Draughts, Checkers, TicTacToe, Noughts and Crosses

Call them what you will but I think they are great games.  Easy to play even if you don't have a bought board.  TicTacToe can be played in the dirt with a stick, use paper and pencil or a board with the noughts and crosses or different coloured *pieces*

I haven't played these games for a long time but recently thought that they would be good games to teach the grandkid.  We don't have a board in the house here though so how could I teach her Draughts/Checkers...I know.  I'd make the game, using whatever I had around here.
What did I have around here?  ummm, Some lids from husbands Coke habit, cardboard box, a no longer needed wooden lid...

First off I had to choose my weapon.  OK, not a weapon but a saw to use.  So many and I had no idea which would be best so tried a few and decided on a pretty red one.

I smashed the handle off the lid with a small hammer, cut the edge off the board to square it up, found some sandpaper and made it smooth and clean.

Get the lids to make sure that the board was the right size.  I seem to have plenty of red ones but will need to look for some other colours as I need 12 of each.

I found a spraycan of silver paint so decided that I wanted a silver board.  A couple of coats of paint, measure up so I have 9  squares and there you, or in this case I, have it.  A TicTakToe board.  And as you can see below, I beat myself so I won.

 The draughts side was harder, I had to use my brain and work out how big the squares needed to be to fit in 64 same size ones.   Managed that and used a permanent marker to draw them in.

I was going to colour the squares in with a marker but couldn't find the thick one I wanted so thought that paint would work just as well even if it did mean a bit more work. I found some black paint but not the foam brush I wanted.  Husband suggested a stamp and made me one from a potato.  It worked OK so with using that and a small brush I  now have a finished game-board.  I have since found the foam brush, hohumm, not sure why I don't put things away where they go.

It's a long way from being perfect.  A long way from being good but it will do what I want it to and it is finished and usable.  If I waited for perfect the grandkid would have a job and could buy one. 

I have a black drawstring bag that I got from the free market and this board and all the pieces fit in that.  The bigger board that I intend making will also fit as will the chess pieces so that free bag that I was unsure what to use for will be a bargain buy for sure.

I have an idea on making the chess pieces so might work on those over the next month or so.  I'm going to make a bigger board as well, one that will use lids from milk bottles.  It saves stuff from the rubbish, gives me something to do and will keep me off the streets.

Made More Soap...Kinda.

I made soap with the daughter a while ago, she

uses hers for everything but I haven't tried mine yet so can't say what it's like.

With the decluttering that I have been doing I found  

 a bag of soap-ends in a plastic bag in the bottom of a cupboard, they have been there for quite a few years and I have always intended to melt them down and  mold them into more soap chunks.

Last week I finally made a start.

I chose ends that were a similar light peachy colour, put them in a pot with a bit of water and sat them on the stove to soften.  I added some orange zest, hoping it would add a nice smell.

Once it was all soft I used the old beaters to mix it all together then plonked it in a container to set.

Tipped it out the next day and sliced it.  I think I sliced it too thin though and will cut the next lot thicker.

It is now spread out on a tray to dry.  If it looks like it will turn out OK then I will do the rest in a week or two.

The orange smell is not very strong but the soap looks pretty good.  We will use it but I will also make some more real stuff when I get around to collecting everything I need. 
Next time we do a pig I will keep the fat as I'd like to try and make some with that as I think that would be a good use of what we usually just feed to the chooks.  I'd also like to make some with different oils but need to collect the ingredients together first and that might take a while seeing as I hate buying stuff!

I will also use some of the soap scraps to make up some more laundry powder as I know I don't have much left.  I don't use it often but do like to have some on hand for when needed for Hubby's work clothes.

I Made Bread.

I used daughter L's recipe and even though it is a white loaf it was alright.
The bread was crusty on the outside but light and soft inside.  It wasn't very high but I *may* have put it in the oven too soon.


But it was made from scratch, no bread machine here.
Next time I will use wholemeal flour and add stuff but this, with some Choko Pickle and cheese, made a nice lunch. 

We had it with Tomato soup, shhh, out of a can!  But Hubby like it.   Next time I will  take some soup out of the freezer so it will be better.
I am going to try the *Five Minute* bread but this one was quick and easy to put together so I'll see if one is better than the other.

I'll ask L if she minds me putting the recipe here and if she doesn't I'll add it

I Made Soap.

