Sunday, November 2, 2008

Make do and mend Check In Week 3

Make Do and Mend Challenge:Well I did not get much done this week- got the gable completed, That’s about it! 4 more gables to go- 2 on the house and 2 on the garage. A person runs out of time when doing a major construction item.
How did everyone else do? Oh yeah I did take some scrap wood and make mason bee houses!

13 comments:

Fleecenik Farm said...

Halloween is a great make do holiday. Wee one went as Max from Where the Wild Things are. I just used his costume from last year ( a white overall suit found at the Goodwill) and made a gold crown out of scrap fabric. Teen went as a sailor. I found him a second hand Pea Coat ( at the Goodwill) that will last him for years of wear and he wore his step dad's sailor hat.

Judy T said...

Busy week here. I agree with Fleecenik, Halloween is a great time for making do. My middle child (11) pulled out bits of old costumes and play clothes from the closet and went as 'The Pumpkin King'. The family hand-me-down pumpkin suit that my sister made 20 years ago that every child in our family wore when they were 3 (amazing that he can still get into it!), plus an old crown and cape. My youngest (8) went as a mattress tag- you know- do not remove under penalty of law... Reused an old piece of posterboard. He even won a prize for most creative costume!
As for me, I did get my market basket repaired, fixed another pair of sweatpants for one of the boys (they're tough on their clothes at this age) and stitched up the hole the dog tore in his favorite stuffed toy. I had to put the stuffing back in because he thought it was grand fun to un-stuff it :-) Judy

Fleecenik Farm said...

Funny I have a dog that like to unstuff stuff too. Actually...not so funny....:(

Anonymous said...

I've been grumbling that the vacuum cleaner wasn't working like it used to. I was scanning Craigslist for a new/used one and decided I should just try taking it apart for investigation. Viola! When my husband used the vac, let's just say he wasn't all that careful. It was clogged up with paper tickets from the dry cleaner and a number of other things. All in all, 15 minutes and a lot of dust later it's as good as new!

Robj98168 said...

Halloween is a fun time to make do- My costume was and I am not (kidding) Jason the disgruntled boeing emplyee on strike- I wore my hockey goalee mask and carried around a picket dign and my electric chain saw.

Fleecenik- a pea coat is such a cool find- I can't believe people pay top dollar fgor those at Old Navy and such- they are available at thrift stores and Army Navy surplus stores. Your teen will be very warm this year.

Full freezer-Puppy just wants to play with toys- why not get him som from the thrift store that he will be allowed to chew to pieces?

Sylvia- I wish I had a dollar for everytime one of my aunts and my mom threw away a perfectly good vacuum cleaner that was just clogged. Of course now they bring them to me- one of my past jobs was Vacuum repair for a janitorial crew. Vacuums are usually very easy to fix. Trouble is now they are cheaper to buy than to buy repair parts. I guess that kinda describes our throwaway society!

Fleecenik Farm said...

The pea coat was a great find and when he outgrows it it will fit me!

Chile said...

Why does everything come with those plastic connector snaps these days? My sweetie has had half of the six on his Xtracycle bags break. After making do for some time by just tying knots in the straps to hold them up, he replaced all of them with D-rings this weekend and is pretty sure that will work well.

I had nothing to repair personally. Does using up what's in my fridge instead of going to the store count as "making do"?

Robj98168 said...

Chile- tell hubby great use of d-rings. I agree- those snaps suck-
As far as the fridge- sure - your repairing hunger!

Connie said...

I went to the thrift and got wool blazers and skirt of the same color to reuse into quilt material. I like antique amish quilts which are made from wool. I thought I might be able to make sometime reminiscent of those.

I used a neighbor's plastic grocery sacks in processing roosters. I reused chicken's feet to make soup stock.

ib mommy said...

Ack! I'm late checking in again. Darn election:)

LB and I had a whole discussion about making due with what we had for her new gecko. I made the mistake of sending her with her dad to buy it and he came home with a whole bag of new crap. Men......

On the plus side, MS Bug wanted a fish and she scored a whole aquarium set on freecycle. They even gave her two containers of fish food! The minus side of that is now she is grounded and can't have a fish:)

Robj98168 said...

Verde- I dont even want to think of what you use the plastic bags for- Chicken Feet? Have you ever seen what those rooster step in?

IB- Aw cmon- Let Ms. Bug off the hook- she's real sorry and promised never to do it again- at least not while your looking!

EnviRambo said...

It was kind of a slack week for me. Everything was all about Halloween. We threw a party (our first) for the kids (teenagers) and didn't buy anything new, other than the food. So I guess we covered the "make do" part. Found all kinds of things around the house to use in different ways as party decorations. Boy used Hubby's military uniform as a costume and girl wanted to be a midnight fairy. One black dress that has become way too short for her to wear anymore, augmented with a table cloth from previous Halloweens and a set of wings from the dress up bin and there you go - midnight fairy.

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

I made do with Halloween too. I repaired a seam on an apple with a razor blade costume that I made years ago so my husband could wear it to work for Halloween (he won a prize for the costume.) I also mended a bandana for the dog so he could wear it to a charity Halloween pet parade as his "costume." I didn't repair anything for myself for Halloween. I wore the witch costume that I made a couple of years ago while handing out candy to the Trick or Treaters.