no sew cape shawl

To make this beautiful no sew cape shawl

you need

• 65 inch long and 46 inches wide fleece cloth

• scissors

• tailors chalk
  

• measuring tape

now all you have to do is that fold the cloth length wise and mark the middle line with a tailor's chalk
this would divide the cloth in the front and back part of your cape .

Front opening

To make the front opening mark the fleece from the middle width wise till you reach the border line from where your back portion starts

click on the diagram to see a larger image


shape the neck line

mark2 lines 4 inches away on the sides of the middle line and shape it round along the neck area the total width of the front opening will be 8 inches ,see the diagram



Borders

To make a border you will mark a 5 inch line across the borders and then divide this line into half an inch wide strip
TIP : its always better to mark the cutting line with the chalk before cutting for neatness .

your cape is ready to make u warm ........ enjoy:)

removing ticks from your dog

This is Sasha our watch dog, we bought her Six months ago from a local pet shop she was just four months old at that time .This is our first dog keeping experience so i didn't knew much about dog care ,one day when i was fondling her while she was playing around my children i saw a strange skin colored growth in her neck hair at first i didn't bother as it was very small but then gradually it started to grow rapidly then i got worried and decided to find out what was going on it was when i examined it closely i noticed small black legs and a small head then i realized it was some sort of a bug which was feeding on my dogs blood i got really worried searched on internet and found out that it was a tick then after much research i found some ways of removing them from the dogs including burning them with a mach stick or applying Vaseline on its body to make them stop breathing and also freezing it with ice i tried every thing but it was not ready to leave the dog then one day i was discussing the matter with my elder brother he told me to simply pull the tick off with the help of tweezers. I tried it and really worked ,





Photo ©2000 Jim Kalisch, UNL Entomology - Family Ixodidae


let me tell you the procedure in detail

• wear disposable gloves

• with the help of tweezers hold the tick from its head which would be buried in the skin so try to dig in as much as possible then simply pull the tick away
  
• 
  
• if during the process the head of the tick is broken and is separated from its body then try to pull off the head again in the second try and put some antibacterial medicine on the wound i always use iodine it works fine .

• once you are done with the procedure remove and discard your gloves and properly sterilize the tweezers .

• you can avoid your dog from having ticks by not letting him roam about in long grass or bushy areas specially in summers and rainy seasons check your dog frequently for tics and if u find any remove them there and then don't wait for them to grow because when the tick is removed before it becomes engorged with blood, there is very little chance of it transmitting Lyme disease .
  

now after having some experience i am always ON CALL tick remover from family and friends :)

necessity is the mother of invention

                          We often find this statement so true in our lives , for years i was facing the problem of socked wet cloths after dish washing and doing laundry,i know! you must be thinking that whats so complicated in that why don't she wears an apron , as a matter of fact i did ,rather i bought over a dozen cloth aprons easily available in market ,but no matter how thick the cloth was no matter how beautiful it was it never served my purpose as the apron it self would get wet and then also damp my cloths .

         One day i saw some pretty expensive plastic aprons in a store i was so happy as if i have found a treasure and immediately purchased  it but i never realized that it was made up of very thin plastic and could not resist the heat of the gas flames  rather it was very dangerous to wear it while cooking and if i had to restrict its use only for laundry and doing dishes then it was really inconvenient for me to keep on changing aprons while working in the kitchen so my problem was never solved ,then one day i found a long piece of regzine(oilcloth or linoleum)in one of my closets and instantly a great idea flashed into my mind ''why don't i make an apron out of it'' .

    It only took 15 minutes to make my life so easy in the kitchen ,all i did was that i traced the out line of one of my usual cloth apron on the back of regzin piece then cut it out with the help of  scissors made four holes ,two on the sides of the neck line and two  on the sides of the waist lines then i took four equal length pieces of  matching color  cord and simply tied them through the holes so that it can be tied behind the neck and back .

Pencil Dolls

On plenty of occasions you want to give your child a special hand made gift wraped in your love but often the idea doesn’t cross our minds of what to make that’s easy ,less time consuming and will also not effect our budget !here’s a project that’s easy to make and your child will just love it, that’s a promise……..

For making these ball heads you will need ping pong balls, pencils permanent markers a small ball of wool (any color of your choice) .

