DIY, no its not a cage...

It might look like a cage, but it isn't. That's my new kitchen table, since i decided to place the other table in the living/dining room. initially i wanted a bar style table in the kitchen, just for a quick coffee/breakfast kind of use on it.

Looking around second hand stores it became clear that i would have to spend at least 200 Euro for a table with bar stools.
One night, I have to admit after a glass of whiskey staring at the park full with Sophies toys standing in the corner in the living room, taking a lot of space I had the idea.

For 12 Euro, I bought a piece of wood, on which i screwed two smaller pieces on the bottom to fit exactly in the park, so the top couldn't move anymore. After a bit of sanding and vanishing my masterpiece was ready.

Little Baby is yet to small for the park, and Sophie is to big, but she can still store her books and toys underneath, and easily access them through the bars. Also its easy to lift up the top to access anything bigger.

I know, at first sight it looks a bit wired, but i like the multifunctional thought behind it, and I am happy to have extra space when I am mad baking in the kitchen, Sophie can sit down at the table and help Daddy to form the bread rolls.

Decorating the easy way

On Amazon I found this children's room makeover kit which is easy to handle. Its basically a huge size sticker set with different themes you can choose from.

I went for the farm style stickers. This way Sophie can learn how to count the animals and its good for her imagination. Living on the country side I thought that's the best idea.

We had lots of fun decorating the walls, and if you don't like it anymore you can easily peel them off again.

DIY Decorating

I am still okay, my house is a mess, all Friday I was covering the edges with tape and plastic to be ready to paint on the weekend. Today, Saturday I could make the foundation of 3 rooms, and paint 2 rooms once already. I hope i Finnish up the ground floor this Sunday, so next Sunday more work upstairs :-)

Yeah.
So far no accidents, know on wood !

\

DIY: Self made firestarters

Why buying expensive fire starters if you can make some yourself ?
Using a Egg carton and some old candles which you melt in a jar in a water bath you make your own fire starters within 10 Minutes.

After cut the carton into pieces and use 2-3 pieces to start your fire.
They actually work better than the ones from the shop. Now even the girls at home who never made a good fire make a great one with these starters.

Heidis new chicks - the first disaster

 I ordered recently a few hatching eggs for Rhode island Red chickens. My neighbour was so kind and borrowed me a infra-red light and so I did setup all right, 37 C on the surface oof the egg, humility was guranteed since I did setup the eggs in the utility room.

However, I didn't fix the lamp right, so it slided down and it was way to close to the eggs. I only noticed 30 minutes later, touched a egg and it was pretty hot.

To check the status, I cracked one, and there you see, it was half way cooked already :-(

So I had 6 pretty expensive breakfast eggs...

I ordered again some eggs and hopefully this time I make all right and can report than the new additions to Heidi's Family.

DIY: Movable BBQ

That looks yummi, 2 steaks on the BBQ.
My father constructed this BBQ and he recycled 2 old household machines while doing so. A drum of a washing machine and the lower part of a lawn mower.

Why you might ask someone has a lawn mower BBQ ?
Thats easy answered, if you grill with wood it smokes a lot when lightening it up, so in that case, depending on the wind you can have the BBQ far located from the place where people sit.

Once you have less smoke and more heat you can bring it closer, and after the BBQ if it gets dark and colder outside you might bring it close to the table as a heat source for your guests.

Its a funny Idea I think.

How to make Vanilla Sugar

A few of my recipes require vanilla sugar to be used, however in some countries this is hard to find prepackaged.

Recipes on this blog using Vanilla Sugar are:
Vanilla Kipferl
Egg Rum Cream
and Creme Brule

Its easy to make your own Vanilla Sugar, all you need is:
a stick of a vanilla,
Kristal sugar.

log both in a big jar and after a few days the sugar smells and tastes lovely like vanilla.

Enjoy, and try one of the recipes above !

Heidis new habitat

Thanks to a good friend and his wife I could finally make some progress in my garden.
Through the Clonakilty Favour Exchange we had the Idea to trade each others time to get our garden fences fixed.

I invested in some good wooden poles from Lissavard Coop 20 pieces for 50 Euro and with some Swiss manpower the new fence was pretty fast in place !

Here on the picture you can see Heidi happily discovering her new and improved habitat !

And surprise, surprise, Heidi will become mommy soon, we going to try out to incubate some hatching eggs to stock up our chickens !

One of the chickens is on strike already, So I believe its time for fresh blood here in Clonlin.

I keep you posted how it goes....

DIY: Kaercher Power hose

Daddy got a new toy.
I got myself a Kaercher power hose, again I got a very good deal at West Cork Builders, I wrote about another shopping experience there a while ago.

I am very happy with the new tool, and i have no excuse anymore for a dirty car or dirty windows.
Also its great to give a good spring cleanup arround the house.

Here a before / after picture, can you see how much dirt I could get rid of in front of our utility room ?

