When Life Gives You Green Lemons...

So I have this tiny lemon tree that is the closest thing to a vege garden I have at the moment. This tree is just about part of the family by now. I have Nurtured it, spoken to it and dreamt of delicious lemons and preventing scurvy. I am considering giving it some celebrity name reflecting its rise from humble origins against all odds.

 One day miss 2 comes along and being a helpful girl picks the unripe lemons and joyfully presents them to me. So now I'm in a quandary, what does one do with a bowl of unripe not very juicy lemons? After all the effort it seems a shame to dispose of them. After sitting looking pretty on the counter for a while I started to find uses for them.

1. zest- the zest although green is still full of lemony oils for cooking. I used it for my roast chicken

2. Table buffer- this is a long story but basically I had dulled the kitchen table while removing vivid with a magic sponge, and it having a waxy varnish I tried rubbing beeswax over it. realising I needed to melt the wax I cast around for something hot and ended

up microwaving a lemon for 20 seconds, wrapping it in a muslin an lightly buffing- did the trick(probably wouldn't do that on a heirloom table) It smelled good to. also discovered the microwaving releases more juice.

3. candied peel- the green looks very attractive when candied

somewhat encouraged I Googled green lemons and found a few more ideas to experiment with:

4. pickled, dried or preserved lemons

5. use in place of limes,I'm thinking cheesecake

6. seal in a bag with a banana peel to ripen (worth a try)

7. green limoncello

8. bleach stained dishes- just rub on and leave

9. Clean, disinfect and deodorise just about anything in the kitchen. Eliminate grease from messy surfaces. Sprinkle abrasive salt on a lemon half and run on gunky surfaces. Wipe clean with a soft towel. rub on limescale and rinse etc... anywhere you might use

vinegar I think you could use green lemon.

10. repel Ants, moths, roaches and cats with the peels. I stuck a lemon under my cats nose once and she flew straight in to the air in shock

11. beauty-soften feet and elbows with the pulp, whiten nails by rubbing with the skin, also as emergency deodorant and astringent wash

12. potpourri

I like the last idea the best as the dark green skin does look and smell great So now I am prepared for when the next batch of greenies inevitably comes in.

ThomasTank Driver

So I thought that it was about time I caught up with all the trendy Crafty Mums and made my own Blog

I thought this could be one of those show off my creations and throw in the odd idea about Kids, budgeting,cooking and life in general so here goes...



Driver Costume



My current project is a Thomas The Tank Driver outfit for Mr 7s book day, I shortened some largish size 12 overalls and used the extra fabric and some other fabric I had lying around to make a matching hat from a pattern I got here http://sewing.craftgossip.com/

Im not as good at sewing as crochet but it turned out OK, it was a bit tricky sewing with the thickness of the hat layers. I had to patch some pieces together as the pant legs wernt wide enough, and I didn't have interfacing lying around, but the fabric being stiff enough didn't need it. I also made the back band a contrasting colour which I thought looked cool


Train driver hats


I made another hat in the smaller size for Miss 2 from jean material after that because it was so much fun and always wants the same things. I made the box pleats a bit bigger to fit her smaller head. you cant see from the picture but they are both reversible with a colourful printed fabric on the reverse side.

That's the hat done next for the Train part BRB....