What can I say? I'm raising Nikon babies. An afternoon of *carefully* sharing Mama's camera (the mantra 'mind the lens, mind the lens, mind the lens' firmly of their lips) and a disk full of their views of the world, I have permission to show you some of their captures::
Geniuses, I'm sure you'd agree.
No, I am not biased.
In one of my more lucid moments last week, I had the good sense to buy yarn. Buying yarn does not need a reason, but I had a reason anyway - I wanted a variety of colours in the stash instead of the slew of teals, mustards, greys and blues I have amassed.
Because in my lucid moment of yarn buying I envisaged myself in Ramadan sitting contentedly in the chair crocheting blankets for the coming winter as I did dhikr whilst my children played co-operative games whilst also doing dhikr. And singing kum-by-ah. Holding hands.
In my perfectly lucid, tea-drinking, eating cake moment this was how the coming month was going to be. Ah, yes.
Then Ramadan came; the children did not sing kum-by-ah. I am not sitting in the easy chair crocheting whilst hymning the praises of my Lord. We are not playing co-operative games and being angelic. No. We are in the crash position. We are wondering why, of all religions to pick, did we choose Islam and not Buddhism. We cannot be arsed to pick a crochet hook up. We may even entertain evil ideas of what could be done with a crochet hook. We may even be in bed letting the babes watch DVDs all day. That's the reality.
So, instead, the yarn stays tucked up ready for cake-eating days, in it's little rack under the table by the easy chair. It has gone from being a stash to an art installation, from yarn to decor.
And I think I quite like it like that.
We've been back home a little while now, and it's been more than a few days of unpacking and defunking the house (let me say this :: a guy in a house on his own, friends around the corner and a cement mixer thrown in for good measure, and perhaps some of you will understand the devastation that met me on returning home. Needless to say that I feel like I need a holiday after this holiday).
The house is still funky, so moving briskly on I will show you something pretty instead::
This is the quilt I made my Mother for Christmas last year. I alluded to it in several posts and there were little glimpses of it here and there, but honestly the deadline was so tight and I didn't want to ruin the surprise by posting pictures here before the big day, and, well, I just plain forgot to take pictures of it.
Some people have asked to see it, and so I thought I'd share for all - taken whilst we were back at my mother's house. I couldn't get a good shot, and the colours really are a lot more sumptuous in the flesh.
I chose every single colour knowing exactly what colours my mother loves - lilacs and lavenders and pinks and pastels and everything in between. I am happy to say she really, genuinely loves it and actually has it on her bed. Which speaks volumes. I had no idea when I was making this whether she would like it or merely tolerate it, but knowing that it makes her happy and puts her in a good mood every day when she wakes to all these colours is really satisfying.
Glance at any corner in our house and what you will see is a random collection of thrifted treasures. Random corners, then, and some things that are hiding there.
Do you photograph the Corners of Your Home too?
We've been lucky enough recently to have had some real summer days. Hot, hot sun. Perfect summer weather with no complaints from me!
Following on from the hot days are sometimes some rather muggy nights and in an attempt to aid restful sleep I made the babes some summer weight patchwork blankets for their bed, just in case it got too hot for their duvets.
I can't sleep without covers - the summer patchwork blanket I made for our bed last year does me very well on those nights when it's too hot for real blankets, and too cold for nothing, and with the same plan in mind I whipped these up.
4x5 12 inch patches, blanket back, sew right sides together, turn, and finish by stitching all around the edge and tying for good measure. That's it. Just real simple patchwork blankets.
And I can confirm the boys love them. And if nothing else it adds a lively splash of colour to their room
In an attempt (please understand the importance of that word 'attempt') to bring this household to order and instill some kind of method to this madness I have attempted ('attempted') to craft our way to organisation, the granny chic way. Which, I'm sure you'd agree, is the best way to go in matters such as this.
When it comes to organisation I will freely admit I'm useless, ney, pathologically resistant. I hate living my life to a timetable. I hate big clocks. I hate schedules. I hate committing to an agreed time, hate booking tickets in advance, hate having to write in a diary that three months hence I will be doing xyz in the land of abc. It's weird. It would be therapist fodder for years, I have no doubt. But I cannot live this way any longer!!
My goodness I am a homeschooling Mama winging it on a daily basis and now the babes are older we need structure, we really do. And so, like most things in my life, I have had to get a grip for the sake of the kids and try to get a handle on this mothering gig.
