80 bolts of vintage fabric left!

I am almost near the end of a challenge I set for myself earlier this year...

I wanted to measure each bolt we have on the website - what I term 'live stock'. And by count I mean count the yardage on the bolt and update the website information.

It has taken weeks to get through the task - nay, months - as we have more than 700 seperate bolts on the website at the moment. Yes - seperate pieces. Thousands of metres have been measured...

I am now down to the last 80 or so bolts...hurrah!

Uber cheap ebay auctions

This cold front that has hit Victoria has knocked the wind out of us...illness, cold and the need for hot, yummy food and sitting underneath comforters has led us to enjoying another slow day. I am here to do a couple of hours work and then it is back to the sick boys. BTW - the yoghurt turned out beautifully...I highly recommend it! Let me know if you'd like a stage by stage process of how you do it - it's very easy...it just takes some time...

Also - you may not know - but I have some uber cheap ebay auctions up at the moment...and I'll be continuing to add to them, too! My favourite one is this...don't know why, but the retro design speaks to me...

Off to email customers and pack some orders and brrrrrrr for the afternoon - hope you're warm where you are!

xNess

Get in quick - 1m of this fabric is 50% off!

The virus must be getting to my head - as I have just put 1m of this fabric 50% off on the website here. Lots of other clearance fabrics here, too!

The true cost of our bread and yoghurt

Can you believe we all have a virus again? True. Not good. Me no likee being sick. So we're all holed up today and I will only be working part of the day. We're working on making our environment warmer - that's a hint from our doctor. Keep the heating going, as much as you can afford, even through the night. If you don't, coughs linger like they are for us at the moment!

We finally bought our second pack of strong bakers flour yesterday - so I can give you a rough idea of how much our bread is costing us per week now. It lasted nine weeks and we made an average of four-five loaves a week. The flour cost AUD$27 and the yeast cost $4 - the salt we put in is negligible. I still have 3/4 of the original salt pack left and it was less than $1. The oven is cranked twice a week to 450F for 50 mins - not sure how much that costs. But, on face value, our bread is now costing us around AUD$3.50 per week. We're amazed - so much cheaper, tastier and better for you! The flour I buy is pictured below - I am sure it would be available at most bulk stores.


The yoghurt has been a hard ride - one that I have succeeded in, finally! It is a delicious set - so much nicer than store bought or EasyYo yoghurt. It is rich and creamy. I have been putting in sugar-free fruit on the bottom of the bowls before the yoghurt sets - what I would prefer to do is be using my own fruit and stewing it...but this will have to do until I master that part.

Today I am doing one bowl of pears and another of peaches. The flavour goes throughout the yoghurt (slightly) and the fruit sits on the bottom. Our homemade yoghurt is no cheaper than the EasyYo or store bought varieties as I use the fresh cows milk that is AUD$7.50 x two litres. So, each litre of yoghurt costs at least $3.75 in milk, plus a little milk powder, sugar, $0.7c worth of culture and whatever flavouring/additions you put in. The massive bonus is, of course, it is all natural and you have made it yourself...no packaging, no additives, preservatives etc. It gives you a good feeling! It's only taken three weeks of making my own yoghurt to start 'going off' that fake sugar the manufacturers pop in everything. Before I made my own I loved the EasyYo vanilla, sweetened. But now I can't eat it (I still make it for the tot)...amazing how quickly our taste buds change!

The bgerks are coming...

This past week has been a blur - I am looking forward to slowing down again in the next couple of days. We have Logie on holidays so the house and family time takes priority over the next fortnight - but I shall keep a pace going with Retro Age that I am happy with.

Our chicken coop is finally finished and we're picking up the chooks tomorrow...four lovely ladies will be coming home with us to live in Taj MaChook. We have already named two - Camilla (the chicken in the Muppets) and Miss Mary Land. I'll let you know what else the boys come up with...

The boys (all three) have thoroughly enjoyed the entire process of building the large coop and it's fenced area. The look of pure joy on Gabriel's face above says it all - it has been so much fun for them...much laughter, many tears, lots of personal satisfaction and many childhood memories created.

And the big boy turned seven, too...this is our little 'family party'...a Ben 10 theme with Transformer cake was in order. Note Justin's retro sauce containers? I don't like them - but he loves them! They do indeed fit out retro themed house...

Happy birthday, my sweet Fogey - I love you!

PS. Lots of vintage fabric news - more on that later...

Definitely progressing forward...

I feel like I am slowly getting into a routine - and our teamwork is coming along nicely since I joined our little hamlet full time. It's been eight weeks of wonderfulness...truly! While I go to Retro Age during the day, sometimes the 'digging team' focuses on our backyard dreams and they play in the dirt to create things...like a big strawberry patch (above)...a new, sweet home for our strawberry seedlings...

