My DIY Tofu Press craft project

I've long wanted a proper wooden Tofu Press rather than relying on my previous system of wrapping the block in swathes of kitchen roll with something heavy balanced on top. That method is not only wasteful on kitchen roll paper, but I also discovered that tofu rarely compresses evenly - and stacked china plates don't bounce. Oops!

My DIY Tofu Press started with two sycamore wood rectangles, kindly cut and drilled for me by my friend David Dyke @ Luthiers Supplies. David is something of a wood guru so I took onboard his recommendation of sycamore as the best wood to use for the project. I had originally thought I wanted paduak due to the beauty of eatroot's elegant tofu presses for sale on Etsy. However David championed sycamore for food preparation purposes and I already have a great pig-shaped chopping board in the same wood (a gift from the same source) which the press would match nicely.

The two wood rectangles were each drilled with 4x 5mm holes and I managed to buy 4 5x100mm bolts, together with matching wingnuts at C C Clements, a wonderful traditional ironmongers in Wymondham, Norfolk. It must have taken the helpful assistant a good 10 minutes to trial various options until we found exactly what the project needed, and the hardware still only cost £3.20!

Having now got all the parts together, I then set about refining the wood. My partner keeps a few sandpapers in his toolbox in our campervan so I was able to find one suitable to rub down the sycamore. I took everything apart, sanded all the rough edges smooth and gave the angles a bit of a curve. I also tried to sand inside the bolt holes by rolling the sandpaper into tubes but this didn't work so well.

I don't know how well you can see the colour difference in this photo. My little HTC phone is now eight years old so its camera struggles! I lightly rubbed the sycamore rectangle on the right with rapeseed oil - the better of the two food grade oils we already had. I repeated this a couple more times on both pieces of wood before my project was put to use as the oil soaked in really quickly. I think, over time, oiling will give the wood a nice honey colour too.

I was so pleased with how the press worked on its first use. I actually position it slanting, on its end, across a deep plate so only one corner of the press stands in the drained liquid. I hope alternating the corners will keep my press going for many years. I did notice, after the first use, that the screw holes appeared to shrink a little, resulting in needing to completely unscrew and rescrew each long screw in order to disassemble and reassemble the press. This was even more of a faff to do than to type. We decided the best thing would be to slightly enlarge the screw holes with a handheld drill so now the wood slides without catching and only the wing nuts use the screw threads.

So here is my finished project. A Tofu Press! Obviously this pic is a mockup - I know I need to remove the tofu from its box first (and, despite what Tofoo claim, I think their tofu does need a half hour's pressing before use). I'm delighted with it and look forward to lots more easy and delicious tofu meals!

My first full week of #PlasticFreeJuly

Not-new storage jars 

How is your Plastic Free July going?
After nine full days I am pleased with my efforts. Our landfill rubbish bag isn't noticeably emptier yet, but I am still using up much of what we already had so I expect the visual results there to be delayed. We usually fill one 15 litre rubbish bag a fortnight, which is already considerably less than our immediate neighbours (our recycling box being correspondingly much fuller). I am hoping to get the landfill rubbish down to one bag a month, if not by the end of July itself, then by the end of this summer.

The hardest part of this challenge, other than the plastic avoidance obviously, is not being sucked into the must-shop-for-new-hobby mindset for we are all conditioned. Insatiable consumerism is all very Brave New World and hard to resist. I am seeing pics of gorgeous pantries and kitchen cupboards stocked with matching kilner jars and steel tubs and my click-to-buy finger twitches! Instead I have temporarily stopped recycling jars and will repurpose them for storage solutions. I even pinched two out of a recycling box! Otherwise I will keep using our existing plastic tubs until they wear out and can be gradually replaced.

