Making a salt body scrub

I'd never tried making cosmetics or toiletries before, but thought I would try making a salt scrub, rather than buying one, and found many recipes on e-how.  It was very easy, quite satisfying, and definitely cheaper than buying one. (I used grapeseed oil, which was cheaper than almond, but more appealing than sunflower for this purpose, and a few drops of lavender essential oil.)  

I might try making some other toiletries next, though I am still trying to use up the odds and ends in the cupboard before buying anything new.

Making things: Christmas puddings

This weekend, I made two Christmas puddings. I'd never made Christmas puddings before, but as we are having Christmas here this year, I thought it was time to attempt it. I used the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe which was in the Guardian, a few weeks' ago. The ingredients weren't particularly fancy or expensive; lots of dried fruit, suet, breadcrumbs and marmalade were the main components.

Although not time-consuming to make, the puddings needed to be simmered for six hours; they have since been topped up with brandy, and will be cooked for another two or three hours on Christmas Day.

It is a good, satisfying feeling to have the puddings ready, though of course it remains to be seen how they will taste.

Spending my allowance - and a new coat

A couple of weeks' ago, I collected my new coat. I had this made for me by a tailoring service. This sounds very extravagant, and it was certainly expensive. It is early days, but my initial view is that this was a worthwhile investment. (The style is a fairly classic, hopefully understated military one; sharp shoulders, double-breasted, and the coat reaches to mid-calf level. The colour, which is not understated, is a very bright blue.) And because it was made for me it fits me really well, including properly long enough sleeves, which does make quite a difference.

Being solidly wool, it also feels very heavy, rather like being wrapped in a blanket, which is very comforting. (I mentioned this to a friend, who said, and knows from her work, that weighted blankets are often used in psychiatric treatment. I can see this would help.)

All the traditional style books I have read suggest that it is worthwhile having a really good quality coat, and Mme Dariaux, whose book I have reviewed here, recommends a very good quality and brightly coloured coat. My last coat was deep red, with a fake fur collar, and I wore it happily and more or less constantly for about seven years; it is still wearable, but showing its age rather, and had to be mended last year because of a very worn sleeve.

Having spent so much of my allowance on a coat, I will be looking after it properly, with a view to wearing it for many years to come. This means hanging it up on a good hanger as soon as I take it off, and brushing it carefully. At the moment, I am going so far as to put it back in the breathable garment carrier that the dressmakers gave me, after each wearing, but we will see how long that habit lasts!

I will also not be buying any other new clothes for a while, so will have to make the most of the clothes I bought last year and early this year, or sometime before then. I acquired a good stock of shirts last year, and having read India Knight's tip about the use of spray starch in 'The Thrift Book' am hoping to bring some life back into them.

In terms of colour coding, I have a lot of black and purple in my wardrobe at the moment, so various options for reasonably coordinating outfits. (Mme Dariaux's tip, which I have read elsewhere, is to match winter outfits with your winter coat. I can't quite manage that at the moment, but am hoping that the colours I have coordinate reasonably well.)

In the short time that I have owned my coat, two strangers in shops have admired it enthusiastically, so I am encouraged in my belief that I have done the right thing.

A Christmas craft-making event

Last week, we went to a Christmas craft-making evening at a nearby bookshop. The purpose was to make Christmas decorations for their shop window, and to learn how to make them for ourselves. Some of us made snowflakes from pages of remaindered and damaged books, wreaths from polystyrene and yarn, and others made robins from scraps of fabric. An appealing thing about making these items was that they were all quite simple. At the beginning of the evening, many of us in the group were rather self-conscious about our craft-making abilities - definitely me included - but we all relaxed as the evening wore on, and mince pies and wine were consumed, and ended by feeling quite pleased with our efforts.

'The Thrift Book' by India Knight

India Knight, who wrote an earlier book 'The Shops', about her love of shopping, writes here of how she recently came close to bankruptcy, from a lack of attention to her money, rather than low earnings, and thereafter changed her spending habits. She is also keen to encourage preserving resources from an environmental point of view, and her writing is influenced by that.

