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Showing posts from August, 2012

Stopping possums from coming inside!

The possums round our place are very friendly creatures and as much as we adore nature and all her creatures, it turns out we aren't so fond of some of the furry ones coming inside and raiding the fruit bowl at 4am! One of the places they are getting up onto the balcony from is the gate at the side of the house. I had a bit of leftover bamboo from another project and was mucking around with it when I got an idea. I mentioned it to the husband who leapt into full DIY mode and very soon, we had a possum gate deterer made with our very own hands and 45 power tools. *sigh* Here's what it turned out like! Each spike is screwed to it own bamboo circle spacer. They were then all slotted into place by the two cross braced bits. The ends have a hole in them and they have a cable tie holding them together at the bottom. Then the whole thing was cable tied to the gate. The idea is that as they use the fences for highways, the gate is the easiest place for them to enter our

A cheap, and reasonably quick, pillow revamp!

I have changed a few bits an pieces in the lounge and the pillows suddenly didn't look quite right. I had a look at getting new ones but the cost of such things is just incredible these days. So, I bought some material with the thought of recovering them and then realised I could just add to what I had as the colours were more or less ok I decided to do a re-vamp rather than a re-place of my cushion covers. Here's what I did... I pulled all of the pillows out of their covers and put them in the sun to air. I gave the current covers a wash And then got out the materials to check the colours. I cut a square about 3cm smaller than the actual cushion cover for each pillow. I used a different material on each side so that I can have them all stripy or all flowers or any combination as I please when they are on the couches! Then I ironed a hem on each square, and pinned it to the pillow being careful to get it pinned to one side only The I s

Need more room in the bathroom? - Cover the bath!

We have the worlds smallest bathroom - I'm sure of it. Not only do we have the world smallest bathroom, we have the worlds smallest bath. For many years we have not really used that bath. My husband is too long for it  - he 6'4, the teenager doesn't bathe full stop and I'm too fat to lie in it fully covered with hot water! For our current family configuration - we don't really need a bath. So I decided to get rid of it.... Here's what I did... I went over to the neighbours and cut down (with her permission of course) about five big huge bamboo poles from her big huge bamboo clump. (She encourages all her neighbours to come and harvest bamboo at anytime) and I bought it home and cut it into poles the length of the bath. And then I bought them inside and laid them on the bath like thus! They don't cover the taps - they just slot under them. I know that under all the bamboo the dust will gather and it will be full of the usual bathroo

Fixing my metal watering can with a bit of TLC

When you live in the sun-tropics, you need to keep on top of the watering at certain times of the year. Its not always practical to pull out the hose and so for some plants on the balcony or under the pergola, I like to use a watering can. Like most of us, I have fallen for the $5 plastic ones from giant hardware stores but have found that after a season, or maybe two on the  outside - it simply falls apart or some one drops it from a great height (don't ask) or the dog thinks its a toy and I have to buy another and another and another. One day, not so many moons ago I found an old metal watering can at a garage sale that I managed to buy for a whole $2! Its fantastic! It doesn't disintegrate in the sun, it takes dropping from a great height and even if the dog was still alive to use it as a toy, he wouldn't be able to do much damage to a metal watering can! Then last week - my watering can developed a leak!! Its was a small but annoying hole and my can would water my

Some easy to make 50th birthday invitations

I just found the photos of the invitations for the 50th Birthday party we went to recently and thought I would share the process with you. I love handmade individual invitations and get a bit of a buzz out of making them. These ones I tried not to make to "girly' as they were for a gentleman's big day so I was aiming for simple, winter, slightly Christmas-y with a bit of a sparkle. These ones are nice and simple and could be adapted to any slightly more formal occasion or brightened up for less formal ones! Here's what I did... First - cut your card to the shape of your envelope. You should be able to get three slices out of an A4 card that fit into a standard business envelope. Choosing a size that has a standard envelope saves a lot of tears (and cost at the Post Office) later on. There are a "Christmas in July" themed invite with a "snow/cold' feel to them - The background I am using is a plastic $2 tablecloth I got from Crazy Clar

Fixing my clothes peg hanger thingy!

We bought a long time ago one of those plastic peg hanger things that you use to hang socks and undies on the line without taking up a million pegs or metres of clothes line space - and we loved it. It cost $2 from one of the cheapy shops and its lasted, we reckon, close on five years! Not many $2 investments go that far usually. I bought a second one when we went camping a few years ago and it disintegrated last week. The plastic just shattered from its life in the harsh Queensland sun. I rescued the pegs and the hooky hanger-er bit and decided that I could whip something together that might give us a few more years (months or weeks more likely) out of my $2. Here's what I did... Got some prunings - hoping they were hardwood Played with a basic design And cut them to length Using the plastic coated wire my husband saves going into the bin at his work - I tied the prunings together in the basic shape Like this - I only did the four co

Grass catcher nesting boxes for my chickens

Back in the distant past when we first got chooks, they lived in the kennel that was rejected by the dog as too small or too big or really - just not on our bed (which I think was the real issue!) That was fantastic for the the chookies and they nested and laid in it for many years. When our flock increased, we built a tempory house out of mulch bales for them and all was well - the chookies roosted in the bale house and laid in the dogs kennel. Then when the flock increased again - the new smaller chookies were cast out of the bale house in true pecking order style and so after a few nights up on the fence were persuaded to roost in the laying house. For some reason, the big chookies stopped laying in there and we had to start hunting for the eggs all over the pen. They managed to make a hole in one of the bale house walls and started laying in there. We had to lift the roof off the bale house each time in order to get the eggs and it all started to look like it might fall apart
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