Kelly

Twisted Ink on Etsy!

Dreams, we all have them right? My wonderful husband has worked diligently in his day job to support us at home. Without him we would not be able to live our lifestyle. But he has dreams. His dream is to make a living as an artist. And now, the dream has started to come to fruition.

He has been creating his drawn designs by hand for some time now. Recently, some of those designs were screen printed onto t-shirts.

The t-shirts are either organic or fair trade. The inks are water based.

They look so great, he can’t wait to get out there and start selling them. He plans to have several market stalls (the difficult part is fitting this in around his regular work).

He has opened an Etsy shop, and slowly but surely we are uploading his shirts. I’m so proud of my husband to have been able to take the initiative to use his talents in this way. I would love for you to take a look at his new Etsy shop!

He can also be found on his very popular Facebook page.

Gossamer Dreams tonight!

by Kelly Leave a Comment

A reminder that the final stocking for the year is happening tonight at Gossamer Dreams . Here are some revised opening times depending on where you live:
8pm for Brisbane / Qld shoppers
9pm for those with Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart as their Capital city this is you.
8:30 for Adelaide and through the centre of the country
6pm for Perth and those in the west.

I have 4 items up for grabs, so head on over early so you don’t miss out! Happy shopping!

A typical homeschool morning…

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People who are interested in homeschooling often wonder what to expect and wonder “what is a typical homeschool day?” Yesterday as we were going about our morning activities it struck me that is was a very typical morning for us.

The younger girls are playing card and board games. This can go on for a long time. If the weather is fine, they are usually in the garden playing with their animals and other games. Later, if it suits everyone, they will spend some time at the table doing some book work (phonics, maths, religious education etc).

The older two are at the table, working fairly independently on work I have planned for the previous night. Sometimes they need my active participation, other times they just work at it themselves with me as “consultant”.

And you will often find me in the kitchen preparing for later. I’ll be making bread, planning for lunch or dinner, baking, cleaning. It’s a good place for me to be because of the open plan of our home I am readily accessible to all the children.

We only ever do book work until lunch time and often enough we don’t do any at all. Sometimes we would rather go out, sometimes games are just too much fun to be interrupted and sometimes the weather is just too nice to sit at a table and study.

Our afternoons are spent however we want to spend them. There is always plenty of art making and crafts. Gardening, reading, games, story writing, bike riding, baking – there are so many ways to spend an afternoon!

I know homeschoolers who put in a regular school day with regular school books and regular school rules. They have tests and formality. It’s not for me. It’s not for us. We have such a unique and wonderful opportunity to pursue interests and passions and really live life and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Gossamer Dreams this week!

by Kelly Leave a Comment

I’m honoured to once again be a guest at Gossamer Dreams this month.

Here are some sneak peeks of my contributions 🙂

This will be the last stocking of the year, so a great time to find some unique handmade Christmas gifts.

Items will be available for previewing on the 14th at 8pm, with the listings going live on the 15th at 8pm. I hope to see you there!

Shaving cream marbling on paper

by Kelly 1 Comment

This has to be one of the easiest (and messiest!) ways for children to produce a unique art piece.

All you need is paper (160gsm is good), poster paints and shaving cream (the cheapest brand works fine).

Make a layer of shaving cream on a tray. Make dots or lines of paint. Swirl with a chopstick or similar. The more you swirl, the more intricate patterns you will get, however if you overdo it you might muddy your colours.

When you have a pattern you like, carefully place your paper on top and lightly press all over (lightly!) Peel the paper off and use a paint scraper of similar to scrape the excess shaving cream and paint off to re-use. Put you paper somewhere to dry.

Keep re-using the shaving cream, reapplying the paint if desired, until it’s too coloured to use. Then have some messy fun with the leftovers! (Good for making hand or foot prints on paper too).

This is messy. The easiest wash up for hands is to stick them in a bucket of water outside (the hands, not the children). The trays and tools wash up in warm water.

Here are some of our masterpieces.

They can be framed and hung.

Or used as wrapping paper or even for the basis of another project (collage, background for a picture etc).

Colour me happy!

by Kelly Leave a Comment

Colour plays a huge part in the way my work is produced and is a major inspiration. Here are a few

of my favourite colours recently.

1. Rainbow from our garden.

2. Arashi shibori hand dyed bamboo scarf

3. Brolgas on farmland in Western Victoria

4. Springtime hand dyed yarn

5. Arashi shibori hand dyed scarf in magenta

Making great compost

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This time last year I was a complete flop at making compost. We have always had plenty of material to make compost with, but for some reason it just wasn’t happening. I read about compost from a variety of sources and it seemed complicated. Then I got a Don Burke book from the library and after reading the section on compost something clicked. Since then, I’ve been making great compost and I’m happy to share what I know with you.

Here is some of my compost from the ready to use heap.

And this is what the working compost heap looks like – lets call it a work in progress!

The ready to use heap. My husband and a friend made this with star pickets, old lattice, bamboo and black plastic. It’s about 1.5 metres high and has an opening door at the front for easy access.

I find that compost performs better if it’s contained rather than just a heap, but it’s fine to start out with a heap if you need to.

This is my working pile – an old heavy duty plastic drum with holes drilled in the sides near to the bottom. I swap between the 2 heaps. So, when this blue one (my current “working” compost) is full enough I will leave it to sit and stop adding to it. By that time, the black heap will be all used up on the garden and ready to start working and being added to again.

