Scottish Multimedia | What is Eco Art?

Scottish Multimedia | What is Eco Art?

Eco art can be many things but what does it mean to us, here in Frugaldom? Eco normally refers to ecology and the environment but it also relates to our economy, so the Thrift Cottage studio has settled on a combination of all of these things - environmental art, eco-friendly art and economical, or affordable, art.

Creating something that is visually attractive, thought-provoking or unique is what art is about here. It's not about investment pieces by the great Masters of Fine Art, it's about enhancing our own environment in ways that are appealing. Better still if those artistic creations can be hand crafted in Thrift Cottage Studio - the name we have given to the old out-building in the garden that has slowly but surely been showing signs of nearing refurbishment completion. It's not exactly a modern art gallery but it's big enough for what's needed.

Since moving here, we have been trying to … continue

Day 7 of Making it in March - Making New Food Grow

Day 7 of 31 Days of Making it in March - Making Things Grow!

A photo blog to celebrate making new food grow!

Lettuce seedling

 

We are now one week into this 31 day challenge and on the first day, I made some mini-propagators by recycling plastic cartons. I sowed some peppers in one and lettuce/salad leaves in another. The above is a photo of the very first lettuce seedling to pop its head through to prove there is still life in the old seeds. (Blog post here)

 

Vegetable scraps

 

During February, we did the 28 Days of Extreme frugaling and decided to have a go at making the end of the cabbage take root and grow some new cabbage.

Red cabbage in pot of water

 

I started this experiment off on 17th February, I set the leftover part of the red cabbage into a small jar of water then had to replace the jar with a tin. (I needed said jar for my mini macramé hangers.) (Blog post here)

 

Tiny shoots beginning to appear

Three weeks into the experiment and I can already see signs of the red cabbage beginning to form new leaves - isn't this amazing?

Tiny new red cabbage growing from old one

A closer look at the tiny new cabbage leaves beginning to emerge from between the old leaves. I am totally fascinated by this ability to regrow vegetables. I have done this with my spring onions and celery in the past but had never tried a cabbage until now.

Roots beginning to grow from red cabbage base

A look at the base shows a multitude of new roots forming. I have now sat my green cabbage in a bowl of water and will be keeping it that way from now on, cutting off what I need and then replacing it in the water. This method worked well in the past with lettuce, too!

I haven't had any time to craft anything today as I had quite a bit of web work I wanted out of the way before the weekend, but I did manage to pop out into the garden and sow the rest of the peas and beans - a few had already germinated while they were soaking, so I decided I'd do the same with my sweet pea seeds and see if I can achieve some success this year. Two years ago, my sweet peas were quite spectacular but last year not a single one grew when I sowed them straight into the ground.

NYK, Frugaldom

We're Having a (not so frugal) Frugaldom BBQ!

£50 Budget Sounds Like Loads!

Look at this! It's exactly one year since we had temperatures in the high twenties here in Elrig and, once again, history has repeated itself - only we are reaching 30 Deg C today. How much better can it possibly get?

 

Well, £50 better, that's how much! That's the amount of money that Moneysupermarket.com has given me to throw the best budget BBQ possible, to share all the fun of the sun and feed/water my guests while they're here and then blog about it. (If you are on Twitter, you can follow the tales of the others taking part by checking out #TheCharcoalChallenge).

 

Now all I need to do is take stock of what is already available and then get this event organised. I know for a fact that we have disposable BBQs and plenty of charcoal, because these things are kept for emergencies in most frugal households - if the power goes out in rural Frugaldom, a BBQ in most weathers (even in snow) can be a great way to cook up a quick meal when the stove's not lit.

 

Right, first things first... preparations need to start now and we need to throw our best BBQ ever this summer. The forecast looks great for the rest of this week, right through to Saturday, so that's time enough to organise the garden to provide space. (Can't forget there's a poly tunnel to be built here this week.)

Food and drink, entertainment and a bit of extra decoration for the all important party feel - doesn't sound too difficult to throw all that together once I've got an idea of numbers.

Who wants to come to a BBQ in Frugaldom? :)

Rosehips aplenty and chilli peppers, too!

Cacophony of Colour - so vibrant, you can almost hear it!