We also had to buy chives already grown for some dip I was making...and they still had all their roots, so we've popped them into the garden to see if they'll take...

And, last but not least, yesterday our rhubarb patch was born. Don't you just love our ye olde rock walls?

And then, as the light disappeared later in the day, three rhubarb crowns were planted...we can't wait for homegrown stewed rhubarb and apple and rhubarb pie....yum!

It is raining here today so there is very little to be done outside - we are focusing on getting the remainder of our orders out and I'll also be putting some stock on the website. The usual stuff :) - and getting ready for a little birthday party for a boy who is turning seven tomorrow...wow wee!

I want to be wider...

I think I am succeeding with this redesigning of the blog business. Stand by, peoples - I am getting there! The above Daily Blog box is a peek at what we are doing with the redesigning of our website - the navigation won't change, but the links will...hurrah!



I am trying to work out what I can do with my blog photos this morning (hopefully a little wider) - and getting ready to upload new fabrics to the website. I have a further 10 to put up today...so much to do, such little time!

Two new clearance fabrics - cheap!

I have been remiss this week - I forgot to add in our daily clearance fabrics onto the Clearance section of the website. So I have caught up today by adding the last of these two bolts - enjoy! They are now half price - yes, 50% off!

Building the sustainable garden...

I had a strangely productive day yesterday after completely losing my motivation. The cold is getting to me this year, I think. Overnight we're falling to 0 degrees and the mornings are tough - hard to motivate oneself when it's a little on the cold side, I think! So I decided to go out in the afternoon and tick off some other goals we have.

A trip to the local nursery was in order - I wanted to start our strawberry patch and, as you can't buy strawberry seeds, we had to purchase the seedlings. We bought three lovely punnets of healthy seedlings - hurrah! While we were there we purchased other lovely things we needed for our sustainable garden:

A bag of disease free garlic to restart our garlic bed. We already had one but we ate all of the garlic instead of sowing it - so we need to start afresh!

We also got three huge, ugly-as-anything rhubard crowns. They are beauties and will certainly grow into large plants. We love stewed rhubard and rhubarb pies - and I want to try rhubard yoghurt now that I have mastered making my homemade yoghurt.

Lastly, we purchased two established blueberry plants. I must learn how to strike a plant from a cutting - I wanted more plants! But two is good to start with, I think...

And then it was a quick trip to the local farm supplies store for some fresh straw - we bought a bale for the chickens and to line the strawberry patch. If you line your strawberry patch in straw you'll get clean fruit...

So - even though I was completely unmotivated in other areas - for the garden, I achieved much! Everything shall be planted today...can't wait for the fruit!

Dear Motivation

Dear Motivation...

Where the heck are you today? I am sitting here surrounded by fabric - 20 of which I have photographed and ready to put on the website - and now I find you're not here. Where are you, motivation? I hope you haven't escaped to Queensland to get away from this freezing morning weather. Or perhaps you have gone to some country town to live off the grid, like I want to do. Sigh. I suppose I'll just clean up around here until you come back - hurry, puh-lease!

xNess

PS. Blog under construction, folks - sorry!

Under construction, folks...

Hello all

Bare with me - I am updating this blog so it's going to look a little shoddy for a couple of days - sorry!

xNess

Simplicity...

I had to take these shots - both images made me smile. One is of some of our handmade face washers (thanks, Mum!) drying on the line...we have a collection of them that we use around the household...we have dusting ones, toilet cleaning ones, kitchen ones (all colour coded)...haven't had to buy a cloth since Mum started knitting these for us!

And then I have my beloved magnolia tree that will bloom next month. I was admiring all of the buds when I saw the moon peeping through. Beautiful.

Simple things really make my day!

Why do you do this every day ?

why do you do this every day ?, originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds.

Why do you?

I am thinking today about why I do.

Do or do not - there is no try...

Do or do not, there is no try. I have that in my head at the moment. It's a saying on one of our son's Star Wars key holders and it's spoken by the legendary Yoda. Do or do not - there is no try.

That is so true. Today I am doing. Lots. Most importantly, I emailed someone I have been wanting to email for a long time - a legend, of sorts - and I did it! And now it's to work and doing...new arrivals, orders, gift vouchers ordered...there is much to do!

Do or do not - there is no try.

Love it.

PS. I won't go into the fact that my entire household is Star Wars nuts at the moment. Star Wars Lego on Wii, Star Wars Clone Wars series, Star Wars lego sets...I have Luke, Leia and Obi Wan everywhere!

Fabulous vintage fabric samplers - linen/cotton blend

I am putting up a lovely collection of vintage cotton and linen blend samplers this afternoon - the designs are gorgeous and they are all super nice medium weight - with some even a little heavier...so they'll be perfect for lots of cool craft projects like bags, lampshades, cushions etc...they'll arrive here within the hour! All are 60cm x 55cm and will be $10 each...hurrah!