Being only able to buy loo roll wrapped in plastic got me thinking. When did their paper packaging stop? The same is true of kitchen roll so I thought about how we can use less. I now have a second tea towel hung up ready to be alternative kitchen roll. Wash and reuse! I am trying to avoid cling film too. An upturned bowl over a plate keeps refrigerated food fresh and protected, and using my 'not-new' jars for dry storage has freed up airtight plastic tubs for leftovers. I realised I am starting to do things as they were done years ago so my new mantra is What would Nana do?! The few pieces of her pyrex that I still have are suddenly very useful again.

Ecosewer sanitary pad 

I did buy a second Stainless Steel Flask so now Dave and I have one each. They are perfect for keeping tap water refreshingly cold so are ideal for Dave's tennis sessions. I also bought the pictured reusable sanitary pad for myself. I have used a menstrual Mooncup for almost fourteen years now and wouldn't be without it, but it sometimes can't cope with a heavy first night so I backed it up with a disposable pad. I never considered reusable pads, but now discover dozens of pretty examples available on Etsy. My one is made by Ecosewer and I am very pleased with it.

Then I got crafting! I crocheted reusable produce bags from cotton I already owned. Pictured below, the red and pink net one is for fruit and veg, the yellow one to transport Fresh Soap bars home from their shop in Torquay, and the little blue one is a soap saver pouch making soap bars usable right to their very ends. It works as a great exfoliator too!

I baked crackers from this Kitchn recipe. They taste good and were ridiculously easy - and cheap - to make. I just need more practice on rolling them out evenly.

I made toothpaste from this Treading My Own Path recipe. The glass bottles of glycerine, peppermint oil and clove oil did all have plastic lids and the glass pipette came in a plastic blister pack, but the bicarb was in a cardboard box! I think plastic usage will become less after two tubes worth. The toothpaste will become cheaper than my commercial brand after three tubes worth and, after nearly a week of use, I have already noticed my gums are less red and have stopped bleeding when I brush.

I already regularly make my own Sunflower Seed Milk for our daily porridge. This has more than halved our milk consumption keeping three tetrapacks (with plastic screw caps) out of our recycling each week. The laundry powder I made last year is still going strong too - from that original batch of ingredients!

Crocheted produce and soap bags 

Spotting the plastic that does still creep in has been discouraging, but at least I am now very aware of it and look around for alternatives. Having had no response from Silver Spoon to my e-mail asking why only demerara sugar is sold in plastic - white sugar being packed in paper - I bought a jar of honey. I now put honey on my porridge and in my herbal teas thereby stretching our sugar usage. I've seen local Devon honey for sale since so will make sure to buy that in future.

No response from Clipper or from Heath And Heather to my querying the plastic content of their teabags either - so I am assuming that means yes, their ostensibly paper teabags do contain strengthening plastic. I often wondered why teabag 'skeletons' remained in the compost when we had our veg garden - now I know. Plastic! I already own these brew baskets and an actual pottery teapot so, once our current tea is used up, I plan to take the loose tea route from now on. I just need to find loose tea that is Not sold in plastic bags!

What are your Plastic Free successes? Use the #PlasticFreeJuly hashtag to find great ideas and global support across most social media platforms!

Three Greeting Cards shipped and new crochet motifs for sale

A Christmas Carol greeting card - SOLD!

I enjoyed another walk into Wellswood this morning to post my latest Etsy sale, this pretty Literary Greeting Card which features text from A Christmas Carol embellished with a hand crocheted lilac star. The card is now on its way to Guildford. On Friday I posted two more cards, these ones featuring Wuthering Heights text and going to Slovenia where the winner of last week's Literary Flits Giveaway lives. I haven't got a Giveaway as such running this week as we are preparing to depart on our next European Caravan Adventure. Instead, my current and imminent Wednesday 'giveaway' posts feature books that can be downloaded for free - essentially a giveaway where everyone can win!

Seat cushions for sale until Tuesday evening! 