Enter The Board...
A doilified board isn't really a Board is it? I mean, it looks so harmless. Jazzy, but harmless.
I have it in mind to get all my brain onto flashcards and have them pinned up on The Board in the glare of full light of day to aid in this new found Mama Me; shopping lists, things that need doing, what we will be doing every day of the week in terms of learning and commitments, and best of all - meal planning and chores *falls over* yes, meal planning and chores. I think perhaps I may have over-stretched myself in this department.
But not just chores for me! Hurrah! I have also now included an organised way of including the boys in this torture too. Everyday they check The Board and get going on helping with the work of this home. And let me tell you - these boys of mine are GOOD workers masha'allah. They really are. I have been so impressed by their eagerness, commitment and quality of their work, and I can't tell you how much of a burden has been lifted off this tired mama's shoulders.
So far chores for them have included : vacuuming, dusting, monitoring the bookshelves, monitoring the toy baskets, monitoring the art and paper supplies, cleaning the kitchen cupboard doors and fridge, cleaning the bathroom sink, washing some dishes, putting dishes away, filling and emptying the washing machine, sweeping the floor, folding towels and putting their own clothes away. Have I missed anything?
So there you have it - the whole of my life in a doilified cork board. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY, I will crack this homeschooling Mama gig. Hopefully before my children leave home.
This box, this shabby, beaten up old bedding box, used to be my Nana's, and when it was new it was covered in a quilted vinyl of little chintzy lilac roses on a cream background, trimmed with a heavy plaited chord around the edge.
When my Nan died my mother inherited the box, still in full bloom with the chintzy roses. Until I managed to skank it off her and talk her into reupholstering it for me first (she wasn't amused but did it anyway, bless her).
When my mother gave ME this bedding box is was covered in a beautiful jacquard creamy upholstery fabric, trimmed with a beautiful champagne satin trim, emblazoned with brass tacks. It was the business.
This is what it turned into before a year was up.
We use this box to keep the boys' dressing up clothes in. And what can I say. My children are Genghis Khan incarnate. The midget at nine months old, in his walker, unpicked every brass tack with the concentration and determination of a NASA rocket scientist. The trim fell off. Grubby legs embedded the creamy fabric with grot. Jumping babes demolished the chipboard in the lid until it caved leaving nothing but floppy fabric, and if that wasn't enough, they somehow managed to unscrew the hinges without the agent of a screwdriver leaving the box with a take off lid rather than a lift up flap!
And still I cannot get rid of this box as a lost cause, because it isn't a battered bedding box, you see. It's a little piece of my Nana. And I know if she were here now she'd tell me to get rid of it and buy a new one; and maybe if she was still here I would. Be she isn't and I can't.
So in an attempt to keep this box going a little bit longer, a little bit of TLC.
And if I could just screw the lid back on I think I would be very happy indeed.
OK, I hope you all enjoyed the ramble down memory lane for the past couple weeks? The old blog is closed now and I'm sufficiently refreshed from the blog break to get back to it.
Quilts. The orange, hand pieced, hand sewn, hand quilted thing I started for my Firstborn when he was almost seven is STILL sitting there, not even halfway done. But progress has been made - a bit of inspiration on the inspiration board is getting me piecing the bits little by little, giving me the push to keep going.
Weirdly enough, it is the prospect of making the midget's hand sewn quilt which is making me want to get this one out of the way! I have ideas of a log cabin in vintage fabrics for him. With eldest it had to be orange, and with midget a variety of colour I think. Plus I love log cabin quilts.
Hopefully a show and tell when a little more piecing has gone on insha'allah?
Wishing you all a peaceful weekend!
xx
Not only do I think that peg bags are a good idea, but that I think that they should match my decor...
Is there any hope for me, do you think?
And I get never get tired of the colour 'mustard', or yarn.
And mustard-coloured yarn?
I think I could live on the stuff....
Hands up all who love those gorgeous little jam jars by Bonne Maman ? Those lovely, chunky, double thick glass jam jars which make us go all wobbly at the knees for real farm livin' and the good ol' days of Enid Blyton adventures and lashings and lashings of rice pud with various delicious drops of red jam, plop! squarely in the middle? With real cream, and custard with a skin on the top. And boiled eggs. And fresh plums picked straight off the tree??
*Crickets chirp* ... *Tumbleweed blows past*
No?
