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Vegetable Garden
We ordered seeds from eden seeds online. They have a great variety and we wanted to get more than the local seedlings offered and also support the diverse amount of seeds in the world. It was very...
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Chook Pen
The bare basics. I started out with a stretch of lawn below our veggie patch. We wanted a decent size chook run. We initially got a lot of designs off the web but finally settled on a simple shed,...
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Seed Germinator
I had read that heat was the main trigger of seed germination. Soil has to be loose and light, so there is room for the roots between the soil particles. Water is important too but not so wet that it...
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Chook Pen 2
We finally got some chooks. It is great to see them wandering around. It has taken them a couple of days to get settled. When we released them in the pen they would not leave each others side. They...
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Rabbit Cage
We started designing this for timber. Some second hand Australian hardwood. When we priced this though it was pretty expensive. We investigated new steel and decided to use that instead. One of our...
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Soap Making
To begin with I did lots of reading. On the net, at the library. I was trying to get a handle on the chemical process. I also was a bit wary of using lye. In the end it turned out okay. The process...
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Soap Sliver Sponge
I like using up all the soap, especially when you have made the effort to make your own. Jamming them together each time you get a new soap sliver, or melting them down into a liquid soap base did not...
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Vegetable Garden 2 - Bird Netting And Shade Cloth
I wanted a structure to support bird netting and shade cloth. I needed to deter the birds that ate my bean leaves and the white moths that ate my broccoli. I put two 12 foot steel posts in and bolted...
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Childrens Wardrobe
I found this is one of Dad's sheds. He was using it for odds and ends, some tools and things. He was more than pleased to see it restored for his grand daughter. This is it in its original glory. A...
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Melamine Pantry
I first investigated flatpack pantries. We wanted a double door one to go in the bathroom for linen, shampoo, toilet rolls etc. They were about $220 - $300. My hippy/scottish ancestry kicked in and...
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Chook Pen 3 - Homemade Chook Feeders And Water
So this was my original concept. Based on what I had seen of commercial ones. You have a nice big storage of food, holes in the bottom and then have the bottom tray's sides higher than the holes. I...
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Homemade Ginger Beer Recipe
The picture above is my ginger beer plant. This is my recipe: 1/2 teaspoon dried yeast 1 dessert spoon raw sugar 1 dessert spoon ground ginger 300ml water Juice of 1/2 a lemon I mixed this all...
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Homemade Laundry Detergent
I was amazed at how easy this is. What a bargain also, you get 10 litres of goo for under $1 I would say. I still have plenty of ingredient left over to make more. It is very effective too. After...
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Vegetable Garden 3 - Raised Beds
This is the first raised bed assembled. We cut our corrugated iron about one foot wide. We then cut four 4*2 posts the same height. Bolting the iron to these posts we created a frame. We repeated the...
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Seed Germinator 2
We had priced commercial seeds germinators and hot houses and thought we could make our own. We had experimented with the concept here - Seed Germination and were wanting to expand it. We had a sheet...
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Seed Raising
Here we have a seed tray of Corn, Spinach, Snow peas and Marigolds We got our seeds germinated with our little hothouse. We put rows of seeds in this seed raising tray and sit it on the top, hottest...
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Childrens Dresser
This is another bit of furniture for our daughter. Here is the project of our first childrens wardrobe for her clothes. We picked up this dresser at a local garage sale for $10. The wood is in good...
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Alphabet Chart
I started looking through some of the commercial alphabet charts for kids. They seemed a bit tacky and weren't really australian. I decided to make my own. I was inspired by a notebook magazine...
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Butterfly Birthday Cake
Here is a picture of the slab sponge cake and template. I decided to buy a cake so that I could concentrate on the decorating and other aspects of the party. I ordered this slab from my local...
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Kids Painting Easel
These retail for $60+ We built this one for $11, it is bigger and better. A lot of people are not aware of the free stuff you can get. Surplus to our consumer society. I approached our local...
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Childrens Scrapbook Of Fascination
Our daughter is obsessed with dogs. Tiny pictures in magazines, glimpses in ads, barks from over the fence. These all result in an excited gasp and monkey sound. I now cut out any dogs and other...
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Restore Childrens Bike
We got this bike from our local tip. It was in poor condition, brakes broken, chain and body work rusted. It did have some redeeming qualities. First step was to take it all apart. We discarded the...
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Upsy Daisy Bed
The timber I got from my local reclaimed timber yard. A sheet of three ply and some 3x2 framing pine. You can see the nails and gyprock glue still on the wood. I ended up needing another length of...
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V8 Supercar Cake
I got a car shaped cake tin from our local party shop. I hired it for a week for $20. You can see the resulting cake in the picture (with the windscreen done, I got a bit keen before taking photos). I...
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In The Night Garden Birthday Cake
I bought three packets of plain sponge cakes, they were about 30 x 20cm each. Here you see two side by side with a layer of jam and cream. Here you see the jam and cream filled sponge base and the...
