I have to confess that I have a pathological hatred of crumbs. Bread crumbs, toast crumbs, biscuit crumbs, cake crumbs, crispbread crumbs and even cereal crumbs ... well any kind of crumb really!
We have a friend called *Duck* who stays with us. Darling daughter has nick-named him that, and because *Duck* is a nice anonymousical name, *Duck* has *stuck*. In every respect Duck is great ... apart from the toast crumbs! When Duck is here, the cooker is clean, the sink is clean, the house is clean BUT the surfaces around the toaster are not! A previous acquaintance did the same ... except in her case every other area that she used was left in the same kind of state. Because crumbs seem to be Duck's only shortcoming, I will not make too much of a meal out of it and will resign myself to entering the toaster area with a J-cloth in hand.
I have tried to think of a resolution. Maybe the toaster is in the wrong place? Maybe the area is a bit dark to see crumbs properly (well I guess they do blend in to pine!!) so maybe I should shed a bit of light on the subject and move the toaster? Somehow I doubt if that would help ... due to the ingrained breadcrumb mentality (theirs not mine!).
The problem is that the crumbs are on the surface where I do most of our food preparation. Maybe the offenders think that I need to widen my culinery repertoire. *Cooking with breadcrumbs rather than batter is a much healthier option*, or *home-made bread sauce is far nicer than packet-mix*, or *I am sure that your salad would go much better with micro-croutons*. I don't think so. I am very happy with my conventional toad in the hole batter-mix, Colman's bread sauce and my salad is *micro* enough as it is thank you very much.
Can you tell that this is getting on my wick?
Talking of wicks .........
I have been making candles, thanks to my younger daughter's former passion for GU desserts, the ones where you pay more for the packaging than for the contents, but I guess it gives you a *feelGU'd* factor to eat something out of a posh jar.
So ... these jars have been mounting up and taking over a whole shelf of a kitchen cupboard, but what to do with them? More to the point, what to do with them in order to justify to afore-mentioned daughter, the horrendous cost of the GU in the first place.
Initial thoughts were to make pin-cushions to sit on top of the jars which theoretically would hold a little sewing kit. All very well but fixing the pincushion to the jar proved a bit tricky, and the cost of purchasing a little sewing kit for each jar was prohibitive. It was also disturbing my sleep as I was trying to work out how to attach velcro in a creative and attractive ... or even invisible manner to both jar and cushion. Things seemed very complicated at 2 o'clock in the morning!
And so the idea of using the jars for candles with candle-wraps entered my head. Only one problem ... I have never made candles before!
And so I did some research. *Basic equipment* consisted of a double boiler, a thingy for centering the wicks, a thermometer (so that the kitchen does not catch fire), candle wax, scent, and colouring. After reading up on all this, I worked out that for the cost of *Basic equipment* I could buy 150 sewing kits!!!
I decided that I could improvise and so, not one for doing things by halves, I purchased 5kgs of candle wax, (well bulk is cheaper right?) a bit of colouring wax, some wick, and a bottle of white musk candle scent, all for less than the cost of 20 sewing kits! My improvisation techniques included using a saucepan, a metal colander and a pyrex jug instead of a double boiler, kebab sticks cut in half and tied together to make the centering thingy, and an old meat thermometer. It worked, I now have 21 candles in little jars, (about 20 left to make) and the kitchen is still intact.
Next problem. The candles look naff just in their little pudding pots and quite frankly if I was given one as a gift, I think I would have preferred the original contents. And so they need tarting up!
We have a wonderful new store which has opened *just round the corner* which sells everything except for the kitchen sink, although I wouldn't be surprised to see one of those pop up on the shelf at some point as it is so eclectic. In amongst this mix is a sewing and craft section. I discovered some jute upholstery webbing which was 40p a metre (and a few other essential items in the process!) and duly purchased 3 metres. Got it home and worked out that I could make 4 wraps for a metre and so I chopped it up. Another problem ... I had mis-calculated and the jute strips were about an inch too short, BUT they would make wonderful napkin rings! I played about with one of the strips and discovered that they look even nicer when they are frayed a bit (deliberately!), and the strands that came from the fraying process will make lovely little ties (I also used them to tie my kebab sticks together for centering the wicks so all in all very cost-effective!).
Anyhow ideas ideas ideas ..... and not a lot of sleep as instead of dreaming about punches (see previous post) and pincushions, I am now dreaming of making primitive candle wraps.
And now on to the financial side. Why am I doing all this? Elder daughter works in a high-school which has a sort of craft-fair thing at the end of the year, so a while ago she suggested that we did a table together as she is fantastic with card-making, crochet (Amigurami or whatever it is called) and by the end of the year will probably be proficient and prolific in knitting also.
£25 on the cost of materials (forget the fact that the GU would have cost around £100 as I didn't pay for that!) including the wraps, and enough wax to make around 50 candles (both large and small as the Bon Maman jam jars come in very handy also!). A little package of a candle wrapped in jute along with two jute napkin rings (and maybe in placed in a little hessian bag ... but that's another story) would be priced at around £3.00 with the larger candle package being about £4.00 ... or maybe £3.99!!! 50 at a minimum of £3.00 would be £150 ...... and you can work out the profit margins yourself (except that in order to keep the feel GU'd factor half of it will probably go to charity).
Can you tell that I have been reading Alan Sugar's autobiography?
So watch this space as to how far I get with these little GU-ey gifts ...... and pray for a bit of success, otherwise you know what YOU are getting for Christmas next year!
Phew! That's all folks, am off to buy some more webbing!
TTFN,
Mandi xx
