what to do with too many pairs of shoes?

in reality i only ever wear about 4-5 pairs of shoes... that goes with mcduck & snowflake too...
we don't wear most of them all the time... which means they end up moulding in the dungeon (not a good thing esp if you are leather & $$$)...
so one fine day in near 40 degree heat... i took them all out for an airing - hoping that the intense radiation from the bright summer sum would obliterate the mould into nothingness...

the methol and essential oil srpay concortion i prepared did help alittle bit...

so did the ziplock bags and toxic mothballs...
b4 i housed each pair inside the ziplock bag with mothballs, i took mugshot of each pair...


we just had too many pairs! in the hundred +
how on earth were we going to house them, mould-free, but easily accessed (for more frequent future use)?
2 months later... i got to work finally...

back into the fabric shelves they went, but individually ziplocked with photo displayed...



next thing would be to finish the "shoe catalogue" - for flicking through when deciding what to wear...
snowflake said the whole set up is very SATC... but i don't think so... i wished i have kept all the shoe boxes and took polaroids... then it could be shoe storage SATC style...
this way is not bad though... lets hope the mould stays out...

upcycle homemade leftover bread chocolate cake

what to do with packets of bread in the freezer?! some of them with frostbites and all as they have been in the freezer for months on end...
may be i could substitute flour with my leftover bread and make a chocolate cake...
so here i went, tweaking another recipe... my own turned out to be:
300g breadcrumbs (made from semi defrosted rye bread from the freezer, quite dried as it was several months old)
1 cup sugar
4 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp sodium bicarb
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract

it was another food processor job, first i blended the bread into crumbly, crumbly crumbs... then i added the other dry ingredients and blended... then slowly poured down the mixed wet ingredients in the funnel while blending...

the resulting batter was quite dry / crumbly... no matter... i packed it into a 20cm round tin lined with baking paper...

added walnuts on top... and sat it on top of a bain marie...

40 min in 175 degree cel' oven... let cool and tipped out...

moist and crumbly at the same time... yum! and less junk in the freezer!

DIY roman blinds to shield us from the wintery draft

our hanging out area in the house has been unbearably cold of late... the fridge themometer hovers around the 13-15 degree mark... just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine...
in order to keep warm, we have been turning on the gas heater constantly... but the heat has been escaping into the corridor... until now...

we have now got our custom made cafe LF roman blind to close off the area... now we can keep warm and feel cosy!
the whole project started as i got my bargain material from AS-IS Ikea... $1 per sofa cover (and i ended up with 10 of those)... some of them have been reincarnated into seat covers...
"so what to do with the rest?"
"ah-ha! roman blinds!"
after much searching on the internet, i found this excellent video!
http://www.viddler.com/explore/Blinds/videos/1/
after one viewing, i thought, " i could do that!"

i first sewed a "blanket" large enough to cover the arched doorway out of the bits of material recovered from dismantling the AS-IS chair covers... had to use the 2 tones due to lack of material... but good that it ended up as "L" - for cafe LF!

the bits and pieces i got from "material world" and "bunbuns" - pine dow rods x 10)rectangular pine rods (one large one small), plastic loops x30, eyelets (3 needed, bought 1 packet), thin string 10m, backing material (bought at reverse garbage), velcro...
first the backing was sewn to the "blanket"...
for every 20cm, i have folded the "blanket" (5cm in length) and have sewn a space to secure the dow rod...


measured...
pinned...

and abit of sewing...
the larger pine rod was to be encased material with velcro sewed onto its length...
the other pine rod was secured into the bottom of the "blanket" to weigh the "blanket" down...
inserting 6mm pine dow rods here...
loops were sewn to the backing material... 3 spaced along each pine dow rod casing...
took me a whole week to get here!


now the three eyelets screwed on the rod...
threading through the loops - there would to be three columns of loops... each column would have its own string... first a knot was tied at the bottom loop of each column where the string would start... string would be threaded through up the "blanket" through all the loops in the column until it arrived at the eyelet on the pine rod up the top... then the string would travel horizontally, passing through the other eyelets until it reached the side of the blinds where we would open the close the blind...

from the backside of the blind...

lovely!
lets draw the curtains...
more
more...

and get warm... L for cafeLF!

Vintage Royal Addition

mcduck and i have decided to type out the wedding invitation... in order to do the typing, we would need a functioning typewriter...
we knew that there must be many of them hiding under cobwebs in people's garages and under their beds, but sadly, we also knew that we didn't have one of our own...
i had been ebay watching for the last 2 weeks...
and finally won this great vintage bargain! $3.25!
I brought it home today... it does show it's age encased in the slightly faded black box...

It's base is securely locked to the bottom of the case for easy travelling... not so easy though should one carry it around town... it weighs several kgs...

not much info on the internet... but i guess it is pre-war or made b4 the 1950s...


and amazingly... all the keys work! and no sticky keys... but it requires slow typing, otherwise it gets abit jumpy...

it will be making alot of typing noices shortly, in the next few months...

DIY dressform

ive been meaning to get a proper dressform for ages... since i've started making my slip dress the other day, i have been having great difficulties in sizing...
winding the clock back a month or two, i did acquire the stuff for "dressform making" after much research on the net...
should i spend several hundred bucks and get one? should i just make my own? one good thing about making my own would be a "custom / perfect fit)
so that was what i did the last couple of hours...
i gathered the stuff i needed - old tees, tapes, scissors & an unwilling helper to help me stick tape...
had to strip bare and don on the unwanted black tee (preferably long sleeve and long length -wise, which was later to be cut)... remember DO NOT pull to tight on the tape... i had difficulty breathing even though the tape was first pulled out then stuck on (not pulling as well as sticking at the same time)... the tape's stiffness meant that only 1-2 layers could be wrapped around my entire upper body...
all flesh was compressed... every fat cell... nearly all breathing space... i did get my upper arms wrapped too and downwards to the bum cheeks...
the cutting and release was the hard part... thank u v much for mcduck's help... but he wasn't too happy by then (cutting a line through the tightly taped bodice over t-shirt)... at the end, after much screaming and shouting, the taped tee was off... the bodice was then mended back into it's 3D shape with even more tape... then came the stuffing (cheapo insulation material from reverse garbage)
stuffing sleeves first, then upper bodice... then the bum...
secure with even more tape and voi la... DIY dressform...
in order for easy pinning later on, a fabric outer was to be made... with yet another (one or two) old tees...
dressing... pinning... sewing... upper black, below waste white combo...
so ended up with this exact replica of me! my very own custom dressform...
no i can finally have a good look at the slip dress i am working on... which had lots of mistakes... & equal amounts of rescue attempts...
on that later... to be continued...