City living is eco

I've been helping out the caretaker in our apartment building. He digs through the rubbish looking for cardboard and glass, and finally the body corporate has asked everyone to separate those and he will collect. Unfortunately this is purely a cost driven exercise for this bloke, so he isn't interested in anything else of limited value, but I was thinking of starting a compost heap (a friend of mine is organising a worm one in her block). This got me to thinking how it's so much easier to co-operate when you live in close quarters... city living can be eco sometimes. All we need is lift sharing or car sharing and then we're sorted. Hmmm..

Fabrics from Uganda

I had a work conference in Entebbe, Uganda this week which was great. I got to meet some people I have been working long distance with for the past month or so, and of course I managed to sneak in some fabric shopping in Kampala one afternoon!! See photo of my catch(es)

Summer time... hats!

The other day I mentioned making a sun hat for my little girl. It's summer here now, so having some protection is essential.

I know the current style is to make a tutorial with photos, but sometimes I find a sketch is clearer, so this is my first experiment.

Baby sunhat pattern ages 6 months to 2 years

By the way the photos is taken by a friend of mine who used the application poladroid to get the retro feel. Love it!

Renting toys vs buying

So I have been thinking about my earlier blog post where I wrote about a toy renting service. Some comments from friends and pondering lead me to conclude that it's not worthwhile for us. We don't buy our dear one many toys (after looking at a friend's facebook photo of her child's bedroom this was really obvious) and the ones we do buy have been a great success after we research carefully online (using the reviews on Amazon for example). My friend who was using the service said it was only until her child's first birthday when he would get lots of toys (we experienced the same). So if you're already spending R1200 on toys, then this service is for you, otherwise buying second hand, borrowing, swapping or making few careful purchases will be cheaper.

Halloween

Halloween is not a big thing in South Africa - it's very alternate, so it's not surprising that this year we carved our first pumpkin. I also made pumpkin pie for the second time (it was delicious) - using a very traditional recipe. I didn't even need a tin of pumpkin - just used the stuff we carved out and boiled it for an hour or two. We had a braai for our friends who were visiting us from Ireland and enjoyed the great weather we are having. Now I can't bear to part with this dear pumpkin who is sitting on our veranda....