Just me then.
I do have to stop myself from buying this brand, because in my head I do battle - on one side my brain is living an Enid Blyton fantasy and wants the little jar forever and ever. On the other side my rational self is screaming CEASE AND DESIST , for one jar of this illusion in gingham is the same price as my entire body weight of cheapo-store brand jam.
But I do so love these jars. It's irrational. I want to make a necklace out of them. Or else design a holster for me to carry them where'er I go.
But until then? Hah - a little idea that made me high five myself (and I'm quite small so I had to stand on a chair) - a little emergency stash of first aid things - items which I have to rummage around in the cupboard for which results in a cascade of medicinal compounds crashing around our heads in the frenzy to get plasters.
A few first aid things within reach, some plasters, arnica, migraine relief - things like that - things which are constantly needed. No more rummaging, and a gorgeous eye-candy jar to boot!
I'll go and get out more now....
A lazy weekend with lots of sun, lots of outdoor play, lots of gardening, investigating and whole load of nothing after nothing.
Uh, as well as load after load of washing.
Lazy weekends in early spring. All weekends should be like this.
The shop has been updated too.
Gosh, what can I say? Where are my manners? Sorry for just bailing out like that. Life just took over for a while, y'know?
So. Where were we? Well, I've been hit by the painting and decorating bug AGAIN - just corners of our home badly neglected that needed some well-earned TLC. Firstly, our old lobby area (you thought the bathroom was small? Oy...), which with a lick of paint, a new light fixture and some re-arranging of nooks and crannies, has now been officially designated the laundry niche. Yup. I got me a utility space. Kinda. More a futility space. But pretty colour.
I have some (new to us) furniture requiring several layers of paint pencilled in for these coming days, as well as various other things, and if that wasn't enough hopefully a shop update next week insha'allah.
Busy, busy, busy....
Have a great weekend, people!
x
This year is the first time ever that I have bothered about the garden; previous years have been left to DHs pottering ways and good luck.
Despite having a rather long garden there isn't really anywhere to plant flowers except a narrow strip of mud along the edge of the path, which lends itself only to straight lines of boring flower arrangements. So to try to get the garden looking more like an Eden and less like a slag heap I have decided to try a container garden along with hanging arrangements nailed up along the fence. The idea being I can generate height and illusion of depth.
Last autumn for the first time ever I took the time to plant bulbs of various traditional spring flowers. The slow-burning firework display so far has been breath-taking - first the crocus, then the daffodils, the hyacinth and the tulips following on. It's been a lovely spring-like garden this year, which I'm chuffed with.
Now summer flowers have been placed lovingly in their seed trays waiting for the magic to happen, and I can't wait to see what the summer show will be like. Watch this space insha'allah...
Decisions, decisions.
More samples have been ordered but it might take a while for me to find 'the one'. No rush. Quite like the effect of all those samples up there on the wall...
And I've done a bit of spring-cleaning on the blog. See. Tidy sidebars. I've started to use the nav-bar to bring all the bits and pieces together; it was getting cluttered with bits of information everywhere. It might change again. (!)
Also a new widget - Folia - like Ravelry for garden-type folk (hah, not me) but I'm finding a useful place to keep things together - stashes of seeds, days I planted, plans of action; it also has a place to journal/blog which I'm using to keep allotment links together.
And now - back to putting up samples...
EDIT TO ADD :: the links to some of the wallpapers I've ordered ::
Ta da! Coasters for the sitting room in a matching print to the wallpaper! How lucky am I to find them at JUST the right price??
And the right price would be? Free. And this would be because? I made them myself. Easy crafting that will bring harmony into your home. Or something like that.
YOU WILL NEED :: a coaster set (I have some that my mother collected free with teabags years ago), bits of leftover wallpaper, a cutting mat (or bread board), an exacto knife (ie. something dead dead sharp), a glue stick and a pile of heavy books. A laminator might be handy but not essential.
Pick your killer wallpaper that you have saved from ends of roll and bits too big to throw out but no idea what the hell to do with, and cut a square bigger than the coaster.
With gusto smear the coaster on right-side-up face with glue stick and quickly cover with wallpaper, pressing down dead hard. You might want to go GRRR at this point, just to show how hard you are pressing. Your call. Cover all coasters then pile a load of heavy books of top (like flower pressing) just to make sure.
After a while, once the glue is dry take your sharp blade, place the coaster on the cutting mat and cut around the edge.
