Thrifty Swap parcel from Michela

My Thrifty Swap parcel from Michela of A Garden just outside Venice was a real treat! Even before I opened it I was charmed by the lace tape - LACE TAPE!!! Where can I get me some?

Then I spotted one of Michela's beautiful postcards inside. Oh, Michela always sends beautiful postcards, I sighed... Then I noticed that the package was FULL of beautiful postcards, so now I am also the owner of beautiful postcards, but, do you know the difference between me and Michela? She SENDS her beautiful postcards to people and I'm going to keep mine all to myself! Ha!

I got quite worried about my internal monologue at that point, but then fortunately was distracted by a parcel of beautiful embroidered cloths and a pillowcase. Good timing, Michela!

And all of it wrapped in one Mr Berlusconi's publications - I suppose it could be one of his, or does he just have TV interests? I later had fun reading about the Royal Wedding plans in Italian. The article was all about Kate not promising to obey, or at least I think it was...

And inside it was this beautiful candlestick, made and hand painted... Just Outside Venice... in the 1950s! Oh Michela, it really is perfect.It has found a home already, although since I took this photo I've also changed the photo and added a second French blue and white flowered candlestick on the right.Did I mention the traditional Venetian licorice pastelles Michela also sent? They are delicious and I love the wrapping (of course). And delightfully, I'm the only person in the house who likes licorice!

Thanks so much to Michela, and to Betty of Mrs Yappy Dog, who organised such an excellent Thrifty Week and Swap.

Thrifty Swap!

We had a great Thrifty Week, just before Easter, hosted by Betty at Mrs Yappy Dog. Now it's time to post about the Thrifty Swaps that a lot of us exchanged as part of that week. I was both delighted and challenged to be swapping with the delightful Michela from A Garden Just Outside Venice. Delighted, because we've known each other for years and both suffer from swap paranoia, so there's no need to be worried when your co-swapper panics too... Challenged, because although she's a good blogging friend I am a vintage person and she (having parents who run brocante stalls) prefers to buy new!I concluded that food was the answer. Isn't it always? The two jars above are filled with thrifty hedgerow-gathered fruit. It wasn't all as difficult to gather as the plums photographed below! When she got the parcel, Michela emailed me to ask for more info about English jams and jellies. The basic answer is that jams have bits of fruit in, and jellies are strained so that only the juice is turned into the final product. She emailed back with the query about jellies being used with meat. Ahh, Michela, good question! This jelly is for your bread or toast. But some jellies, made in the same way, are indeed for eating with meat. Would any commenters be prepared to explain the difference, please?

I covered the thrifty hedgerow jellies, in their thrifty re-used jars, made by my thrifty husband, with thrifty fabric covers, held on by thrifty re-used rubber bands from our seasonal asparagus. Is that too much information?

I then added a thrifted Japanese hand-painted plate, which Michela and I agree is particularly pretty (glad you like it, Michela!). The idea is that she can have her bread and jam with the gifted plate and the knife, which actually belonged to my mum and is one I used in childhood for my own bread and jam!

Finally I wrapped all the presents in bubble wrap and then in thrifted napkins. I like wrapping things in fabric, which then becomes part of the gift itself. Pretty thrifty, I think. I bought a huge set of these cheery retro napkins in the charity shop the other day and kept half for myself and half for Michela. Now when we use them I'll think of her having her dejeuner sur l'herbe in her garden just outside Venice!

j

Thanks so much to Betty for organising the excellent Thrifty Week and Swap, and to everyone who took part with such interesting posts. Many thanks to Michela, whose blog is subtitled: 'A place where friends meet' - that's certainly what this swap has felt like!

Thrifty Week - Green Credentials

Whether by accident or design, being thrifty usually manages to end up being good for the environment too. Elizabethd and her husband are busy reducing tap-water consumption in northern France. Mrs Yappy Dog is reusing empty lemonade bottles. Jenevieve is making cloth nappies while waiting for a new arrival (and yes, cloth nappies nowadays really work brilliantly - you can forget those old Terries!). So thrift means reduce and reuse (recycle is the poor third relation in the Green Threesome - you don't need to recycle much if you reduce and reuse enough...) So here are a few of my thrifty ways which are also good for the environment - two old favourites and one real newbie! Firstly, cloth napkins are cheaper and more environmentally friendly than paper napkins or kitchen roll. And boy, do they look good for those who love vintage style! This is a snapshot of what's on our table at the moment - a rare example of all four of us having the same design. The boys usually complain when we all have the same napkins - they like the eclectic collections I build up and sort by colour. In my drawers I have a red set, a green set, a yellow/beige set and a blue set. Sorting by colours is enough to bring the disparate odds and ends I pick up in charity shops together. Washing and ironing them is no big deal - shirts are hard to iron, but squares of fabric are a doddle. I think we meet the criteria for style, convenience, thrift and creation-care with these napkins. I hope you agree!

