Homemade Cookbooks

For as long as i can remember i have been making my own cookbooks with pages from magazines that inspire me. I think it stems from my mother telling me i cant keep all those magazines i had piled up in my room!. so i started to rip them up!. and i created scrapbooks, long before i even knew what scrapbooking was. I had one for decorating and one for recipes and bits and bobs. over the years i have kept this up and i love to go back and look at the earlier ones, see how my tastes have changed. i dont have any of those early ones here in the UK, but in the almost 10yrs i've been here this time i have been ripping and sticking to my hearts content. sometimes i am good at keeping up with it and other times, i let the magazines pile up and then have a marathon session!. i need to have that marathon session again, so in preparation, i sorted out and stuck in the pages that had been piling up since the last stucking session!. i usually decorate the covers but havent done for the newer 2!. i love these pukka project books, cos the come already sectioned and the dividing section has a pocket for those articles that cant be stuck down!. these books are mainly recipes although one has a decorating section. i divide the sections into mains, baking, desserts and other things!, and have magazine pages, my hand written things and even mums hand written things. i love to flick and see that to try, and i do try things!. some good, some not so good!. anyone else make their own cookbooks?!.

good things and sad things.....

i have made a couple more squares for my blanket and am really loving the plain colours at the moment. I plan to a few in the non white colours, as i think theres enough white in each of the squares. so this is the progress as of today, both laid out and piled up!!. thats the good thing!.

the sad thing......dear wee lily....the cat in my header, has disappeared from home while my parents were away in australia over xmas. the general consensus is she has taken herself off to die somewhere as she was frail, and acting strange in the hours leading up to her disappearance. she was being looked after by a family friend. so my family have lost both their cats within a 3wks period and everyone is feeling a little sad about that.

I've fallen in love......

......with a house!. Once in a while i look at the Christchurch property listings....just in case that euro millions lottery ticket pays out more the £6.70!. while looking today i found this......swoon!. click on 'this' to see the whole listing, but i have used a couple of photos here... its a spit level home that hasnt been renovated for donkeys!. so much potential!.

i love the size of the rooms, and here in the living room....i'm thinking bookcases along that large wall!.

this shows the split level....up to the kitchen, dining and living rooms, bedrooms on the entry level...the level this pic was taken, and garage and a 4th room on the lower level.

and finally, a good old kiwi kitchen!. so much could be done here!!

it goes to auction on the 2nd feb....if i win the euro between now and then, i'm sending my dad off to buy this!!. admittedly, it lacks curb appeal at the moment, but i love that its different....different from the usual homes in its layout. the split level is a common one in NZ, but i've not see one laid out like this, which is why i love it!. i'm all for having something different!. i dont do sameness....something that happens alot here in the UK!.

Doing things!.

Well, in an effort to being positive and shift this bad funk, i have done nice things today!. I baked a batch of sultana cookies to go into my lunch box this week.....back to work tomorrow!. I also crocheted another square for my blanket....this one a solid colour to break up the blanket at bit. the light was ok in my bedroom so i have photographed progress so far. This is by no means the finished ordered....just how i laid them out to photograph!. i think i need to look into blocking the squares and then joining some up now!.

I also think i need to do some more squares that dont feature white as the white seems very dominant in these pictures. Still, its exciting to see it all laid out like that. the square today took me an hour to do, because i havent really crocheted for over a month. when i was doing the squares before the mad 6wks at work, i was down to about 3/4hr with all the colour changes!.