I am wondering if this would work better if you laminated the wallpaper pieces first?? It would probably be easy to clean and would avoid getting tea stained. But my laminator died a death so this is a moot point for me.
How much more amazing this would look in Orla Kiely paper?? If anyone makes a set of these let me know!
Ta da. Done. It didn't actually take that long; and for a twist I actually pasted the walls not the paper which avoided tearing (and swearing).
It is David Hicks' Hexagons by Cole and Son 66-8055 and I love it. And now I will have to find non-blue things on my travels to tart up the new look wall.
About a month ago I was pretty sure that the new-to-me-sofa of my dreams was just around the corner, just waiting for me ever-so patiently to find it. I was so sure about this that I fretted that my new-to-me sofa needed some new things to make it look just 'right'.
I ummed and ahhed and then aha-ed, and immediately, for I am prone to sudden movements when endowed with a good idea, purchased a set of Orla Kiely pillowcases in the multicoloured stem print.
'Why did you buy pillowcases for a sofa, you nutter?' I hear you ponder. Well, dear reader, it was because my brainwave was to use the fabric to make myself a couple of cushions and a lap quilt for the new-to-me sofa of my dreams. Anybody who has actually set about buying a ready-made Orla Kiely cushion will appreciate what a hefty gap in the finances such a purchase leaves, and whilst each to his own, I am not that stupid. Or maybe I am. Or maybe I'm just a wannabe with little or no taste. Or a little taste and no money. Or both. Who knows. And by now, who the hell cares. Short story - Orla Kiely fabric into something beautiful for my new-to-me sofa at a reasonable cost.
But the sofa of my dreams wasn't there. She is playing hard to get. In fact she is playing SO hard to get, that we may have moved into a new game of Don't Get. This is irksome. I have great plans for the Sofa of My Dreams which involves a lot of feet up and snuggles and cups of tea and cold rice pudding and Orla Kiely lap quilts.
So, whilst I patiently wait for her to tire of her silly game I have piled up the lovely presents waiting to adorn her in my bedroom, out of the grubby reach of my menfolk, because They of the Chromosone Disadvantage will not appreciate the beauty of the Orla-ness of the new goodies. No, they will simply not understand, and will say things like 'HOW much did this cost??' and 'Can't we just make covers out of Tesco carrier bags??!' and 'Stop fussing, it's only mud'.
So we wait, the Orla goodies and I, and really hope that she is worth waiting for...
And another lady with good taste and good sense is Karen over at Blueberry Park! Great minds, and all that...
You've seen this wall partly finished before. It's the wall that separates the sitting room and kitchen and faces the stairs. An ignored space for much of the time. So ignored, in fact, that it hadn't even crossed my mind to fuss over it until I saw someone elses' on Flickr and thought 'why haven't I done anything with my little bit of staircase?!'
And so fuss I did. Not for long, because it is a small space, but I gave the wall a lick of paint, and painted the shelving a white gloss and then set about finding some pretty things to cheer the space up to give it a 'loved' look.
To compliment the bottom of the stairwell I decided to also paint the wall between the bedrooms (yes we only have two. Yes people live like that in this day and age).
Same colour, and looking for more pretty things for the wall.
{Please don't email me to tell me all the mistakes. Just squint your eyes and pretend you can't see them}
Ta da! My first ever (albeit small) crochet thing. I had wanted something to cover the back of The Chair and nothing was working, so as I set to work figuring the granny out, I had an idea in my little noggin about what it would be when it was finished - a lil tiny blankie to cover the chair.
I edged it, AND I even blocked it.
It isn't perfect, I know. But I now feel confident for bigger things!
As you know, I have spent the last couple weeks with a paintbrush in one hand and a drop clothe in the other, attempting to drag our home out of the realms of student-type accommodation into family of the 21st century type thing.
I don't know why it has taken me this long to give any attention to the house. I think perhaps it is mainly because we rent and it has taken a while for me to think of this place as less of a base and actually our home for the foreseeable future insha'allah. It is, I think, testament to the fact that I feel settled here that I now want to put a (semi) permanent mark on it.
Still, it is hard to get any mojo going for bathroom decor, and my bathroom has to be one of the smallest bathrooms on record. Three paces, max. And it is cold, damp and prone to mould. So I felt that something clinical and minimal would work best here, and once I had decided on the new colour scheme (I say 'new' like we ever had an 'old' colour scheme, but we didn't) it came together pretty quickly.