The second old-favourite is using kitchen cloths instead of kitchen roll. I do keep a roll of paper for really nasty disasters (vomit-related, normally) but in the kitchen is a 'set' of blue cloths (some microfibre, some cut-up T-shirts) and in the utility room is 'the rest' - mankier cloths of all colours that can be used on the floor and for dusting. We help ourselves to them just as we would with kitchen roll, and then throw the cloths into a washing bin in the kitchen. I don't like them lying around damp waiting for re-use - they do breed bacteria. So I uses them once and wash them regularly. It works.

This baby is the new thrifty/green addition to our life - I bought it with some Christmas money. It's a steam mop - no more shopping for floor cleaning products! The hot steam disinfects as it removes the dirt, and the floor dries pretty quickly as it the water is so hot. If you need to really disinfect an area (this is the patch under the stairs where the dog eats and sleeps, so as you can see it gets truly grubby), you just leave the mop in one place for nine seconds and the steam kills all known germs - dead, or whatever those cleaning products promise. As Mrs Yappy Dog mentioned the other day, it's a bit odd to have really clean floors without a really clean smell - you KNOW your floor is clean if it stinks of pine - but that's something I'm getting used to. I bought mine, in true British fashion, at Lakeland Ltd.

j

Do visit Mrs Yappy Dog to pick up more tips and links for Thrifty Week. And have a look at my prayer for our children, below - there's a story attached to today's post - synchronicity is happening!

Thrifty Week - Baking

One of the things that you notice when you try to price up home made cakes for a cake stall (been there, done it...) is that home baking is actually not a very thrifty activity. If you really charged what that hand-iced coffee and walnut cake was worth, in terms of ingredients and time, unfortunately, most buyers would refuse to stump up. I gather it's the same for hand-crafted goods, and all this is rather a shame. However, of course that doesn't stop us baking, because both the process and the results are well worth it - things may cost a bit more than mass-processed versions in the shops, but they were fun and satisfying to make, and way better to eat!

Last week I cleared space in my freezer and used an unusually empty afternoon to bake for Holy Week and Easter. First I made hot cross buns for Good Friday...

I got to thinking about how I shop thriftily for home baking. My first rule seems to be: buy the cheapest ingredients, and if they turn out to be good, stay with them, but if they turn out to be rubbish, upgrade next time. This means that I buy budget flour, sugar, raisin and butter, but pay more for better quality spices and eggs - with eggs it's an ethical choice as well as a quality one, of course. I bake with cocoa powder but not too much real chocolate, as I don't like to buy rubbish chocolate and the good quality Fair Trade stuff I buy is really only for special occasion baking at the price! So I suppose that's my second thrifty baking tip - choose your recipes according to what you can afford, and what is easily available in the country you're living in. Brits bemoan the cost of imported Golden Syrup in France, and Americans mourn the lack of Hershey's Kisses! So, find recipes that don't use them...

Next thrifty tip, which I stole wholeheartedly from Cath Kidston - cover battered recipe books in offcuts of oilcloth! Oh, I did enjoy doing this, and have enjoyed using the books ever since! They're easier to find on the shelves now, too.

Here's the Simnel cake, minus its marzipan topping, which I'm going to put on when it comes out of the freezer before Easter. The last trick I use is to decide which ingredients are essential and which ones I can replace with cheaper alternatives. Self-raising flour is available in France but just as expensive as the British version. I seive in the appropriate amount of baking powder with my budget flour. Currants are really expensive here (quick lesson in etymology: they are called Raisins de Corinth, pronounced 'corrant' which shows you where we get the English word currant). Therefore I usually substitute cheap raisins/sultanas for the mixed fruit or currants in any recipe. It's not quite the same but this way I can afford to bake.
j

Do pop over to see Mrs Yappy Dog for her advice and links to all the other Thrifty Week posts, and please also feel free to have a look at my daily prayer for our children, below...

Thrifty Week - Clothes Shopping in France

I'm joining in with Betty's Thrifty Week again, and continuing to post on the theme of Thrifty Living in Foreign Climes. Today I wanted to post about where I buy clothes. I have some serious criteria for clothes shopping, so here goes:

• our clothes should be good quality and last well, at least for adults - the boys grow out of their clothes so fast that it's less important for them!



• our clothes should good for the environment



• our clothes should not bought from people who ran sweatshops to make them



• we should look good in them!

Because cheaply bought new clothes are usually neither good-quality, good for the environment, nor fairly traded, I try to buy second-hand as much as possible. It's the 'reuse' part of 'reduce, reuse and recycle' and it works!