Who said red and green should never be seen? I decided to take a walk down the garden to see how everything had faired after the day of drizzle we had yesterday. The assortment of shrubs that cascade over the south-facing wall mean that it is now awash with colour, transformed from the former pinks and yellows to vibrant reds, greens and deep purple berries. These rosehips are particularly spectacular, huge orbs of glossy red against a background of healthy foliage. There are still a few pink flowers scattered among them, Dog Roses, I think. Thoughts of what I can do to preserve these are on my mind.

Along the way, you come to the more muted, gentler shades of the fragrant sweet peas. I thought I had left these too late in sowing the seeds for us to benefit from such a colourful display, but they have battled on relentlessly and are now producing an array of pastel shades ranging from buttermilk through pink to deep maroon. Some of them appear almost frosted with their two-tone pink and white flowers.

But it's the rosehips that have taken today's vote, as there are just so many of them.

I wonder if these will still be here when the elderberries, haws and blackberries arrive? Hedgerow jelly is one of the favourites in this frugal household. Memories of rosehip syrup are springing to mind, but I haven't ever tried making. I wonder if I should? What else can be done with rosehips?

You can still see quite a few of the pale pink flowers on this particular bush, so I am guessing there are plenty more hips to come. Hopefully, this display is not some sort of forewarning for a treacherous winter!

In one of the little raised beds - made from a discarded chest of drawers - the leeks are beginning to resemble what they should. Despite weeding this bed almost every time I pass it, there are still telltale signs of what has shot up through the soil over the past two days.

Previously, I didin't bother much with leeks but, like the brussel sprouts, we will learn to love them. Autumn and winter evenings need a bowl of warming homemade soup and I have had great success in the past freezing these to use as and when required.

All going well, there should be enough here to see us through to next year's crop with enough surplus to trade with friends and neighbours.

I have never had great success with tomatoes, mainly owing to the fact that I either haven't had the space to grow them, the weather has been awful or else we have been preparing to move house each time tomato season came around.

This year, having yet again moved house, there was no time or space to organise the construction of a greenhouse, so these tomatoes - 6 plants I traded inwards through LETS - are sitting outside with a strip of metre high plastic across the front of their pots. It seems to have done the trick, but that's probably more to do with the fact that we've had such good weather for the past couple of months than anything else. Alongside these, I have some Cape Gooseberries, which are now flowering and beginning to set fruit.

Our latest housemove, which will hopefully be our last, has found us in a street of like-minded people who all take great pride in their gardens. They really are a lovely bunch of neighbours, we couldn't have asked for better.

Surplus produce and plants are happily exchanged and it isn't unusual to see folks walking along the street carrying some form of fruit, vegetable or plant. It's a great little place - very friendly and very welcoming!

Just yesterday, I received a knock on the front door and opened it to find someone bringing me surplus blackcurrants, which I'll probably make into jam or apple and blackcurrant pie filling. In exchange, I hope said neighbour is happy sampling their dozen fresh quail eggs that I was able to offer them.

Indoors, on the kitchen windowsill, I have my three pepper plants - one, a much appreciated gift from friends who were visiting and the others given to me by fellow LETS members.

This is the Jalopeno pepper - a type of chilli - that has started producing quite a few long, green fruits. I daren't taste them, as they're too hot for me, but I will be using them in whatever Tex-Mex meals I make in future. Stir fried with other veg and served with chicken in a warm, homemade tortilla dressed with salsa, mayo and cheese, these are delicious.

This is my Apache chilli pepper, the one that arrived through the post from the friends who had been to visit us last month.

This is a lovely plant, which sits neatly in the middle of the windowsill in it's own little tin bucket. In the brief time that I've had it, the many flowers and tiny peppers have developed quickly and now range through all stages of the growing/ripening process. It is absolutely dripping in fruit.

Again, these will be used in chilli type dishes, added as extra spicy topping to homemade pizza and I'll be drying all the extras for storing. If I'm lucky, I'll save some seeds to sow next year, but will also attempt to over winter the plants in the hope that they see us through a second year. My sweet pepper is just beginning to flower, so I didn't bother photographing that, maybe next time.