Make a hole in the ball with the help of any pointed sharp object or may use a heated nail(work care fully when working with sharp, pointed and hot objects) now insert the back of the pencil in the ball .draw a face with any expression on it like a, happy excited or angry face draw what ever your child ask for, color the eyes with colored marker or paints what ever is available let it dry .

Now comes the turn of hair which i find the most fun part in the project ,

For making a girl’s ball head take a7 inch long card board peace and wrap it with wool. Put a rubber band width wise on the wool covered card board to keep the wool in place now cut the wool from both sides.

Care fully remove the rubber band and tie the wool strands in the middle and stick it to the ball with an adhesive don’t forget to put some adhesive at the back and sides of the ball to settle the hair properly around the face now you can style these hair according to your child’s wish ,you can make pony tails braids or just leave them open.

For the boy ball head wrap the wool on a 2 inch card board and cut it just like the hair for girl head now hold these small strands in hand and trim them finely . Brush the area fixed for hair on the ball with an adhesive, and then roll the ball in the wool trimmings the the trimmings will stick to the adhesive thus giving the impression of small hair.

Congratulations you just created mr. Blue boy and miss. Beauty ready to help your child in his homework, present them to your precious child and enjoy the beautiful smile on his face.

A Rosy touch to your salad platter

You must have seen this kind of vegi decorations in some buffet dinners or may be at some one's home, ever wondered how this beautiful yet extremely easy rose is made?....................
If yes then hears the answer, its made out of spiral cut tomato peal.
To get a spiral cut peal start pealing the tomato from its top and gradually move in a circular direction towards the side and then bottom in the form of a spiral (a spring like shape ) there should be no breaks in the peal you should get a long spiral strip of the peal, with a little bit of practice u can master this technique .

Put this long strip in a plate and start to spin it, when you finish gathering it around then just turn it up side down. Some times you might get a perfect rose look without even turning it up side down ! There your beautiful red rose is ready to be decorated either on a Salad platter or on top of a dish full of white boiled rice or even over thick yogurt in a bowl or may be in a sandwich plate ,the choice in yours ……be creative…… :)

see this video tutorial to learn this technique

Snowy the loving Bantam

The story of snowy starts from the day when one of my hens got broody. I tried my level best to get her out of her broody state but she was so determined to have a family so I and my husband decided to give her some eggs to sit on so we went to the local pet market and bought 5 bantam eggs .Bantam is a small breed of hens very loving and friendly they are great pets but not very good layers.

I made some necessary arrangements that included a separate compartment for the mother hen, placed the eggs on a cotton lined wide clay plate . I use the clay plate because it keeps the eggs in place and they don’t accidently roll out and get cold, a small feeder and a water container was also placed inside for the convenience of the mother hen and she was more then happy to adopt the 5 bantam eggs in the new house made just for her and her future brood. It was after 21 long days of waiting when I heard the first cheep of snowy inside the egg….. yes… you can hear the fully formed chicks inside the eggs some times u can even feel their slight movements in the attempt to break the shell then slowly and staidly he cracked the shell and out came a beautiful white fur ball !that’s why we named him snowy. He was the only chick that hatched the other four couldn’t make it .The arrival of Snowy was like a ray of happiness for my little daughters they just adored him. Snowy was just 10 days old when his mother got sick and died .the only company snowy had was gone and this little sole was left all alone to face this world and grow …. Alone …this fact made me really sad so I decided to buy another chick of the same age to give snowy some company. In the beginning snowy missed his mother like hell but then gradually he recovered out of the grief and started enjoying the company of his friend !now I was a mother to them both and they grew in my love so quickly in about just seven weeks Snowy and Shy guy (snowy’s friend) grew into baby cockerels. Shy guy was almost double the size of snowy because of the difference in their breeds but they always went along well with each other. Introducing them to our flock of eight grown up chickens was also an event ,as shy guy was easily excepted in the flock because of his big size and shy nature but snowy had a hard time he used to receive a lot of pecking from other chickens but he patiently tried and eventually he was not only excepted by the flock but he even started to bully some of the hens it was quite funny to see him doing that! imagine a small bird running after and pecking a hen who is double his size.With my daughters he used to behave like a lap cat he would just love to follow them play with them and to be fondled .we enjoyed snowy’s company for just 4 months and then one day he just vanished from our back yard what happened to him is he alive or dead no one knows ........................but i and my family still miss snowy like any thing.

See the video of snowy with his mum.