National Op Shop Week

Today when I had the house to myself for a change, I thought I would paint some chopsticks as I want to make some potplant 'pretties' in the next few weeks. I got the idea of the hearts from Meg's blog post Flower Pot Hearts and experimented with wrapping the wire around a chopstick to make it more sturdy.

These are quite pretty and I have an assortment of them which sit in pots on the front verandah. I think the beads would fade quite a bit if the pots were in full sun but so far they have been fine in the shade.

I do take them out of the pots when it is raining or when watering to prevent mould from forming on them.

Firstly I paint the chopsticks green before adding the beaded hearts.  I had put some newspaper on the table to protect it from the paint and noticed that National Op Shop Week was coming up. I am not sure exactly why we have such an event but apparently we do. Here are some tips for the uninitiated...Op Till You Drop!

Those who are really into Op Shopping can catch our iconic Toowoomba Sightseeing bus and visit four Lifeline op shops with a break for lunch at the City Golf Club. I have never heard of such a tour before so it would be interesting to see how many join in. Presumably some visitors to our city during the school holidays will be involved.

Personally I steer clear of the op shops these days unless I am dropping some excess 'stuff' in as I certainly don't need any more 'bargains' in this cluttered house.

Have you ever seen strawberries with a pink flower? I first came across these at the Carnival of Flowers a few years back as they were growing with the veggies at Laurel Bank Park. The CEO recently bought about half a dozen punnets of different strawberries and didn't realise he had picked up a 'Pinkie' as well. Hopefully the plants will grow well as I don't buy strawberries as they are on the list of the Dirty Dozen foods. I haven't seen organically grown strawberries on sale at the Farmers' Market unfortunately so we will just have to keep growing our own. I just have to remind the CEO to water them. 

Now I have a job ahead of me. Years ago I bought some Go-Between Freezer Film to see if it was the same as freezer paper which it isn't and it has been sitting in the cupboard unused. I just baked a couple of loaves of sourdough and the 'baking paper' is sticking to them which has never happened before. Then it dawned on me...I had picked up the roll of freezer film instead of baking paper. I am not sure exactly how I am going to get it off and it may have to be cut off. Oops!

Have a great weekend and I hope that any readers living in SE Queensland pick up some rain from those storms that are around. Sadly we only got a few spits and spats today but we continue to live in hope that one day our farmers will get good rain.