I might make some other example pictures, but I guess you get the picture, it just cleans like hell !

How to make a Xmas crib

I am not exactly a great wood worker,
but was still in need of a little Xmas Crib in order to present the lovely figures i got last year from my in laws in a nice setting under the Xmas tree.

I remembered the salt dough prints I did with my baby last summer. So I thought Salt dough can be used also the make a little building (crib)

So how to make the dough, you can look that up in my earlier post , unfortuantly in this project my one year old couldn't help much.

I started with a case kind of like a pizza,
and added on to that.

On the picture on the left you see i made walls, and checked if they will be high enough for the figures i already had.

With toothpicks I brought some strengths into the structure.

From time to time i put the structure for 10 minutes in the 180C degree oven, to make it more stable, and than to add on and make the walls high enough.

I figured i had to make pillars in the corner to support the structure as well.





Painting the roof, here my one year old could help.


The wholes in the room have been there,
but i figured i leave them, so i can stick through them 2 lights from the xmas tree lights later.

This way it will hopefully look more romantic.

.

Thats the final result, considered that i only spend about 30 minutes to form the building, i am pretty proud of myself looking at it.


I am already planning add ons for next year, and since the matterial is flexible I also could do more artwork on it, with paining it, or add an wall brick stone effect, etc...

With 2 pins i actually fixed also 2 angels on the roof...

Well, anyway, thats a easy way to make a little crib, with 100%  biodegradable ingredients.

Enjoy the Xmas time !

Make Xmas tree decoration with your Kids

Its so simple to make nice, self made Xmas tree decoration.
All you need is:
2 cups flour 1 cup salt and a bit water,
make a stable dough.
Use a cookie cutter of any form, for example Xmas Trees and Bells.
Let the salt dough cookies dry in the oven on low temperature. Make sure that you punched a hole on top so you can hang them later.

Let your kids paint them with water colors and let them dry well before you hang them on your tree.

Even your smallest kid can help.

Enjoy !

Edit:
This is how the tree looks than after:

Review: Inside Stove from West Cork builders

The best investment since a long while was this inside stove, which I recently bought for 499,- at West Cork builders in Clonakilty.

Before most of the head from the wood and coal went out of the house through the chimney, and i had to use lots of coal to actually feel some heat at the sofa.

Now, after inserting the stove into the fireplace i use much less wood and coal, and the room is warm straight away, and keeps warm the whole night and even morning.

I was shopping around a bit, and had even a look in the city, but nowhere i could get a better deal, and nicer service than here. One more reason to shop locally !

Stairway to heaven

Well, not that far should my stone steps go, just up to the veg garden, and I hope nobody will reach heaven through my stairs.

Its work in progress and therefor not safe.
First i need to get rid of roots, than place the stones in a good level and make sure the ground is well prepared until I can use cement.

If you have read my blog carefully in the past you might recognize that this stones are now recycled the second time.

salt dough prints

What is a better gift than a hand or footprint of your toodler to a good friend or family member.

To prepare it it is so simple, always use 2 parts of flour, and 1 part of salt, use a bit of water to mix up your dough. You can use food colouring if you like to have colored dough.

Than, just get your baby to make a nice inprint, use a toothpick to engrave a name and date, and let it try in your oven on low tempature for a few hours.

After it can be coloured as well with water colours for example. Once you gift it to somebody make sure they store it somewhere where its not exposed to water since this could damage the finnished piece.

Building a Garden Shed for less than 10 Euro

To be used to live in a house with got a garden shed can be frustrating after moving to a new home, with perfect interior, location, price and garden, but not just having a shed.

To go to the DIY store and get a kit, is just not my style, and also Budged wise i didn't want to spend hundreds of Euros. After having build a compost and hen house out off pallets i though it would be just the best option to construct the shed in the same way.

So first task for building the shed is:

• get pallets

Where to get them if not steal them ? I had a technical approach to that and asked on Twitter where one of my followers @Trevor_Kingston was so kind and replied that he had some of which he is happy to get rid of them. Dropped of Friday evening, the Sunday after already put to a new use.

My neighbor across the road was so kind and gave me some old nails and wood.



So that was the equipment I used:

• 8 wooden planks
• 8 pallets
• a bucket of rusty nails
• a hammer
• a house wall
• 2 friends (optional, but easier to erect the whole thing)

I always say pictures say more than thousand words,
so as you can see we build a basic frame work, cut a door into it and also already got one kind of shelf in place.


A bit of manpower is necessary, thats why i wrote in the Title of this post: "Building a Garden Shed for less than 10 Euro" since each of my helpers, and suppliers of the materials will get a bottle of the "Clonlin Redwine 2011" which is bubbling away in the utility room.

Thanks to Trevor and Vincent the material suppliers, and to Jens and Michael for the hands on.

In Part2 i will report about the interior design for my "Holiday Inn" so stay tunned.



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