I chose a dark gun metal grey for the paint and coupled this with simple accents of white with splashes of beech wood for contrast. Simple, yet not altogether unbeautiful.
To add humour I added some vinyl decals to the door - really you would have to know how small this room is to get why I find an exit sign funny.
Yes the light is bad. Again. I have given up waiting for good light. I think you will have to use your imagination to know what it really looks like in real life. But you get the idea.
Maybe the kitchen next? And if I get my act together to sort the sitting room out, that to follow at some point insha'allah.
{Eames Eiffel Chair Quote Postcard Print by Nan Lawson on Etsy}
Rearranging, painting, new thrifty/handmade finds. Just little ways to keep things fresh.
In one mad afternoon last week sometime I sewed together these six inch patches to form the top of a new throw/blanket for our bed.
The yellow quilt top blanket I made at the begining of 2009 has served us very well and looks really very attractive, but sometimes a change is as good as a rest, and well, I just fancied something new...
There is a mixture of floral prints, some I can't remember who by, but some Cath Kidston, Anna Marie Horner and Windham classics to name a few.
I have yet to finish it - I'm still waiting to find just the right sheet in a thrifting adventure for the backing, and insha'allah if I do then hopefully it won't take an hour to finish the backing and binding with perhaps ties to bind it together. As it won't have batting, it really doesn't need quilting.
So something new to keep the interior bright in these oh so grey days...
Yes, that's really how this blog post begins - 'I have this chair'.
Bear with me as I try to find an angle for a post which attempts to be upbeat and perky when really what I want to do is hibernate under my quilts and blankets and wait for spring. Or Judgement Day. Either or. Not bothered.
So I have this chair which I thrifted sometime ago. It was one of those times I had to go back to the store the next day to get it, because I couldn't get it out of my head even though I couldn't put my finger on why. I just had to have it. The deal was clinched when my eldest announced:: Mum - this chair says 'get a cup of tea and snuggle up with your boys and talk about trains' - its snuggly. Yes he really said that. And how could I refuse. I knew what he meant - he meant 'cosy'. And I'm all for snuggly and cosy. It's what I'm about.
What I didn't like was the colour all too much - I mean, the colour was OK it just didn't fit nicely with the blue of our sitting room. I've been trying to disguise it and adorn it many different ways but nothing seems to look right.
I don't have the skill to upholster it myself and I'd have to auction a kidney to be able to afford someone else do it for me. So it stays like this - thrifted, colour unco-ordinated and jazzed up with quilts and blankets.
I'd say it fits right it with everything else in this place.
Already it's my favourite place in the house - comfortable, warm, the right height to reach for my teacup and best of all? Great for knitting in as the babes play.
Oh yes, it's seen a LOT of knitting in it's short Mu'Mu life. And now if you could all send me 'thrifting well wishes' for the sofa of my dreams (instead of the reality of my worst nightmares which is our current offering), perhaps this sitting room can be THE place for sitting with a cup of tea as we all talk about the important stuff in life - you know - trains, cars, David Attenborough programmes, things like that - cosily.
Time to get those bulbs in. Think I've left it too late for getting trees planted? What do you reckon? Think I could wangle a tree-planting in time?
This year our garden was, for the want of a better word, crap. Really crap. Instead of leaving it to it's own devices or (horror!) to the aesthetics of others, I hope that a bit of planning and a lot of container gardening can add some beauty to our garden in 2010 - think: colour; think: flowers; think; overhaul.
Unbelievably, it really is time for winter woollens - no where more so than on our beds!
It just seems like yesterday I was washing them and shoving placing them gently in the wardrobe ready for winter... already they are on our beds and inducing such heavenly, cozy, snuggly sleeeeeep; I could quite happily bed in for the next two seasons...
I'm forever keeping my eye open for vintage woollen blankets - I am lucky enough, alhamdulillah, to have scored two more on a hit-n-run thrift adventure this week masha'allah! And I think I have a project for one of them that involves surgery - some serious cutting and stitching - but it happens to be a Witney blanket and even though it isn't a points blanket (can you find them in England??) I have still fallen rather in love with it. What to do? Cut or not to cut?
x
Remember seeing these pillowcases yesterday? They were a couple of pillowcases I scored whilst out thrifting last week - I saw them bundled away at the top of a shelf as I was paying for some other things, and my heart leapt a little when I saw them there - I knew they were going to be a bit special.