We depart for Poole in Dorset on Thursday morning and I will be taking almost all my Etsy shop stock with me as it doesn't need much space. I can curl up on my bench seat and crochet the long dark evenings away! This means you will still be able to buy from me throughout the winter, the only difference being that UK customers will need to allow an extra couple of days for post to arrive from France or Spain. I won't be transporting the four dining chair cushions around with us though because they are too big and could get damaged so if you had your eye on any of these, you have only got until tomorrow evening to do so! Then I will deactivate the listings until we return to the UK in April.

Tiny orange and cream crochet stars 

I have been increasing my crocheted motif stocks this week, adding more sparkly red hearts, black and silver stars, and bright blue flowers amongst others. The plan was to have made at least 50 of all the shapes for which I have sufficient cotton before we set out. That might not quite be possible as I need to schedule a fortnight of book review posts too! I made a new motif variant too - tiny orange and cream stars which are just 7/8 inch across. In technical parlance they are 'a bit of a faff' to make, but look gorgeous as cardmaking embellishments. The tiny stars are £2 for 10. There are currently 60 available and I have enough cotton to probably make about 200 altogether. Let me know if you want them!

Wuthering Heights greeting cards going to Slovenia 

I've crocheted cosy new hats and look at this flowers vest!

Sparkly green crocheted beanie hat 

This week in crochet has been all about hats and I now have five winter beanies listed in my Etsy shop for your delectation, the newest of which is this sparkly green number. The colour is perfect for the runup to Christmas and you could bring it out again for St Patrick's Day next year too! I have also made a two-tone grey striped beanie and and am particularly proud of the dark grey one with red trim and heart pictured below. If you're in the UK and want to buy any of my creations, please note that we will be off on our travels again in a couple of weeks time. I will therefore be posting items from France or Spain so they might take a few days longer to arrive. Post to anywhere else in the world shouldn't be noticeably different - except for France or Spain, of course, which could well be quicker than advertised!

Dark grey beanie with red heart 

Crocheted stars 

I've had only one Etsy order to share with you this week, another custom request which, this time, was for thirty-five little crocheted stars. They're on their way to Minneapolis right now! These stars used up the last of the sparkly sand-coloured cotton which I didn't expect to be so popular. I will try and find more when we get to Spain, but in the meantime I have forty white star card toppers / appliques listed and ten black-and-silver ones. I can make lots more of the black-and-silver.

Do you remember the custom order I had for crocheted flowers last month? Well my customer got in touch yesterday to show me photographs of the vest top she created with them. Isn't it beautiful?! The top itself is knitted and the crocheted flowers are stitched together into panels. I love seeing how my motifs are incorporated into other designs!

Crocheted flower vest top 

If you're a crafty soul who is thinking about opening their own Etsy shop, I can help reduce the potential cost for you! Clicking through This Link Here will get us both 40 free listings, a saving of 8 US dollars. Of course you'll still need to pay Etsy when your items sell, but at least the upfront costs are minimised!

And finally, don't forget to enter my Handmade Greeting Cards giveaway over on Literary Flits this week. It's open until midnight (UK time) on Wednesday 9th November and there's a pair of cards of the winner's choice on offer. Good luck!

Handmade Greetings Cards 

Three more Etsy orders and a couple of crafty giveaways!

Friday was a inspiring day as I made two sales of handmade items from my Etsy shop bringing my total sales for October up to eight. Firstly I sold ten little green and yellow crocheted cotton flowers and was pleased to see that they were going to a customer who has bought from me previously. In fact two of my October buyers have returned to buy again which is wonderfully encouraging so a huge thanks to each of them!
I have another ten of these particular 1.25 inch flowers available if anyone wants them, and the same size in other colours too.

Later in the day another email popped with details of two hiviz earwarmer headbands ordered to go to a brand new customer, this one in Maryland, USA. Seeing my work discovered by new people is exciting too!

I thought these headbands would be perfect for winter jogging and dogwalking, especially as the evenings draw in and visibility becomes even more important. I now only have one available though so be quick if you would like it. The hiviz yarn was bought in Spain during our last travels and I don't know if I will find any more. If not, I do have an vivid orange beanie for sale too. Everyone will see this hat!