The whole house now smells of sweet peas, as I'm clipping a few flowers every other day to keep in small vases in each of the main rooms. They certainly smell much nicer than any chemically manufactured spray, block or gel and I haven't ever found myself sneezing at these.

Who needs air freshener, or even perfume, when the garden can produce such fragrant flowers? It reminds me of the times when we used to soak the rose petals to make homemade prefume many, many years ago. I wonder how easy it would be to dry some of these for pot pourri?

I promised myself that I would try to keep the blog up to date even when there was no significant progress in the Frugaldom microholding, but seeing these photographs reminds me firmly that every day is a day of progress. Afterall, this time last year, we had not the slightest inclination that we'd have moved house again, nor had we even considered the possibility that we'd have bought a place like this. 

Never give up on your dream. In frugaldom, every penny counts and a penny saved is always seen as a penny earned. Visit our frugal living forums HERE and share your frugal exploits with others who are all in pursuit of their own dreams. Being rich doesn't need to mean having money- see you there!

Edited in: I came back to edit this part in - after catching up on a few other blogs, this ties in nicely with today's topic, so I'm going to give it a go. Chocolate Log Blog: We Should Cocoa - the August Challenge.

SOCIAL NETWORKING, SPREADING THE WORD, THINK ABOUT IT…

The world's gone Gaga!

Everyone seems to like numbers - statistical analysis, percentages, ratios, conversion rates, the price of cheese... so I've looked at a few more. Before discussing them, I'd like you to take a quick think about these popular websites - with Apps!

I don't really 'do' Facebook, as far as social media and business networking is concerned. I do find it extremely handy for keeping up to date with friends and family, arranging social events and, in general, doing anything except work. We can share photos, reminisce, poke fun at one another and pick up from wherever we left off, even if we haven't seen one another for years.

Facebook is fun, it's where we hang out with familiar faces, it's where we go to skive, or to sit down at the end of a frustrating day and relax. OK, so our photos have probably all been digitally scanned for facial recognition, profiled, logged and listed in some Government funded, global database but, on the whole, we don't care. It's Facebook

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.
You wanna go where people know, people are all the same,
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.


Theme song lyrics from 'Cheers'
"Where Everybody Knows Your Name"
by Gary Portnoy & Judy Hart Angelo

To me, that's Facebook!

Twitter, on the other hand, is about a hard and fast game. It's about the hard sell, the attention grabbing, the in your face, fast driven media. It's a digital revolution that combined the Internet with mobile phones on every level and is now threatening to outpace the national news networks and revolutionise the 'text all' facility on our mobile phones. On Twitter, there is no 10 second delay - it's out there for all to see and it's what's happening now.


In my opinion, the Twitter + Facebook combination doesn't work very well for the 'man on the street'. You just wouldn't take Wall Street, CNN and The Whitehouse staff to meet your friends at Cheers. Twitter is far too fast moving for such a cheerful, jaunty tune. Twitter, by comparison, is Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee!


Facebook's social network was launched around 2004, the brain child of college students. Within seven years, it reportedly welcomed 600 million active users worldwide. The there was a book about it's origins and now we have a film (due for release February 2011, here in UK, already released in USA).


Twitter appeared on the scene a couple of years later, in 2006. It's more of a micro-blogging site, based on the 140 characters allowed within a standard mobile phone text message. To date, it's said to have around 190 million users.


Curiously, individuals, companies, charities and other groups appear to be using Twitter as a source of gathering customers, members or participants in all manner of things, including using it as an introductory gateway to... you got it, Facebook! But the two, allegedly, have no affiliation to one another - unless you count the vested interests of Marc Andreessen. Indeed, it was reported that Twitter declined an offer worth around $500 million from Facebook. Astonishingly, the Twitter founders still don't sound sure of which direction their company is heading, other than up.


It's all very strange and beyond my comprehension. Everywhere we look we see signs, suggestions or hints of big names, but they are no longer those of tobacco, alcohol, drug or oil companies. Instead, they belong to the 21st Century World Wide Web - eBay, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook and now Twitter.

Many TV shows, including news programmes, flash up a Twitter username for audience interaction or participation. 'Tweet us @whatever!' In fact, I've even noticed a trend toward small print simply saying @whatever, without any reference to Twitter! Only those 'in the know' understand it, though.

