Tuesday, September 7, 2010

How To Eliminate Fruit Flies

Every year, late summer the same drama: fruit flies. Hesitation about what fruits to buy, how many fruits to buy to eat them quick enough before they strike your kitchen.

Here is something that helps (at least it does for us). A couple of years ago out mum showed me mixture that attracts and kills them:



  • 75ml Fruit Juice (preferably apple juice or any juice that has a yellow shade, though I also heard red wine works great )
  • 1 Tablespoon Vinegar (I use vinegar essence)
  • 1 Tablespoon  Lemon Juice 
  • 3 Tablespoons Dishwashing Liquid
Put all ingredients in a cup or glass and place it somewhere in your kitchen. It helps if you put close to the spots where most of the flies are. The flies get attracted to the smell and color and fly into the glass. 

All measures are approximate measures. It is not necessary to use a lot of juice. Make sure kids can't reach it! And of course....... don't drink it.

Yay! We Were Featured!

Last friday Birgit and me were featured on Crafts Missus D! How exciting! Click here to read the interview.

Sending a big "thank you" and lots of smiles to Kathleen of Craft Missus D! =)

Friday, September 3, 2010

Sewing Quick Tip - Pattern Paper

After weeks (months?) of teaching myself to sew I'd like to share a couple of things I find really useful. Many books, online articles and blogs talk about techniques, styles, patters and wonderful fabrics. Most times I'm missing the "small things" though. It is much less talked about practical things around sewing. I hope to manage to write a more or less regular post about small practical things that are related to sewing.

As a beginner you probably use pre-made patters but at a certain time you want to make pattern on your own. To my great surprise this was MUCH easier than I expected it to be. To make your patter you need paper. Sewing shops supply you with whatever you need. But when you are sewing on a budget and you are not sure if the result will come out well you might hesitate you spend a lot of money just to throw it away later in disappointment. I read replacing professional sewing paper with wrapping paper or packaging paper. Of course, it is a lot more affordable but chances are you still need to spend money for it. Wouldn't it be great to spend very little (or even nothing) and do something good and recycle? YESSSSSSS!

How?!

I found the answer literally at my doorstep. My parents run a print shop which also does large format printing. The paper supplies my dad orders come wrapped in huge sheets of paper. This paper has no other purpose than to be wrapped around the actual printing paper. As soon as the printing paper is unwrapped the large format wrapping paper loses its purpose and is most likely to be thrown away. What a waste!
The wrapping paper really has a large format and is very strong and durable. Once you cut out your pattern you can keep it and reuse it many times without any damages to the paper.




So go to your local print shop (especially the ones which do large format printing) and ask them if you may recycle their packaging paper. I don't know how it works in other countries but in Germany you got to pay for anything you throw away. The more you throw away the more you pay. So you actually help them. The ideal case would be that they might look at you a little confused but then don't charge you anything and ask you to come again soon. Still, I believe it's ok if they charge you a little as you gain from it. If they don't charge you anything bring some cookies next time. From experience I can say this is appreciated very much. 

Happy pattern making! 

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

What Is On My Wall?

Crafty MissusD just wrote a blog post and asked what her readers have on their wall. I quickly took a shot of a particular part of my wall:



The post card in the middle shows Martin Luther  and famous quote of him: "Das gedruckte Wort hat Macht" ("the printed word has power"). I love this quote a lot and believe it is true. Once something is written it is kinda "official".
 

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