Friday night sew-in

Last night, I curled up under my crocheted blanket with Pride and Prejudice playing, and spent some time working on my current procrastination *cough* project - 25 miniature embroidered stockings to form an advent calendar for my cousin.

I intended to make it for her birthday last November, and one for my other cousin by last Christmas. I slightly underestimated the amount of time each stocking would take, and I'm still on number 16 of the first set. I felt rather daunted by the work around January, and put the project on one side in favour of some cross-stitch, but it is now looking like next Christmas might come around before it's finished, so I've dusted it off. I will be so proud when it is finished!

No poo

I have wanted to go 'no poo' for over four years now. In that time I have experimented with many things - conditioner only, bars of shampoo, and baking soda. I even went three months using only water to wash my hair. I always cave and end up using shampoo. Usually someone else's.

Overambition?

I know it's not only me - I read several blogs about people doing much the same thing. Simple living, thriftiness, the new home front - call it what you want, it essentially comes down to trying to buy less and make more, to do things for yourself rather than paying someone else to do it for you.

It's easy to feel disheartened by the number of things not yet achieved. I look around and see the housework not done, see the things I still buy instead of making, things like bread and soap which are among the first things that you start making for yourself, as well as cleansers and make up and toothpaste, containing chemicals I would rather eliminate.

Homemade beauty recipes

I have discovered A Mrs Thrifty - head on over to check out her very cool tips and recipes. I am off to try her recipes for tea face pack, and brown sugar and vanilla body scrub... Plus I LOVE this entry about building Christmas hampers. Definitely feeling inspired!!

I should probably post a list of all my favourite recipes from the blogosphere at some point.

New skill - winding yarn

While in Estonia last week, one of the few souvenirs I bought was about 250g of local wool. It was quite a bit cheaper than wool in shops here and looked like it might be handspun, but it wasn't clear, so I only bought one skein.

On my mind: We haven't changed as much as we think

This is a Friday photo feature that anyone with a blog can join. To take part, post a photo on your own blog, write a short caption explaining it, and link it back to here from your blog by saying you're part of "On my mind". Please write a new post, don't link to an older one. When you've done that, come back here and add a comment below, with a link to your blog.

This is my first 'On my mind' post, and I am joining Rhonda from Down to Earth for this. I have just this evening arrived home from my travels in Finland and Estonia, of which more later. One of the main themes of the trip for me, as we looked at buildings and museum collections and landscapes mapping history from prehistoric times to the present day, was how little cultures really change. The earliest finds include objects which you could still find in a bathroom cupboard - combs, mirrors, razors, tweezers. The gap between modern and prehistoric people is not so great as we think - we essentially use many of the same tools, we just have more high-tech versions of them.

Which brings me to this:

I hope you can see it. The pictures aren't great but I couldn't use flash. It's chewing resin, and it's among the earliest pieces of evidence for the presence of humans in Finland.

It's 9,000-year-old chewing gum.

Looking for alternatives

I'm actually feeling a little bit annoyed with myself - because yesterday, I had the opportunity to challenge myself to find an alternative to muffin cases. After all, there were cupcakes before cupcake cases (I presume, anyway!) When a friend made several very practical and frugal suggestions, including one I could have implemented without making any additional purchases, I felt a little bit ashamed that I didn't think of them. I guess I still have a way to go in thinking outside the box.

In many cases, this comes down to focusing on the result you want to achieve - preventing the cakes from sticking to the tray - rather than the tools the recipe tells you to use.

Well, thanks to my friend's suggestion, I will look carefully at muffin cases and at her suggested alternatives, and make a selection that balances practicality with frugality. I think I may go for baking parchment, which I can cut into squares and use. I think this will be more cost-effective than cases.

One good thing did come out of my search - I didn't find cases last night, but I did find affordable gelatine sheets, which I have seen in several recipes but been unable to find to date.