So, here are my key elements to good compost:

* Balance ingredients. If you only put in kitchen scraps your heap won’t be happy. Lets looks at what I have in my working pile at the moment. Kitchen scraps (veg peelings, tea leaves, coffee grounds, paper towel, shredded newspaper, grass clippings, leaves in Autumn (brilliant!) straw, garden soil and any organic matter. No meat or bread scraps unless you want some visitors of the rodent variety!)

*Moisture. This is important. I’ve discovered that my compost used to be too dry/too wet – I didn’t have the balance right. It should be moist and if you get the right balance of ingredients it’s easy to control the moisture content. If it’s too wet, add a little dirt, straw or shredded newspaper. If it’s too dry, water it or add more wet ingredients (leftover tea from the pot, more veg scraps).

*Cut up ingredients. All the veg scraps or garden cuttings should be chopped up to maximise the breaking down process. I used to put in huge chunks of old vegetables or big sticks thinking they would break down – it doesn’t work. I only use the more fleshy garden cuttings, all woody cuttings go into our green council bin, which is taken away and mulched. If you have your own mulched you can do this yourself.

*Turn regularly. Also really important! I use a pitchfork and turn both composts every 2 days or so. You don’t have to do it this often but at least once a week this should be done.

What have I left out? Any questions, ask away!

Beneficial beetroot

by Kelly 1 Comment

Easy to grow, highly nutritious and absolutely delicious – you haven’t really lived until you’ve eaten a freshly harvested, home grown beetroot!

Beetroot are high in folic acid, fibre, manganese and potassium. That’s just the root, the leaves are also edible (I think it would be a waste not to eat them!). The leaves are high in calcium, vitamins A and C and iron. They are also delicious! There are many other reported health benefits from beetroot consumption too.

Beetroot are easy to grow and take up little space in the garden as the leaves grow quite upright. They require minimal care and don’t seem vulnerable to many garden pests, so it is simple to grow them organically as we do.

You can even dye yarn with beetroot – not something I’ve tried, but if you were lucky enough to have a bumper crop….

How to eat them?

Roasted, steamed, boiled, raw (grated into salad etc), juiced!

I have a tray roasting right now in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper, so easy.

The leaves can be used like silverbeet or spinach. My favourite way to eat them is either tossed and chopped into a stirfry or steamed lightly and served with extra virgin olive oil, organic apple cider vinegar and salt and pepper.

3 ways to save money today – Volume 6

by Kelly Leave a Comment

Today I’m focusing on grocery shopping and how to make more savings on your regular shop. This is all about thinking outside the square.

1. Shop around. Oh no, what a pain! I hear you say, but if you’re serious about saving it can be done without too much trouble. For example, today I did a large shop at Coles – where I look for specials and clearances. Not many of the items I buy there are full price. Then I walked over to the Indian grocers in the same shopping complex, and instead of buying 1kg of natural yoghurt at Coles for $6+, I bought a 2kg bucket of good quality natural yoghurt for $6. Indian or Asian grocers also have bulk spices at excellent prices.

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2. Share the burden. Following on from the first point, shopping for a family is much easier if the burden can be shared. Although I do the regular supermarket shop, my husband’s work is in an area with many Asian fresh food markets and ethnic stores. Most of our fruit and vegetables come from these markets (he shops during his lunch break or when he gets a spare minute) at roughly half the cost of the supermarket! The added benefit of this is that the markets have a massive turnover and produce is so incredibly fresh that it puts the supermarket fruit & veg sections to shame.

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3. Meat is so expensive. And don’t even get me started on fish (I could write a whole other post about the terrible waste and inflated prices within the commercial fishing industry). Meat is generally cheaper and fresher from the butcher. There have been times we have had the opportunity to buy very affordable meat through buying a whole sheep slaughtered, cut up and packaged and then sharing the cost with someone else and dividing the meat between us.
We also at one time had our own cows that were kept at my husband’s family farm and had some fabulous fresh and economical meat that way.
If you have a deep freeze, you can always ask a butcher whether there would be a discount for bulk meat.
It goes without saying that meat consumption on a budget comes down to the cuts you choose. We choose the cheapest cuts and cook accordingly, steak is a special treat.
We also have at least a few meat free days each week. Doing this allows us to afford organic free range chicken and pork (we refuse to eat caged animals pumped full of hormones or intensely farmed animals – in my opinion it’s not natural and not what God intended by providing animals for our food).

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So what do you think? Could any of these points save you some money on regular grocery shopping? There are so many other points to make, but perhaps I’ll save them for another post 🙂

Apricot balls

by Kelly 5 Comments

I’ve been trying to make healthier treats for the kids with quality ingredients. I’m glad they are adventurous when it comes to food and are always willing to try out my experiments!

These little balls were inspired by the Apricot Bites recipe on Wholefood Simply.

Ingredients:

1 cup organic dried apricots (soak in very hot water for 20 minutes, drain, then chop into smaller pieces. If your apricots are very moist you may be able to skip the soaking part)
2 cups dessicated coconut, plus extra for rolling
1 tablespoon of raw organic cold pressed coconut oil
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons of LSA mix (This is a mixture of ground linseeds (flax seed), sunflower seeds and almonds).

Place all ingredients together in a food processor and process until smooth and the mixture is coming together. Roll into little balls, roll into extra coconut and you’re done! Keep in the fridge and try not to eat too many 😀

*A lot of people have been asking me where to buy ingredients for the healthy snack recipes I’ve been posting lately. One place is the health food section of Coles – this is ok if you just want smallish quantities to try, otherwise it can be very expensive.
Another option is Bulk Whole Foods – they have reasonable prices and post is free if your order is over $100. If you don’t want to spend that much at once, you could pool with one or several others to take advantage of the free post, this is what I did with my last order 🙂