Oh my. They were a lot special - beautifully huge Oxford Style pillowcases in blues and bluey-greys with that little bit of chintzy floral thing going on. And they were quilted patchwork.
They were too good to cut, so I decided simply to use them as they were - with a simple blanket stitch I closed the opening for the pillow in the back, then again with blanket stitch, I sewed the two pillowcases together to make an instant lap quilt.
An easy, yet I think effective craft easily completed in one afternoon.
It was her birthday and she found nasal hair and the gauntlet was thrown down - a 365 challenge which appealed instantly to me.
The challenge was simply (?!) to commit to buying only secondhand or handcrafted for an entire year - nothing new. Clothes would have to be reconditioned and/or creatively altered, anything for the home would have to be thrifted.
Now I know what you're thinking - you're thinking, Debbie - this isn't a challenge for you - it's a justification for your spending habits. And you're right, at first glance this 'challenge' does seem a bit tautologous - what would be my next challenge - breathing and in and out for a year? But the challenge, for me, was like the lighting of a blue touch-paper for a much bigger change and what it sparked off was something that has been bugging me for a long time, but never really got around to consciously making any real effort to alter:
1. I spend too much money - not as much as some, and certainly I'm not one of the last big spenders, but still, in reality it is more than I need to spend; I justify and rationalise my spending, but push come to shove most of it is basic lust and greed and soul-destroying Want.
2. This happens mainly because I like to use retail as therapy and also because I am like a child in a sweetshop (nearly wrote sweatshop but will get onto that later) and have zero compunction to delay any gratification. This is OK if I didn't succumb to Want and only bought on Need.
3. This has to stop - a) my finances, like the USS Enterprise cannae take it captain, I cannot change the laws of physics and by ignoring basic facts, like if outcome exceeds income, I will remain a pauper. b) More than that, beyond simply saving money each one of my acts as a consumer has a ripple effect into the wider world; no action happens in a vacuum - cause and effect still operate and every word and deed has consequences. I cannot simply justify consumer choices based on price. If something is cheap you have to ask yourself 'why is this cheap - who bears the brunt of the real cost - the consumer or the worker', and if you buy clothes, food, furniture, sports equipment for a small price you can be pretty sure it is subsidised at some point in the process, and usually because someone, somewhere in the world, is paid a pittance and lives in conditions that you wouldn't allow your pet to live in. Any person who buys something cheap outside a Fair Trade company is complicit in another person's slavery.
4. I don't want to cause suffering. My spending habits cause, or maintain, or uphold the continuance of slavery and suffering. By committing to only buying secondhand I am stepping out of that cycle - my money will not go into that vicious cycle.
5. Another reason why buying new is BAD is the carbon footprint it leaves - products made in countries with no environmental laws, carted halfway round the world so they can sit in the back of a cupboard and then thrown out - by buying secondhand not only am I buying local I am also therefore a) reducing the transportation and carbon footprint of goods b) reducing the amount of stuff that goes to landfill.
6. This got me thinking about food (naturally). I am always careful about avoiding buying food from halfway around the world simply to try to save our atmosphere from unnecessary pollution, but also to instill a sense of season in our household - I do not buy out of season fruit and vegetables. But I am not so conscious about buying locally grown; I am not so conscious about supporting Multinational Supermarket conglomerations and their systematic subjugation of the producers of food. I put my convenience before these evident concerns.
7. As I have taken up the challenge of a 365 for secondhand and handmade I decided to also extend this, for as much as possible, into our food buying. Here in the UK there is not a system like CSA, but there are independent organic producers of food who deliver for free, and although they are a bit more expensive than supermarkets it is simply because they are paid the right wage. So this year I will also commit to buying as much of our food from a local farmer as possible, as well as getting to grips with growing our own!
8. Tif has allowed exceptions to this challenge, and my exceptions to this challenge are a) hygiene - anything needed for hygiene can be bought new from Kathmandu - sorry but that is the line I draw - but effort for local goods will be made, and b) home-school resources - again, secondhand and local being the aim, but anything new if necessary.
So there you have it. A challenge, and hopefully a new way of conscious consuming. Insha'allah I will be posting about this challenge from time to time, but if you think you'd like to join the train, hop on! Go and tell Tif, and you too can be a 'challenger of the Utmost Kind'.
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