Then Saturday dawned with yet another order for little crocheted flowers, this time bright blue ones, and I actually sold all my stock! I was kept busy making up more though so there are now twenty back in my shop.

Plus I've listed some more literary greetings cards including some with detachable crocheted bookmarks - a card and a gift in one envelope! And if you happen to be browsing my Literary Flits blog from about noon tomorrow, you might just notice a new Greetings Cards Giveaway popping up! Don't forget this week's giveaway for a Crocheted Mandalas craft book is still open for entries until midnight tomorrow too!

New Little Women bookmark card 

New A Christmas Carol bookmark card 

A Christmas Carol cards now in stock and enter my Xmas Cards Giveaway!

Little Women christmas card - SOLD!

I was amazed to realise that a whole week has already gone by since I posted about celebrating two sales from my Etsy shop. Doesn't time fly when you're not paying attention! In that time I have also now sold the first of my handmade greetings cards - thank you Paula! - and have received the parcel of yarns with which to make up a custom order of crocheted flowers I mentioned. It's going to be a busy week getting them all made up!

Today I made ten new Christmas cards from a 1950s edition of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I love a good ghost story for Christmas and this has to be the best. It felt great to be giving an old, worn book a new lease of life too, especially the few gorgeous John Leech illustrations I salvaged.

A Christmas Carol greeting card 

All the Christmas Carol cards I have made so far are now listed for your perusal along with others featuring part-pages from vintage Wuthering Heights, Little Women and The Yellow Wallpaper editions. I hope you like them! They are mostly £2.50 each, but if you just can't decide which ones you want to buy, I have also created a '5 for £10' listing. That's 20% off the single card price which, if I may say so, is an absolute bargain! Just be sure to use the Notes To Seller box to let me know the five cards you want.

And I you want a couple of my handmade cards, but don't want to pay for them then you are definitely reading the right blog post! I am currently running a giveaway over on Literary Flits and thought I would extend it over here too. The prize is the winner's choice of two cards from my shop.

2x Literary Greetings Cards giveaway

The Giveaway is open worldwide and previous giveaway winners are welcome to enter. Entries must be submitted through the Gleam widget by midnight (UK time) on the 19th October and I will randomly pick a winner on the 20th. If the winner does not respond to my email within 7 days, they will forfeit the prize and, yes, I will be checking that entrants did complete whatever task they said they did.

Good luck!

 

 

I'm celebrating two Etsy sales this week!

Book sleeves - SOLD!

I love creating items for my Etsy shop and it's even more fun when other people love my stuff too - especially when they buy! This is why I am absolutely delighted to have sold three items this week. It's so encouraging and a great confidence boost.

My first sale was for two hand woven book sleeves which are now travelling all the way to South Carolina, USA. Then, yesterday evening, I got another magic 'Etsy Order Confirmation' email and a crocheted raindrop beanie hat will soon be on its way to Sutton!

Beanie hat - SOLD! 

I am also awaiting a yarn shipment for a custom order from a customer who last month bought 10 little crocheted flowers and would like me to make up another eighty-five for her! How wonderful is that?

I am sure you are all now thinking how you can join in this exciting trend? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway! It's as simple as clicking through This Link Here to my shop, adding items you love to your virtual basket and completing the checkout process. Shipping is just £1.50 per order within the UK (£2.25 within Europe, £3 to the Rest of the World)(except cushions) regardless of how many items you buy.

And to tempt you further, here's a few of my favourite items for sale right now ...

Wuthering Heights Bookmark Greetings Card, £3

Little Women Christmas Greetings Card, £2.50

Hand woven purple Book Sleeve, £8

Crocheted pink Water Bottle Bag, £6

I'm feeling right at home with my Coniston Crafts jigsaw!