Mobile phone networks seem to fit more comfortably with social networking than, say, retailers or service providers, although they are all begining to interact. URL shortening drives countless streams of traffic to countless websites and probably about 1% of those visitors convert to customers. But how do the numbers crunch for small players in this fast-flowing game of digital networking? Is success a dead cert or are the odds stacked against us?

With a UK population of almost 62 million, the BBC can reach over two thirds of us every week. Programmes like Eastenders can attract viewer figures far in excess of 10 million. A major event, like the funeral of Princess Diana, attracted over 30 million viewers. (So did the 1966 World Cup!) That's just UK.

Now let's go global, which is what WikiLeaks does when it hits the headlines throughout the International mass media network. I haven't looked at global figures, so I haven't a clue how many individuals on this planet have access to such things as TV, radio or Internet, but I do know that it's many, many millions and that the stakes are high when it comes to communicatioln with them all.

WikiLeaks has been mentioned several times over the past months. What fantastic publicity! Almost every newspaper, TV station and news broadcaster has uttered the name. Just like eBay, YouTube, Amazon, Google and Facebook, WikiLeaks momentarily became a household 'name'. So, how well are they doing in the publicity stakes compared to others? Keep in mind that there's no income generated just from seeing a name. (All figures correct at time of writing.)

How many people like eBay on Facebook? 411,320
How many usernames follow eBay on Twitter? 23,131

How many people like the main BBC World News on Facebook? 521,551

How many usernames follow BBC World News on Twitter? 448,671

How many people like Amazon on Facebook? 525,467

How many usernames follow Amazon on Twitter? 58,948

How many people like the WikiLeaks Facebook page? 1,557,588

How many usernames follow WikiLeaks on Twitter? 679,918

How many people like the main CNN on Facebook? 1,691,464

How many usernames follow CNN Breaking News on Twitter? 3,754,210

How many people like iPhone on Facebook? 1,872,655

How many usernames follow iPhone on Twitter? Can't find their official account!

How many people like Google on Facebook? 2,499,468

How many usernames follow Google on Twitter? 2,714,933 INTERESTING

How many people like iTunes on Facebook? 10,218,408
How many usernames follow iTunes on Twitter? They have several categories:
iTunes Trailers - 1,578, 784 : Music - 619,188 : Movies - 53,048 : TV - 45,312 : Pod casts - 43,725

How many people like YouTube on Facebook? 26,257,028

How many usernames follow YouTube on Twitter? 1,556,061

How many people like the Lady Gaga page on Facebook? 26,932,157
How many usernames follow Lady Gaga on Twitter? 7,869,076
How many like the Lady Gaga page on Amazon?

I think this tells us that virtual social networking, blogging and micro-blogging is more about negative escapism for the masses. We cannot accurately analyse the global reach of such platforms when they are subject to Government legislation, even banned in some countries, but we can begin to understand the enormity of the Internet and all the associated problems that brings with it. What I can see is that communication is key. Apple's iPhone, alone, boasts 62,949,864 monthly active users, so how many Internet users might there be?

Next, in this comedy sketch, come the big guns, those who profit from providing the masses with an assortment of negative escape routes from the harsh realities of their lives – whether they be virtual, actual, medical or psychological. Their wingmen are the financial institutions and the major drugs, food, drink, alcohol and tobacco industries.

Following them, there are the general money-makers, chasing along in an effort to entice the masses to part with their cash. Many don't care how, why, where or what for, it only matters that they succeed in generating wealth. The further down the line we go, the fewer stragglers there are with cash left over to spend. That's where we find the micro-loan companies springing up, in their hope of earning from those who have fallen by the wayside.

So what does this all mean for a budding entrepreneur, frugal or otherwise? Where, next, should our enterprising minds and spare investment capital be heading? What might be, the next 'big thing'?


Perhaps we should hold onto our hats, harness our dreams and be prepared for the ride of our lives. It could be fact, fiction and fantasy all rolled into one. It does not have to be within eyesight for us to see it, nor within earshot for us to hear it. Perhaps, even, the Mayans knew much more then than we do now.

Think about it…

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