Dressing up Nappy Boxes or any other cardboard box

I was finally fed up with all the big boxes of toys in our living room, and made some space in our Billy shelf with doors. I realised that Pampers boxes fit in there and I am still able to close the doors.

Pampers Boxes are not exactly very pretty and homey looking, so I was searching the net for some creative deco ideas and stumbled over this (cover and lining). I followed her instructions to a T and I love the way it turned out! I am actually soo happy with it, that I think it is way to pretty to be hiding in a cupboard. So now it is holding the wooden blocks in the kids room.

For the next one I thought I might try velcro instead of glue for the outside cover so I can take it off and stick it in the washing machine or onto the next box if the first one gets to battered in the play action with my two wild cowboys.
I added some photos, that will hopefully help you with Mandies instruction but they are already pretty straight forward. I was reading them overtired and managed to follow them. I didn't add photos for every step, just for the ones I either used or did something else or I needed a while to understand the original instructions.

I first cut of all flaps and taped the little latch from both sides with sello-tape

the outside taped

 You then have to find the center for the bottom of the box on your piece of material.

I marked the centre of the box, then measured 5cm towards the corner of the material at each edge of the centre marking. 

from the 5 cm point I made a line to each side of the material

cut the squares in each corner and then the 5cm line towards the centre

Iron seams and material.  This will help a lot when glueing.

I first glued the bottom, and added my husbands weights  to help the process a little 

that´s the glue I used

Glueing the sides: You start with the short sides. let your seam go over the edge onto the long side.  when glueing the long side, have your ironed seams right on the edge of the box. I measured my material a little longer so it reaches into the box by ca. 3 cm all around, these where the last bits I glued.

the lining: mark the middle of each side with a needle and then measure half the box and seam allowance in each direction and mark with needle. 

crossing the lines from the outside needles will make squares in each corner of your material, cut these squares out. 

now sew the two sides that remain after you cut out each square together. And at last hem all around.

Voilà

Now I can´t wait to get my hands on more material, to make a few more. We for sure have enough toys to stow away. I was actually amazed with how little work and time you can finish these off.

How the local forests look after us

When I took our dog for his walk this morning I noticed that the first blackberries are ripe and later I found one of the last patches with ripe blue berries.

my pickings this morning

blueberries

another few weeks and these are ready for picking: Elderberries

In the west of Ireland as a kid August meant you could have a very healthy snack by picking fresh blackberries along the road side, and if you knew the right spots add some fresh hazelnuts to your diet, too. No where else have I ever seen such masses of blackberry bushes.

So seeing some bushes in the forests made me a little homesick for my childhood summer adventures.

I find it strange that those gifts of mother nature are ignored by most people. As these are not only free, you can also be pretty sure they are not sprayed or otherwise contaminated unless of course they are growing on an old dump site. In Europe they scare you off in most countries with the chances of catching Echinococcus multilocularis. But if you boil your fruits that will not be a problem as the eggs die with temperatures above 60C/140F. And also I read a couple of articles lately that say it is actually easier to win the lotto than acquire tapeworms from any berries in the woods. But there is quite a chance that your not-dewormed-much-beloved pet will pass it on to you!

In northern and mid Europe I have found the following berries in nature (I know there are many more, but these are the ones I have used for many years and feel save to recommend):

Early summer you will find wild strawberries. They are absolutely tiny and you will be picking a long time with most likely a sore back by the end of the day before you have enough for even one glass of jam. BUT they are so intense in taste!

some late blueberries

Mid July is usually the best time to find blue berries. Unfortunately it is also high season for horse flies, so picking them between 8am and 9pm on dry days comes with a high price. The early bird will pick the blue berries unharmed!
Mid August the season for blackberries and raspberries starts.
End of August you will find elderberries. Also very yummy are the elderflowers in spring. This spring I made syrup, lemonade and jelly of the flowers. All 3 of these are a culinary delight.

My pickings I cleaned and froze for now. Once I have a little more time I want to make jam.

Iced PB-Banana Bites

These are very simple to make and kids love them. Well not just kids.... We made them for my sons Birthday party.

