Charity shopping, planting and making – my fun weekend :)

Posted by louisa on Monday 18 April 2011 in charity shopping, growing, making, wood stuff | 4 comments

Last night on Twitter, I asked people to put their hands up if they’d had a lovely afternoon in their garden/at their allotment yesterday and I got a sea of hands waving back – it is really bloody lovely out there at the moment, isn’t it?*

On Saturday, I blew my no spending month thing out of the window by going to a craft sale at Kirkgate Studios in Shipley – well, actually, I only bought two balls of wool and a postcard from there but since I was in Shipley… As with most poorer areas, you’re less likely to find exclusive designer goodies going for £1 but with eight charity shops, there is at least plenty of choice.

I bought 13 books. Thirteen! But 10 of them were (drama) work-related and two Monica Dickens books I’ve been considering buying off Amazon/Abebooks for a couple of months, so it wasn’t all spur-of-the-moment spend-spend-spend. Plus, eight of the books were in a 4-for-£1 offer so all 13 books cost £7.70 in total — not too bad. (And I’ve already found seven books to give away under my “buy 2, get rid of 1 old one” rule.)

I also bought a cute small plate to be our kitchen soap dish for 50p, another little dish for 50p because it was a tourist souvenir from Baghdad (and how often do you see those?) and a fake-patchwork duvet cover for £1.50, which I’ll turn into a cheat quilt like Lynsey’s from SwirlyArts made this time last year — again, something else I’ve been looking out for because I love Lynsey’s quilt so I was very happy to find it :)

Anyway, after all that spendery on Saturday, I declared Sunday would be a day for the garden. I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped (I’ll have to have some time off this week to get the rest finished) but I potted on lots of tomatoes & pumpkins, sowed nearly all my potatoes as well as more lettuce & annual herbs. I also made two new scrap wood planters – not the prettiest but certainly the easiest ones yet.

I believe the sides are old scaffolding planks or similar — John’s dad had a trailer full when we went over the other day. He said “they’ll be great for burning” until he saw me hugging them to my chest and squealing with planter-building delight. They’re about 3ft by 1ft by 8inches deep, with reclaimed decking for the bottom supports. Again, they’ll be lined but I think I’ll see how far I get cleaning them rather than painting them as I like the character of the wood. (Apologies for the somewhat shadowy photo – was in a hurry, camera battery was dying.)

I also made some super quick wire wall mounts for some herb pots in the greenhouse – I’ve run out of room on my staging/the floor at the moment so wanted these little pots (and five with baby sage seedlings in them) out of the way. I’ll have to make sure they don’t dry out too much but they’ll probably be fine for now.

Oh, and I also cleaned the windows for the first time this year on Saturday evening – they were, as you may expect, rather filthy but I did a rather good job, even if I do say so myself – not a single water spot in sight! ;)

* (People in parts of the US still in the soggy tailend of winter and people in the southern hemisphere who are heading into full on winter – sorry to gloat about our sunshine. We’re just not used to this nice weather in the UK and you know, talking about it is our national pastime.)

What did you get up to this weekend? Any frugal fun? Or planting progress?

Portable chicken run from scrap wood & wire

Posted by louisa on Friday 18 February 2011 in chickens, making, wood stuff | 6 comments

I was in a bit of a sulk this morning. My weekends – now that the weather is getting better – usually involve playing out in the garden, or at least cooking up treats in the kitchen but this weekend, I’m out all day, both days, at a youth theatre event with the group I help teach. The event should be fun but, you know, not playing in the garden or making sugar-packed goodies. So I was sulking about losing my play time – until I realised there was nothing stopping me playing out this afternoon instead. Even after five years of self-employment, I still feel naughty playing out during a workday – but as soon as I realised I could, I was up and running for the box of screws and our scrap wood supplies.

I find it funny that I get so excited about making things from wood these days because a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of doing it. I’m quite a practical girl – I worked as a labourer one summer during uni and I’m happy to get my hands/clothes/face dirty with paint or mud or what-have-you – but I always thought that making things from wood was a Big Serious Skill that wasn’t for my sort. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was because we didn’t really do any big woodwork stuff at school – we did stuff on “resistant materials” (which included bits of woodwork as well as electronics and stuff with plastic/metal) and I remember making little bits of jewellery out of wood and plastic – but it was little things, nothing practical.

I think I started to get converted after we moved into this house just over a year ago – I wanted some airing shelves inside the boiler cupboard so I went over to the DIY shop across the road, bought some 38mm by 19mm lengths, and made them. I think I did a pretty good job – I made them easily removable in case we needed better access to the boiler and they’ve not fallen down yet. Then I decided I wanted a wellie stand for outside and after getting some advice from a friend who is handy with a saw & screws and a scramble around our scrap wood store, we had a shiny new wellie station in a couple of hours. And that’s when the addiction started. I’m not great at it by any means but every time I make something, I learn something new and have tons o’fun :)

Anyway, this afternoon’s project was a portable chicken run so I could let the chickens out of their main run more. I was inspired by Kate from Living the Frugal Life‘s poultry schooner – it would let me use the chickens to weed and de-slug the veg beds but wouldn’t need me watching over them the whole time (or chasing them around the woods when they got the taste of freedom). I wanted to do a hoophouse thing like Kate’s but didn’t have any material to make the hoops – so I ended up making a boring wood frame instead. At least it was all the boring wood was scrap so free though :)

I made the ends first and was a little surprised by how sturdy they were ;)

The sturdiness was beneficial as the only long lengths I could find were lighter than desirable – but with the sturdy end frames and some supporting struts in the middle, it still felt strong enough. So far, so good.