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Homemade Flashcards
Here is a small sample of the flashcards we made for our daughter. She is just stringing words together and gets frustrated trying to communicate sometimes. We thought she would learn quicker with...
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Easy Uncooked Playdough Recipe
Here is what you need: 2 Cups Plain Flour 4 Tablespoons Cream of Tartar 1 Cup Salt 2 Tablespoons Oil 2 Cups Boiling Water Food Colouring of your choice Mix all ingredients together in a bowl....
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Homemade Cubby House
This project was not an attempt to be frugal, it was one of those things I needed to do. In a retirement village I would like to remember this, my daughter enjoying it with her friends and my wifes...
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Homemade Cat's Scratching Post
This was another case of seeing what these cats scratching posts retail for and thinking "I can make that". I first cut out two squares for the base and top and rounded off the edges. This is ply I...
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Kid's Shopping List
The idea here is to make up a shopping list for your child when you go shopping. The benefits we have found are: Engages the child in the process, rather than just dragging them along. Preparing the...
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DIY Raised Garden Bed
This corrugated iron raised garden bed is a diy project made from mostly recycled materials. We set this up to grow vegetables and herbs. It is waist high, about 2.5m * 1.25m. This first picture shows...
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Flower Basket Birthday Cake
I started this birthday cake by baking some flower shaped butter biscuits on sticks. I then added some icing to decorate them as flowers. I got a double unfilled sponge cake from the supermarket....
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Sesame Street Cupcakes
These are the Sesame Street cup cakes I made up for my daughter's birthday party. First we have Cookie Monster cupcakes, then Ernie and Bert, then Elmo. Sesame Street was a big hit. I put them down...
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Homemade Ice Cream Birthday Cake
This is an easy, affordable and impressive ice cream birthday cake. The first thing I did was line a spring form cake tin with baking paper. I then used 3/4rd of a packet of plain chocolate biscuits...
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House Renovations 1 - Stormwater
We have recently purchased our first home. A humble little 2 bedroom fixer-upper. Let the renovations begin! We now have lots of Family Projects to do and all of them on our own house and garden. The...
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DIY Walk In Pantry
Here is our new walk in pantry. The inside is mostly completed, the steps we took are detailed below. Here is the kitchen of the house we are renovating. Those old cabinets were attached to the wood...
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Build A Colorbond Fence
Our new house had quite an overgrown garden. We cut down 10 of the 12 trees on the property. But 3 of these was privet so more weed than tree. See the photo above of the "fence" between us and one...
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Moving An Aluminium Garden Shed
Here is where we moved our aluminium garden shed. It was in the middle of the yard on a concrete slab. We moved the garden shed to the side of the yard on a crushed stone / roadbase foundation,...
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DIY Wooden Clothesline
On our new house block the old hills hoist was in the center of the yard. We wanted a more slimline clothesline to allow for open space for the kids. We gave the old Hills Hoist to our neighbour and...
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Homemade Hot Cross Buns
I thought hot cross buns were just for bakeries, I thought they would be difficult to make. It is a long process but I found it quite easy. See the results above, better than bought ones. They have a...
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4 Post Princess Bed
Here is the final result of our garage sale find. This 4 poster girls bed was fixed up and curtains added for a bed canopy. This is a dream set up for a girls bed suite. This is what we originally...
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Build A Compost Bin
We are planning our new vegetable garden. We hope to have raised beds ready for spring planting. To begin we thought we would build a compost bin. If we start with composting then we will have some...
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Pine Sleeper Raised Garden Beds
This is where we started for our raised bed vegetable garden made out of pine sleepers. Here we have weed matted a whole section at the end of our garden. Next we made the three raised vegetable beds....
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Ag Pipe Hoop Vegetable Netting
This is our version of the ag pipe hoop vegetable enclosure. Adding bird netting over the top of an ag-pipe hoop attached to star pickets. We started with 8 star pickets. The pipe goes inside the star...
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Chook Pen V2
Here is our latest chook pen design. This is our first chicken coop on our own property. Back in 2008 we built a chook pen but this was at a rental property. Pictured is the finished product with...
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DIY Picket Fence
A white picket fence has seeped into our culture. Maybe from movies from America. Maybe memories of grandparents places. Anyway, we now have our own. We started with some cypress posts. Laid out with...
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Replacing A Bearer
While restumping our house we came across this at the end of a bearer. This is common with older timber foundations. The weather has got in and dry rott has flaked the bearer away. So there is no...
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Replacing An Aluminium Window
Here is our new aluminium window fitted. Hopefully no more leaks and a bit more secure. This is the old aluminium window we had. The locks were broken, we had to put dowels in the rail to lock it. It...
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Hardening Vegetable Seedlings
This is our new method for getting our vegetable garden started. In the front of the picture you can see our spinach seedlings, out in the sun. The onion and snow peas are still under some shade...
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Shipping Container Office
The addition of another child to our family pushed me my office out of the house. We had looked at many shipping container conversions online and loved the idea. We ordered from a company in Brisbane...
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