It's a blog and a podcast, about libraries and reading and our love of both. All from Falkirk in beautiful Central Scotland
I (Tanya) am pretty excited about this crafty idea – sew your experience of the Covid 19 lockdown and send it in to be made into a huge UK wide artwork.
All the instructions are in the download or you can find them online here – but it’s very easy to share your experience of being socially isolated during this time through embroidery.
There’s a lot of crafty fun to be had with plants and gardens. From decorating a plant pot with paint to creating a little fairy garden, from growing potatoes in pots, to designing and creating a low waste garden or smallholding (if you’ve got the space and the time)
One of the most comprehensive house plant websites that we’ve come across can be found at House Plant Expert . You can spend ages browsing through, finding just the right plant for your home, and checking out how to look after the plants you already have.
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has a fascinatingly informative website about all aspects of gardening. From how to start out when you’re a complete beginner, to ideas for fun family activities, to all sorts of courses for adults.
It’s a lot of fun to grow your own fruit and vegetables. From sprouting cress on a damp kitchen towel, and growing a chilli plant on a sunny windowsill, to cropping blueberries and plums from your garden, there’s a whole yummy adventure just waiting for you.
One of our favourite websites for loads of useful information on growing your own in the UK is Garden Organic
If you want to take your gardening further – to using a design system to plan and create your own productive, waste minimising homestead – then permaculture could be the system for you. Permaculture can give a whole new set of tools for how you interact with nature. There are some fantastic resources at the website of Heather Jo Flores and at Permaculture Scotland
We’re all needing a bit of kindness at the moment, but life is a bit weird – you can’t meet someone for a cuppa and a chat, or give them a wee hug. So, we’re having to be a bit more creative in the ways we show our gratitude or kindness – from people clapping on a Thursday, to Zoom calling our families, to putting rainbows or teddies in our windows for people to see as they walk past.
Here are a few of our favourite crafty ways to show someone you are thinking of them:
This free downloadable knitting pattern is very simple to make and uses up any oddments of wool you have around the house. Imagine giving this to a child, sending this to a friend or even just sending a photo of it to someone far away.
Many of us have pictures of rainbows in our windows. If you want to take it a step further, then you could crochet or knit a rainbow. Here are 2 lovely patterns:
The Brighten your day knit rainbow by Midknits is very squishable.
The Rowena the rainbow crochet pattern by The Clumsy Unicorn is a simple pattern suitable for beginners
You can sew a special message onto a piece of clothing or make it into a picture or a cushion. There are some lovely downloadable patterns online like You got this by DMC
Alternatively, you could just make up your own. I’ve used a favourite quote, which I embroidered and am quilting to make a wall hanging.
If you can draw or paint, then you could make something really beautiful to make someone smile
Bake a cake, or a loaf of bread, or a pizza, or scones, or make jam, or tablet, or ……. the list is endless. Most of us love to receive delicious food. If someone you care about is within walking distance, you could pop a little gift on their doorstep during your daily exercise. Or share something tasty with one (or all) of your neighbours
There are lots of recipe ideas in the BBC Good Food magazine which we have available to borrow for free online.
Mary from Bonnybridge Library enlisted the help of her family to create some shelter for wildlife in her garden. Here she is to tell us all about it.
I’ve wanted to build a hedgehog house for quite some time. Last year we had some poop evidence in our back garden that a hedgehog was visiting and neighbours have spotted hedgehogs occasionally in the street too.
Given the current situation, and good weather, I decided to have a go at building a hedgehog house using materials that I had at home, in the garden and garage.
I did a lot of online research on building your own hedgehog house and I liked the brick built versions (plus I had spare bricks). I used instructions from the Natural History Museum.
I chose a shaded area in the front garden along the grass edge. I used bricks, a modified plant pot for the tunnel, an old kitchen door as a solid roof, turf, large stones and logs to cover the roof. Gnome is optional!
I thought the opposite end of the hedgehog house looked too bare, so I decided to relocate my fairy door from my porch to the garden, attached it to a nice piece of old tree, laid a pebble path and decorated with moss etc.
I feel like a big kid but I love the end result, I have put some dried leaves inside the hedgehog house and I will top this up every few days. I put out a little food and it is usually eaten… although it could be foxes – or fairies! Two days ago I saw some small scratch marks at the entrance way and some mud marks in the entrance tunnel.
We shall see how it goes, but it would be really nice to think a little hedgehog, or maybe even some fairies, would like to live here!