A Home Made Christmas

Each Wednesday from now until Christmas I will be blogging about a gift idea that can be made at home and I would love it if you would join in each week with your own contribution to "A Home Made Christmas".
I am sure that there are great projects to make, goodies to make, bake and bottle and ideas that you all have to share. I look forward to reading all about the things you make and being inspired by your ideas.

If you are worried about ruining the surprise feel free to post about something you have made in the past, something you saw or something you have received.

When planning home made gifts you need to consider a number of things:
How long the item will take to make? How far ahead do I need to plan?
How long will it keep?  What is the shelf life?
Does it need time to mature like Christmas Cakes/Puddings?
Can I make more than one at a time and give them to a number of people?

This week I want to talk about what I have seen others doing as there are some great ideas floating around that I think are worth sharing.

First up is Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial making up succulent pots for gifts.  This is such a great idea and one I have used in the past for a friend and my lovely sister in law who has a somewhat dubious history with potted plants.

Then there is Tracey over at It's Al-Wright Being Us who shows us a couple of different ways to make juggling balls.  She also made some great gifts for her boys when they turned 8.

Finally Linda from the Greenhaven  has a great recipe on her blog for a Fizzy Rhubarb drink which I think would be perfect at this time of year.

I am sure that there are loads more gift ideas that you have recorded on your blogs in the past so if you have a link you would like to share feel free to leave a comment  and your link below.

Pure Joy

There are some thing's in life that just make you smile.  A second hand toy kept Jessie amused for hours.

 There was lots of wrestling and rolling.

 The pig made a grunting noise when squeezed and Jessie thought it was great.

 Pleased as punch with her new toy.

We Won

At the end of last year a developer lodged an application to put a Sand and Gravel Quarry just up the road from our house, and the houses of many other people in our small rural community. 
Needless to say the community was not happy and we started an action group S.C.R.A.M (Sandy Creek Residents Against Mining).
We had public meetings where I was the facilitator, created a website http://www.scram.org.au/ and a facebook page, put up signs, had bumper stickers made and wrote to the media, local government, state and federal government and the government and associated departments involved such as Main Roads, SEQ Water and DERM (Department of Environment and Resource Management).

The whole idea that our quiet country lifestyle could be shattered by the sound of quarrying 6 days a week from 6am till 6pm, and up to 1 truck and trailer every 3 mins for the next 30 years was to be frank devastating.

Well we fought and we won!!

The developer has formally withdrawn his application and get this, is now undertaking a feasibility study to use the land for an Eco Residential development.  What a change of events.

Over the weekend some of the residents from our community got together to celebrate all of our hard work and what we achieved.

We are now working on having the state planning maps and local council maps updated to have the property in question rezoned so we never have to worry about it again.

Blooming Lovely

I do not have big flower gardens full of flowers so sometimes I feel like there is nothing pretty in my garden.  This is how I was feeling till I looked a bit closer.
One of mu succulents was flowering these dinner plate sized flowers that are only open for 24 hours.

 I love the Pink and Red colour combination.

Then there is the Hoya that I have been training over the path in the shade house.

With all it's clusters of flowers hanging down.

Each Little flower has a glistening drop of nectar at it's tip try to entice the bugs passing by.

Then while checking on my tomatoes I saw this flower which would have been over 1cm across.  Let's hope I get a monster tomato from it too.

What's blooming at your place?

Free Range Standards

I get regular emails from Choice and this one in particular touched a nerve with me.

Even though we do not buy eggs I know that not everyone has the ability to have chickens and therefore must purchase the eggs for their household.  What I do not support is the watered down version of "free Range" the the egg corporations are proposing.  I do not think that anyone purchasing free range eggs should have to question to what degree the chickens  are actually free range before trusting the label on the carton.  They either are or they are not.  And at 20,000 chickens per hectare or 5 chicken per Sq Metre, in my opinion they are not.

Here is the email I was sent please try and comment on their facebook page or email if you can.

Earlier this year, over 3100 people stood with CHOICE to ask the ACCC to reject the Australian Egg Corporation's unreasonable attempt to increase "free range" stocking densities by 13-fold. The great news for consumers is that the ACCC listened to us, finding that 20,000 chickens per hectare does "not accord with consumer expectations about the free range production of eggs". This is a welcome development, however it is only an initial assessment and the final decision is yet to be made. The Egg Corporation has announced it will try to overturn the decision. CHOICE will continue to fight for a consistent national free-range standard that meets consumer expectations but we need your help! We want the ACCC to know that consumers support their decision to reject the dodgy free-range standard. Please lend your voice to our effort by commenting on the image on our Facebook page. You can also email us at campaigns@choice.com.au. We will forward your messages to the ACCC.