Well, kinda.  I helped DD make soap.  We made the soap together.  Whatever way is was we did it.

We have both been wanting to for ages but you read about the dangers and it makes you a bit wary and you keep putting it off.  Because it's not safe.

Yeah, right.  It's just like anything else and of course there are things you need to be careful of but it's not like it's going to explode and blow your head off.   Unless maybe you did something stupid and weren't careful with the mixing but I think that a normal person with a bit of common sense should be OK with it.

The ingredients we used were all L's and as she wanted a Castil soap that she could use for anything they were pretty basic, Pure Olive Oil, water and the caustic soda.   It remains to be seen if we will be happy with this soap seeing as it only has Olive oil but our next batch will be a different recipe so we will be able to compare.

Weighing the water.

 

Adding the Caustic Soda to the water.

I had a turn mixing...

She had a turn mixing.

Pour it carefully into your mould.

Wrap it up and wait a couple of days before we can see what it looks like and then a  longer wait before we can use it.

But we both now have the confidence to make some for ourselves whenever we want to.

Neither of us has a Bamix or a stick blender strong enough to mix soap with and when Hubby heard that it would take a long time to mix before it was ready he made up a little mixer thing for us.  It goes in the cordless drill and worked a treat.

Washing Clothes.

I buy most of my clothing from op-shops.  We are also given some and recently I was given a bag of lovely things for the grandaughter.  The first thing I notice with these clothes is the smell.  And no, it's not a musty op-shop smell but the smell of laundry powder and/or fabric softener.

I don't like it.  I find that I need to wash these things a couple of times just to get rid of the *lovely scent*  And though I wash them in plain cold water there are always heaps of suds after these things have been in the machine.  This shows that most people either use too much powder in their machine or the things are not rinsed enough.  Either way, I think that less LP needs to be used.

Because I find that heavily scented, chemical filled smells make my Fibro worse I have been trying to cut way down on using anything *chemical*

So I don't use shampoo or conditioner, I don't use bought cleaning products, no perfumes etc. and I don't buy washing powder.  I don't think we need to use it to have clean clothes.  On the odd occasion that I do need to use soap to get something clean then I use a powder that I make myself or just rub the mark with laundry soap.

I use a twin tub washing machine and let the water run out onto the fruit trees so that is a good reason in itself to not use the chemical stuff.  Most of our clothes come out clean when washed only in cold water.  Hubby's things sometimes need a soak or a rub but rarely does anything of mine.  Yeah, it could be that I don't work as hard, it could be that I put things out to be washed before the dirt becomes ingrained, it could be because I wear black for dirty jobs...Whatever the reason, I find that my clothes come out clean enough. 

To make the powder that I use I grate a cake of yellow laundry soap and mix it with a cup of washing soda.  I have used the Bamix to chop the soap and that turns it into a much finer mix but I no longer have that.
I used to add some Borax as well but no longer do.  I would suggest you don't use that if you run the water onto gardens or lawn.

You don't need to use a lot of the mix, maybe a spoonful or 2,  but it does not *sud up* like the bought products. 

When I first started making my own laundry soap I added water to the mix and it was like a gloopy mix.  Many years ago I read somewhere about not adding the water and having the mix as a powder so I tried that.  I find it works as well but takes up a lot less room.

More Yummy Stuff.

We have been enjoying the Beetroot we made, having it with our lunch salads and as we had an excess of cucumber decided to have a go at doing something with them.

So what do you do with Cucumbers? Bread and Butter Pickles was what someone suggested and that turns out to be something that Hubby's family used to buy when he was a kid and he remembers liking it so we had to have a go.

Once again, so many different recipes and ways of doing it but we modified a couple and came up with one that turned out to taste really yum. So nice that I am going to do some Zucchini the same way and I know that the Zucchini hating husband will like them too... because I told him he would.

Not Wasting This Lot.

I have been growing Beetroot with the intention of pickling it for salads but as we don't have a gas stove and it's been too hot to light the woodfire and I am too slack...Some has been wasted.

Fed to the pig but still wasted.

Yesterday Hubby set the gas ring up outside and we did all this together. He is such a great guy.

Every recipe you look at is different and some seem quite complicated so we went for a basic mix of vinegar, sugar, cooking water and will see how it goes. I pickled beetroot once before but can't remeber what recipe I used and it was too vinegary, this one tasted OK so we will monitor it and see if any adjustments are needed for next time.