Did you read my post last week about winning all those packs of Roots vegetable crisps? Well, my competition entering flurry was also successful on Facebook! I won the pictured handmade wooden jigsaw word ornament from Coniston Crafts. The prize was to have any word created and I wanted 'home' for our new flat. I chose blue and grey for the colour scheme because this tones with several pieces of our new furniture. I think my 'Home' looks fab on our mantelpiece and the grey perfectly matches our revamped vintage mirror. My prize took about two weeks to be created, painted and shipped to me which I thought was pretty good. It arrived beautifully packed too with absolutely no chance of being damaged in transit.

Coniston Crafts is a small woodworking business based in Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, and run by two friends who create pretty and unique gifts with wood and paint. Most of the jigsaw words they create are name signs, but they also have a practical range of small storage boxes and a child-sized Time Out Chair. I've 'borrowed' a few images from the Coniston Crafts Etsy shop to give you an idea of their work. Click on any of the pictures to be taken to the shop!

Ted Hughes poetry at Stover Country Park and tea at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen

I spotted the name Ted Hughes on the Stover Country Park

sign board as we drove past on the way to Trago Mills a week or so ago. Loving his book The Iron Man as a child, I was keen to discover the advertised Poetry Trail within the Park as well as the Park itself.

Stover Country Park is now owned and managed by Devon County Council, but its history goes back several centuries. Young orphan James Templer ran away to sea to make his fortune - and actually succeeded! Returning in 1765, he purchased an 80,000 acre estate on the edge of Dartmoor and had Stover House (which is now an independent school) built for him and its extensive grounds landscaped. Much of the original grounds is what now forms the 114 acres of the Park. Run as a local nature reserve, it comprises woodland, grassland, heathland, lake and marsh which provide differing habitats for both resident wildlife and visitors. The 14 acre lake is one of the main features. In the early 1900s it was a popular skating spot in winter.  This no longer happens though and, now, the lake is so important for dragonflies that it was designated a site of Special Scientific Interest in 2002. We spotted varied types of dragonfly including vivid blue ones and bright scarlet ones!

The Ted Hughes Poetry Trail was created in 2006. The large

River through Stover Country Park 

wooden book sculpture pictured above lists the sixteen poems that can be found by following a loop walk through the Park. The whole walk is about two miles, but this can be shortened if wanted. Selected poems are displayed on tall wooden columns and my favourites were The Kingfisher and Work And Play. Ironically, the column for poem number thirteen, an extract from The Iron Man (a story about a giant), is actually being slowly destroyed by the tiniest of creatures. There must be an ants' nest nearby and we watched them eating away at the wood!

I think our favourite facilities at the park is a short section of woodland aerial walkway along which we walked up to five metres above ground. We were delighted by a very tame squirrel which posed for photographs, then when we got to the farthest side of the walkway a loitering wildlife photographer told us he had seen a Great Spotted Woodpecker coming to a conveniently hung bird feeder. We waited briefly and it returned, twice, in a flurry of black, white and red. It was taking food from the feeder and then stashing it in bark cracks for later. Unfortunately the many squirrels knew this and, apparently, often nicked the food soon after it was hidden! From the walkway we also saw a Jay and a Nuthatch.

After our couple of hours at Stover Country Park (£1.50 for

Former coach house that is now the
Devon Guild of Craftsmen 

2 hours parking!), we drove to Bovey Tracy and the fantastic Devon Guild of Craftsmen gallery and shop. It turns out there is a lot of work by Devon craftswomen too! We started out in the Terrace Cafe from which I can highly recommend the Chocolate Date, Almond And Olive Slice and I was quite envious of Dave's beautifully light Carrot Cake too. The Terrace Cafe is upstairs with great views across to Dartmoor from its outside, err, terrace!

Back downstairs again, we admired an exhibition of prints by Devon wood engraver Hilary Paynter. She had taken aging bikers as her subjects for one humorous range of prints, and there were more sobering images illustrating dementia and a dwindling class photograph.