This book is largely about living well without spending huge amounts, and includes sections on food, clothes, beauty products and so on. It also includes a chapter on personal finance where she explains important financial terms and concepts in a very basic way.

I have a different sort of life from the author in many ways; I do not live in London, and have never had her self-confessed phobia about financial issues. However, there were quite a few ideas I liked, and some useful tips.

On clothes, she recommends buying a small number of quality items of clothing, including possibly vintage clothes, and looking after them well. (She reminded me of the existence of spray starch, and I have now bought some to use on my shirts; it definitely makes them feel newer.) The Lakeland home dry cleaning kit she mentions is something I will definitely be trying out.

On making things, she pointed out many inspiring websites and blogs.

On beauty products, she includes a section on how to look expensive, and useful information on home hair dyeing and the differences, or lack thereof, between some cheap and expensive make-up brands.

She also writes about growing food; this is something I am keen to start doing, but am rather nervous about, and her approach, and the websites mentioned, made me feel this was definitely something worth attempting.

On eating out, she encourages people to go for a set lunch at a really special restaurant, rather than either spending a fortune on dinner at a fancy place, or a fair amount somewhere less inspiring.

In summary, I did enjoy this book. I thought that her perspective, as someone who has come close to bankruptcy, was an interesting one, although many of the tips would only really apply to those who had been used to a high-spending, city lifestyle, involving a lot of shopping and eating out. It would be quite useful for anyone not very interested in, or familiar with, personal finance, as a starting point. Although it is very up-to-date, I actually much preferred 'Orchids on Your Budget', which I found more inspiring.

Making things: ice-cream

A couple of years' ago my sister gave us a lovely present, of a low-tech ice-cream maker, and so every so often, we make our own ice-cream. (We bought some cream today so we can make some to have with apple crumble, when my parents come for supper later in the week.) The machine we have is about the size of a small mixing-bowl, and needs to be put in the freezer for a while before being used. Once it has been chilled, it only takes about half an hour for the ice-cream maker to turn your cream, sugar, and other ingredients into ice-cream; if you taste the mixture before putting it into the machine, it may taste horribly sweet, but it will taste quite different once frozen.

In terms of flavours, we have added chocolate chips or gratings – creating something along the lines of the straciatella ice-cream we liked so much in Italy, and, another time, peanut butter to remind us of amazing ice-cream eaten at an ice-cream farm in Scotland; another successful flavour was brown bread. (I hope I do not sound too greedy when mentioning the major food associations we have with all our holidays?) By the way, as well as the peanut butter the Scottish ice-cream farm made some other wonderful flavours which we have not yet tried to replicate, including turkish delight and rhubarb crumble..

It is fun using the machine, though it does make quite a bit of noise, and the ice-cream produced is definitely cheaper than the fancy brands we like eating as a treat. (It probably does not work out cheaper than margarine-style ice-cream, but is a rather different experience from that.)

Making things: granola

I recently tried making granola for the first time. Most breakfast cereal didn't seem to taste of much, but to involve a lot of packaging and to be rather expensive - and the more interesting-tasting cereal seemed very expensive. It is quite a satisfying exercise, and very easy, to make your own granola instead, and a good alternative to porridge - another wholesome breakfast - if you don't have time to cook, or don't feel like it. I used Nigella Lawson's recipe from Feast, although on second making adjusted the quantities, as the Feast recipe involved large quantities of rather expensive whole almonds. As well as eating for breakfast, it works well sprinkled over ice-cream as a pudding. Similar recipes to the one I have used can be found at : http://allrecipes.com/howto/great-granola/detail.aspx

Making things: greetings cards

I am not very skilled at crafts, lacking artistic ability and not being handy, but I like the idea of making things, and generally enjoy doing so when I do attempt it. A while ago, I bought some cardboard, rubber stamps - one a futuristic swirly pattern, and one a rather pretty rose, and some red ink, with the intention of making some greetings cards. I have just tried doing so, and made a few rose-stamped cards. The ink pad had dried out rather, so I added a little water, in the end possibly too much, so the roses ran slightly, and one looks rather more like the man in the moon than a flower. But the exercise was quite satisfying, and I was mildly proud of some of the results, which I think are usable. And the craft materials I bought have at least now been put to some use.