A Little Bit Of Seasonal Craftiness and a Bit of a Bargain

Well, my printable fabric arrived and I finally managed to have a play with it. It's amazing! It's so easy to use and the results were fabulous. I printed off a little picture that I found on the internet and added some wording to it and made a cute little sign to hang on the bedroom door on Christmas eve. It's for a friend's grandchildren. 

It's hard to believe that this picture is actually printed onto fabric! The other good thing is that the fabric still feels like fabric, it doesn't have any of the stiff, plasticky feel to it that you seem to get from the iron on sheets that you can print and you can even hand wash the fabric once you've printed it. I have actually read on the internet that you can wash it in the washing machine, although it doesn't recommend this on the instructions. So, after Christmas, I think I will do a little bit of experimenting with a couple of printed pieces of fabric to see how they stand up to being machine washed.... it's always good to know. I have to say, though, I am so impressed with it. Just print, leave to dry, peel off the paper backing, rinse under a cold tap and then dry. It's so simple. I will definitely be ordering some more. The only limitation is the size of the paper. It's A4 width and it comes in either A4 sheets or, like the stuff that I bought, on a roll so you can just cut however much you need. 

I also nabbed another massive bargain this morning. I was rushing around Liskeard posting parcels and running errands when I saw a sign for a craft sale at Stuart House, a lovely old building in the centre of Liskeard. Of course it was totally impossible for me to ignore the prospect of a sale so, off I went to seek out some crafty bargains. 20 minutes later I emerged triumphant, with several lovely pieces of fabric for between £1 and £4 per piece and considering some of those pieces are at least a metre in length and some of them are pieces of cotton velvet and silk, I was incredibly pleased with myself. 

I also discovered that Stuart House is actually rather old. King Charles stayed there in 1644 and Liskeard is in fact over 1000 years old and is mentioned in the Domesday Book. 

Stuart House

 Domesday Book

I think I shall be exploring this in a bit more detail over the next few weeks .... I find it totally fascinating. 

It Never Rains But It Pours!

You remember my post yesterday which stated, in a very irritatingly philosophical manner, that things could be worse ....... well ....... they got worse! I went to the kitchen about 8.30pm yesterday evening to put the kettle on for a nice hot cuppa, only to find that I had no water. I have been having a problem with my water treatment system, which is used to purify the drinking water we get from our borehole and when we investigated on Saturday, we fused something in the loft while we were trying to figure out what the problem was. After checking all the lights and plug sockets in the house and not finding anything wrong with them, we concluded that it must have just been the treatment system itself that had fused and that it was not a big deal because we will have to have a new system put in after Christmas anyway. Turns out, it wasn't just the treatment system that had fused, it was the water pump as well so after several kettle-fulls of water for tea throughout Saturday and Sunday and several loo flushes, the tank was empty because the pump wasn't working to fill it up. I was in a panic thinking that there might be something seriously wrong with the electrics because it's an old house and some of the wiring is a bit dodgy. It was done by the person who converted it from foundry cottages into a house about 30ish years ago and he was, shall we say, a bit of a cowboy. I was hoping and praying that it was just the fuse because I don't have the money for an expensive wiring job so I set off this morning to try and find a shop that stocked fuse box fuses of the right size in the hope that it would sort out the problem. When I got to town, I realised I had a flat tyre! I had put some air in it on Friday lunchtime because it was looking a bit deflated and it had seemed fine but by this morning, it was getting flatter by the minute and I was forced to drive to my local tyre supplier and camp out and wait for them to open so I could get them to have a look at it. It certainly looked as if today was shaping up to be a really expensive day. Fortunately, the good luck fairies were smiling on me and it turned out that my tyre didn't have a puncture, it just needed resealing around the rim of the wheel and I managed to find an awesome little hardware shop that sells absolutely everything, including ginormous fusebox fuses, which has fixed the problem of no water. I am beyond relieved. Now all I have to do is figure out a way to fix the hole in the roof that we discovered when we went into the loft at the weekend, keep boiling my drinking water until I can afford and new treatment system and keep all my fingers and toes crossed in the hope that nothing else will go wrong this week!