The Guild's shop is a dangerous place! Crafts range from

pottery and leatherworking to glassware and millinery. There is furniture, tableware, clothing, jewellery, art and sculpture, and so beautifully laid out that it is hard to come away empty handed. I nearly managed, but did buy Just A Card. The Devon Guild of Craftsmen is certainly somewhere I could return to again and again and the Guild was even advertising for cafe staff. How perfect would that job be?! It's probably a good thing that our new Torquay base isn't exactly commutable. All my wages would go on cake and precious things!

We visit Cockington Court country park and craft centre

We met up with our artist friend Marta yesterday

ROC Creative wedding dress displayed at
Cockington Court 

afternoon. She is on a flying visit to the UK and suggested that we might like to spend some time together at Cockington Court. We had seen the Torbay attraction advertised, but hadn't yet got around to visiting so were happy to take up her idea. As it was a sunny afternoon we decided to walk in from the outskirts of Torquay, parking up near to the station and following a very pretty open woodland path into the Court grounds. Our alternative, which I had already checked via a Twitter conversation, was to park onsite. This is reasonably priced at £1 per hour up to three hours and £4.50 for over three hours (exact change needed for the machines). Cockington Court has been extensively renovated, part paid for by the European Development Fund, but still retains a real air of history and reminded of Alfriston - a historic village near to where we used to live in Sussex.

We started our visit with a drink at The Drum Inn which

The Drum Inn, Cockington 

was built in 1936 and sports a blue plaque outside because it was designed by architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. The coffee is pretty good and Marta was pleased they had St Austell Brewery's Proper Job beer on tap.

Outside we could see picturesque thatched cottages and a water wheel being repaired as we walked by. The number of ice cream shops and tea rooms gave us an idea of just how busy Cockington Court must get in the height of summer, but it was pleasantly tranquil on a weekday May afternoon. There are over twenty artisan studios whose windows we peered into. I loved the gorgeous colours at OurGlass glassblowers workspace and was tempted by the four-tiered chocolate-covered cakes at Cockington Chocolate Company - almost worth getting married for, except I wouldn't want to share!

Cockington Court house 

Leaving the studios behind, we crossed the windy cricket

Stairwell window 

pitch towards Cockington Court house itself. Apparently a thriving Saxon community in 1066, Cockington was seized and passed to a conquering Norman family, the FitzMartins, who promptly changed their name to deCockington. The family remained until 1375 when they sold the estate to Sir John Cary. A Chief Baron of Exchequer, his family owned the estate continuously, despite beheadings and forced exiles, until they were ruined by the civil war. Exeter goldsmith Roger Mallock bought Cockington Court in 1654 and also, later, Torquay's Torre Abbey. The beautiful stained glass window here features stylised 'M' letters which I presume were for Mallock. William Of Orange was met on British shores at the quay by a Rawlyn Mallock in 1688 and this third family continued to live here until 1933.

Cockington might no longer be a place for making history,

Cockington church 

but echoes of its past are everywhere - even the church has real battlements! Nowadays, the emphasis is s on art and creativity and we were lucky to catch a ROC Creative art exhibition in the Kitchen Gallery. Entitled Memories, its publicity poster indicated it should have finished in April so I don't know for how much longer it will continue, but the work was still on show as of the 17th of May and included the gorgeous wedding dress illustrated in the first photo at the top of this post. ROC Creative is an inclusive arts-led project supporting people with learning difficulties. The Wedding Dress was originally created as part of an exhibition to commemorate 200 years of Singer (of sewing machine fame). Artists were given plain white cotton cloth and asked to create a garment that evoked a significant personal memory. ROC Creative's dress is transfer printed with photographs important to the members and staff who wanted to take part.

As Cockington Court was closing for the day as we left the Kitchen Gallery, we started back through the village and along the pretty path. Our entertainment wasn't quite finished though because Dave expertly crossed the stream and back balancing on a sloping fallen tree!

A circus career beckons?