However, both the practicalities and the thrill of Charity Shopping seemed lost to me when we moved to France. I was actually speaking to a French mum this Saturday who commented: 'Of course, in England you have all those great little Charity Shops on the high street...' and we both got quite nostalgic over them. But there are Charity Shops in France, if you know where to look for them - you won't find them on the high street! They are big warehouses, more like the American Goodwill, I think, and they are on small trading estates, often near to the organic supermarkets, which is quite convenient... Why not ake a tour of one of my two regular Charity Shops with me here?

The other thing that the French really excell at is the town-wide second hand sale. These are called braderies or even, locally, the Troc Broc Sold, which probably inspired my blog's name! They are incredibly complicated affairs (see photo of the volunteers above), which I have explained here, but money is made for charity and good quality clothes are sold to the benefit of the donors (so better than a jumble sale, in that way). At the biannual Troc Broc Sold this weekend, which is where I got chatting to the French mum about Charity Shops, I bought enough shorts to last both boys all summer. I bought less for myself - my tastes and figure remain resolutely British, so I always do better in Charity Shops when visiting my father!

j

It's not possible to buy all our clothes second hand, of course, and whilst at first I had no idea where to buy cheap but decent clothes and shoes for the boys in France, over the years I've learned a lot, and now spend most of my 'new clothes' money at Decathlon, the major sports dealer which also runs fantastic 'Trocathlon' events twice a year - you've guessed it - second hand sports equipment sales! Once you get to know a country, you can find some very good thrifty deals. Just don't expect it to work the way your country of origin does...

j

Below is my second prayer for our children. Do have a look if you have children of your own, and want to be praying for them - maybe it will be of some use!

Thrifty Week - Vide Grenier in the South of France

This week the friendly and hospitable Betty is hosting Thrifty Week, over at Mrs Yappy Dog. Do go and visit her for thrifty tips and links to the other participants! My plan is to post daily (we'll see how that goes!) on the theme of Thrifty Living in Foreign Climes, as it's both interesting and challenging to change countries and continue to live a thrifty life. Another blogger who is good example of this kind of challenge is Juanita Tortilla, who has moved from Singapore to Switzerland, via the USA, and all on a tight budget.

Well, I know a lot of you want to know how the first of the spring-time Vide Greniers are going - my book review of The Flea Markets of France prompted a lot of encouragement for me to get shopping! Readers, I accepted your challenge! So this first Thrifty Post is a bit frivolous - it's about thrifting for vintage French treasures, rather than anything more practical. I promise the occasional bit of good sense in forthcoming Thrift Week posts, honest.

Yesterday was the really rather marvellous annual Vide Grenier at Bon Repos. Bon Repos is a lovely (but fast-growing) traditional village which completely closes down its streets once a year and invites brocante sellers and locals to set up their stalls. You get families selling off their outgrown clothes and toys next to dealers in French antiques. It's a car boot sale without the cars, a garage sale grown up and gone mad! My first success was at the stall pictured above, which always has a lovely blue velvet tablecloth. I have nicknamed this stall 'Two Fat Ladies', after the UK cookery show of the same name, but this year it has gone a step up and is now 'Three Fat Ladies', one of whom remained asleep throughout my lengthy conversations with her friends. I bought the bedraggled heap of lace from them, having spent ages sorting out the handmade from the grot, and then felt inspired to ask the price of the monogrammed apron. It really isn't usually worth asking, as I am indeed a thrifty shopper, and embroidered monograms are really out of my price range, even when stained as this one was. But to my delight, the chatty stall-holder told me she'd give it to me for just 2 euros! It is good to spend time sorting and chatting, because I think the stall-holders feel they've had their money's-worth out of a foreigner who takes time to look at their stock and tells them where she comes from and how much she likes French vintage. You quickly learn the ones who will take advantage of that and charge you silly money, and as my friendly Fat Ladies proved, not every dealer is like that.

So, I bought one stained linen apron (I do know an MJ, but he's a Martin, and I don't see him in the apron...), a bundle of lace, some of it very fine indeed but you need to know your stuff to recognise that, and I only barely do, and a fantastic load of vintage wooden, plastic and mother of pearl buttons from another really friendly stall-holder, this time a house-owner doing a clear-out.

When I got home I soaked the apron in Vanish, washed it overnight with the lace in a little net bag, and put everything on the line in the sunshine, hoping for the best as regards the stains...

It looks like Vanish plus sunshine wins again!

Oh, look at that. Really quite impractical, but do you love it as much as I do? So that's my first post for Thrifty Week. No one needs French vintage, but I derive an enormous satisfaction from living somewhere where I can buy it thriftily! It takes time - as with any kind of second hand shopping you can't expect to go to a Vide Grenier and find everything you need/want first time around. This kind of thrifty shopping requires a williness to wait for good things...

Below you'll find the first of my Holy Week posts - I'm writing a prayer for my children each day, and I hope that if you have children you might also find the prayers useful for your thoughts and concerns regarding them.