained great pleasure from his pleasure. ( my daughter burst into tears this Christmas when I gave her my mother's thimble.
I have my onion sets (red baron), but I shan't plant them until April/May. Bees are such generous beasts.
ReplyDeleteI shall grow some red onion from seed, starting next month, and also put some sets in in May. That way I am SURE to have some, my husband considers them a vital food. I only seem to be able to but Red baron here. The bees have certainly been generous this year. I have fingers and toes crossed that they will make it through the winter.
DeleteThat present was inspirational. It is always hard to find something for people who have all they need. Sounds like you have managed it for several years. Well done.
ReplyDeleteAs FD is an antique collector (lots of old dark furniture), who lives on his own, the presents aren't as random as some might think. I wonder what I will make him next year, as you can't really best a dishcloth!
DeleteI love your beeswax, you are very clever.
ReplyDeleteThank you . Isn't it beautiful to look at? and the smell is wonderful.
DeleteI think stripping the inside out of the car is a little extreme don't you ? that's just plain stupid.
ReplyDeleteI've read that some people also 'ration' how much toilet paper they use after a visit to the loo - for goodness sake, surely no one is that poor these days ?
I can never think of presents for my grown son, so I give him gift vouchers. I don't like doing that but at least he will get something he wants.
I once said to him ' gift vouchers are all very well but it doesn't seem like much thought has gone into the giving' so he said 'well think about it for a while and then do it' - can't argue with his logic can I ?
I certainly thought it stupid and proved nothing as no one would do it ordinarily. I know people who think you should only use so many sheets of loo paper.- Crikey. they must have predictable bowels!
DeleteBuying for young men is a nightmare and making something for them is even worse ordinarily, so vouchers seem good to me.
The presents sound lovely, I love home made personalised gifts, they mean so much more than bought stuff.
ReplyDeleteIndeed they do, though not everyone would be happy with a dishcloth!
DeleteI have determined to make a present a month this year and am just about to finish the first this weekend. (can't show it though as it is for someone who reads my blog)
I love beeswax too & also watched Watchdog while I was knitting, I couldn't believe how much those folks spent on food!
ReplyDeleteLove handmade dish cloths & I am really enjoying your blog.
Fondly Michelle
I know. I couldn't even see that her cupboards were that full - you should see my stores!
DeleteThe dishcloth cotton I used was at least twenty years old. I was looking at some new D>C Cotton the other day and it didn't look as though it was going to be anywhere near as absorbent.
Thanks for commenting Michelle. Your blog is inspirational
If you have fine crochet cotton, use two strands at a time and fairly small needles and knit your dishcloths. They are firm and kind of scrubby types.
ReplyDeleteMy oldest son is hard to buy for but loves to get things he won't have to buy during the year. So I buy him a phone voucher that has a one year expiry date. That way if he tops up during the year he keeps the one year date.
Good idea.re both the crochet cotton AND the phone voucher.
DeleteNice to see you here!
The little beeswax bars are so cute! Thank you for the polish recipe, BTW. Looks like a must try, to be sure.
ReplyDeleteit is really simple and uses no chemicals, which is why I like it. Most polish recipes use white spirit or other such stuff.
DeleteI'd love to visit and purchase some polish and beeswax! I come back to Derbyshire every now and then and now I have a car might visit Derbyshire more often.
ReplyDeleteWould like to live in Derbyshire again, always feel I'm 'home' when my Sister and I get to the bit just before Cromford, crazy huh?xxx
Cromford is just over 6 miles from here. if you are this way email me at frugalinderbyshire@gmail.com and we can hook up.
DeleteHow do you process your wax so cleanly?? Ours is full of nasty bits and we can't seem to find a solution. In fact in recent years the compost heap has seen more of it than I care to think. We're not novice bee keepers but wax processing is just the one thing we've never mastered :-(
ReplyDeleteLesley
If using cappings I put the cappings a a metal bowl over a saucepan of water and heat slowly until it all melts(don't boil, it ruins the honey). I leave this to cool. When it has set I make a hole in the wax and pour out the honey from underneath into a container. I wash the wax under running water, wash the bowl out and return the wax to the bowl, heating gently over water again as before. When the wax has melted I pour it through a piece of muslin that I have laid over a sieve, which I place over a clean dish (or moulds in you have them)
DeleteThe round lumps that you see in the picture were moulded in the bottoms of Pringle tubes!
If you are using really dirty wax bits (not cappings) put the wax in water in the bowl, heat as before, set and take off the wax, repeat until it is fairly clean and then strain through the muslin as for cappings. Hope this makes sense.
That's really clear. Many thanks. I'll give it another go, using muslin this time over the seive
ReplyDelete