Slice 2 Bananas in about 3-4mm thick slices. Take a little spoon or spatula and add a wee scoop of peanut butter on half of them, top them with other half and put in freezer for at least 45 min. in the mean time melt choc of your liking roughly 150-200gr. I made them with a lactose free milk choc and some 85% dark chocolate. Once your freezing time is up, get your little sandwiches out and dip them in the melted choc. I used two forks for this job and that worked pretty well. Then stick them back into freezer and try to freeze them for a few hours (or start picking away, if you are anything like me).

ENJOY!

Homemade Vanilla Extract

I moved to a country that up until a few months ago had zero vanilla extract. And now only has tiny 20 ml bottles artificial Vanillin for 2 €. With the amount of baking and desserts that are made in this house, this was becoming ridiculous and I wasn't very happy using the artificial stuff. So imagine how happy I was when Pinterest was showing this post.

So here is what I did:

I snuck into my husbands liquor cabinet and nicked his best vodka bottle. A big offense in itself, as this is his favorite. I will blame it all on averiecooks.com. She said it pays off, if you use best quality. And I can only agree!

So I filled the following into a bottle:
250ml (10 floz) of hubbies best vodka
6 vanilla bean pods sliced lengthwise.

And now you gotta be patient for 2 months and shake the bottle every now and then. As I have parked my bottle on a top shelf in the kitchen to keep it out of the way, I honestly don't think of it that often. The bottle is lucky if it gets my attention once a week, but then I do shake it pretty vigorously to make up for all the times I forgot about it.

And now I have top quality for under a €uro /20 ml and it is not artificial.

I hope this will help you as much as me.

Sauerkraut Soup

Right now, we are trying to fight off a horrible flu, that the wee man brought us home as a birthday gift for himself and others to share. So a Sauerkraut Soup seemed to be in order!!!

This is easy and fast and so perfect when you feel rotten.

You need:
1 clove of garlic, 
6 spring onions and
6 very small diced spuds. You fry the whole lot in about
3 Tblsp. of Oil.
add about
3/4 cups of soaked minced Soya.  Once the Soya is well fried (does not need long so watch it doesnt burn!) add about
half a litre of veg stock and
400 gr of chopped tomatoes (I used cocktail tomatoes because I like the sweet taste) and
1 chopped red pepper.
Boil until potatoe pieces are done
then add about
500 gr of ready made sauerkraut (I prefer the mild one with wine) bring to boil, add
caraway seeds (2-3 tsp.)
paprika,
black pepper and
tabasco and
some fresh cream (depending how creamy you like 1/2 to 1  cup)
The whole lot lasted us for 2 days so it is either for 2 people and 2 days or 4 people on one evening.

Enjoy, and stay away from those summer flu bugs!

Carrot Burgers with Thai dip

You need:
500gr /1 lbs. of carrots, grated. Add
1 egg, beaten and
2 tbsp flour and
salt and
3 tbsp sesame seeds. Mix well and let rest for at least 10 minutes.

For the Thai dip take:
half a pack of yoghurt and
half a pack of either creme fraîche or sour cream. Mix well and add
2 tbsp of Thai seasoning paste and mix.

Now heat pan with about
3 tbsp of sesame oil and fry your burgers until cross from both sides. Be careful when turning them, they are a little fragile.

We served these with a side salad and some garlic bread.

Enjoy!

Little Paper Basket

You, too probably have lots of paper for recycling. Far more than you could ever use to light your fire at night...here is a way to use some of it!

Take a magazine or newspaper and tear the single pages out. Now fold them in half, and half it again and again, until you have slim stripes as pictured below.

Now bend them and glue them in a form you would like your base of the basket to be.

Now make the sides, by only gluing the bottom half of your stripe to your previous layer. So the upper half sticks out. And keep going until your second last round.

For me it worked best to turn the stripes this way (above).

Once you have reached your second last round, half one of your stripes. Out of these you can now form the handles of your basket. And glue them as shown below.

For the last round stay kind of level with our round before, so you don't have an end sticking out or standing over, I also glued every layer of the last stripes while folding them so they would make a sturdy rim.

Now if you want too, you can colour the whole thing. I used green and red, because these are the colours in my kitchen. I made this basket for a few toys that I keep in the kitchen to keep the little man out of mischief while I cook.