Making your own gifts and decorations this year 2017

Making your own gifts and decorations this year.

This year now that both of my children are older I am looking at celebrating this year with them fro the fist time and to try and teach them the true meaning of the festive season.

For me it is “The Gift of Giving” so we are in the process of doing this and celebrating Yule.

So this year their dad is already underway with making the boys their Yule gift and I am looking at decorating the house and what food and events that we are going to take place.

So it is the 20^th November 2017 and a month before I will be looking at decorating the house and the tree.

So where do I start.?

One of the things that I am looking at is what I have in the house and how I can use what I have instead of buying things new and also about what I can forage from the !!br0ken!!

One thing that I have been looking at is the following links fro inspiration and Facebook pages and group that I am in.

Cloves

one of the things that I am looking at for The festive season is buying Cloves.

What are Cloves?

Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium aromaticum. They are native to the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice. Cloves are commercially harvested primarily in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania. Cloves are available throughout the year.

Buying them “Fair Trade”

http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/what-is-fairtrade

Beacuse they they are from over seas I am looking at buying them fair trade and to also look at selling them whole sale when I set up my own business. I am looking at selling dried products for making things with in the future. Cloves can be brought al year and can be purchased form any supermarket so why use them them fro the Winter Holidays what makes them so important?

Health benefit can be found by following the links below.

Cloves are a good source of manganese, selenium, magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin K, dietary fibre and vitamin C.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=69#healthbenefits

http://www.antioxidants-for-health-and-longevity.com/benefits-of-cloves.html

http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/cloves.html

What do they have to do with the Winter Holidays?

With cloves coming to the UK from places like Indonesia but the region with the largest production is Zanzibar in eastern Africa; most people know of Cloves being Used in Mulled Wine and Christmas Cake.

Now that the UK is so divested with culture, and traditions it would be nice to see Cloves used more and why not start by using them at this time of the year to decorate the home and in cooking.

Make Cloved Orange: A Regency Pomander

This is the art of using Cloves and Oranges to decorate the home and to give as gifts of family and friends at this time of year. For the history y of Cloved Orange: A Regency Pomander please follow this link below.

https://www.janeausten.co.uk/cloved-orange-a-regency-pomander/

One thing that Make Cloved Orange: A Regency Pomander look like are Chirstingles.

What is Christingle?

Chirstingles is a lighted candle symbolizing Christ as the light of the world, held by children at a special Advent service originating in the Moravian Church.

It is sally on the First Sunday of advent which is a Christian way of celebrating this time of year. You can attend a Christingle celebration at your local church and get a christingel as part of the services whilst collecting money for charity.

Useful Yule recipes./links

http://recipesforapagansoul.weebly.com/yule-dec-21-23.html

https://Wiccan/celtic/akasha/yule.htm

Use full link about Spices

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/grow-to-eat/where-do-christmas-spices-come-from/

week before

Week before Nursery starts.

I can not believe that the summer holidays is almost over. And that both of my children will be off to nursery. I think to myself BREATH! 15 hours a week and no children. The only reason that this happening is due to be being able to claim the 2 year funding.

I think to myself IF I did not get the two year funding what would have done? Only my oldest would be nursery and the youngest still at home. BUT that is not bad thing, after all children grow up so fast. You blink and you miss it.

I have worked since I was 15years old so now it is time to have a break to be a mum and take care of someone other myself full time.

SO 15 hours per week what is my plan? Thinking about it, I only have 3 hours per week after dropping them off each day and waiting to pick then up to really do anything.

So I ham going to try and put a plan together and take things from there. The main thing that I would like to do is be more clutter “FREE and to remove any thing from my life that I no longer need.

I am looking at sorting out all of my books first and only keeping the ones that I love, need and are not damaged.

Since having the boys, I have read more and this is something that I love to do and wish I had more time to do.

So my first Aim is to read one book by Christmas and work on my own book to get the final prof reading over and done with.

So this weekend I will spend it with my children finish and before “nursery” shopping and get ready for the first week back.

https://www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/free-childcare-and-education-for-2-to-4-year-olds

Turning to seed!

It is now the time of year when some of my plants that I "planted out" from seed earlier this year are now going to "seed".  All of my Chestnut trees are about 8 months old now and my twisted Willow is growing well too.

I potted up all of my plants at the beginning of July 2017 and have started collecting pinecones of the festive season and black berries of home made wine.

All I have to do now is wait for the seed heads to be ready to harvest and then I can start storing them for next year.

Photo by Miss Katrina L Slomczynski.

My Garden 409 Red Popppies Bliss Song

My Garden 409

KABFA Art Work 1 By Katrina L Slomczynski Music (Sail away)

I t is not Pink it is BELLADONNA

Now that I am an auntie for my youngest sister I have started to be more creative again and have made a few gifts for mother and baby.

Most of the things that I have made have been from things that I have lying around and have just not got to use or do and thing with yet.

One of the things is a pot of paint that I got from a local shop in Nuneaton and the some of the items I just found in charity shops, local stores in my home town Nuneaton, eBay and in the street.

I have now made three items with one pot of BELLADONNA (not pink) Chalk Paint that is Made in England 125mls.

Stick on Butterflies.

Stick on Silk Daisy Flowers.

One small green plastic pot.

Nottingham Lace.

An old sliver scarf.

I will take photos of the items that I made and what they look like so far, I am not sure if I will not any thing else to them.

I will  put them on my face book pages

https://www.facebook.com/KABFAKLS/

https://www.facebook.com/Katrina-Slomczynski-363442677006909/

The Idle Women of the Wartimes Waterways comes to Town.

The Idle Women of the Wartimes Waterways comes to Town.

On the 1^st July 2017, from 19.00- 21.30 The Idle Women of the Wartimes Waterways are coming to Nuneaton Town Centre in Warwickshire to put on a performance at one of Nuneaton local community centres called the Bermuda Phoenix Centre (CV10 JHU)

Refreshments will be provided, the event is FREE but tickets mush be ordered online.

Donations are welcomed.

http://www.bermudaphoenix.org.uk/

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/idle-women-of-the-wartime-waterways-bermuda-phoenix-tickets-32893228532?aff=efbevent

The event is to comenorate the women who worked the water ways during World War 2 when there was a shortage of men to crew and canal network and deliver vital supplies such as coal. During the war these courageous women where given the nickname (idle women.) But these women whee far from idle epically when they were given the task of managing 72ft narrow boats and 50tons of cargo.

To Celebrate the 75^th Anniversary Kate Baffin and Heather Wastie will bring Isobel's War and Idle women Judies to waterside venues to recreate the journey that the women took (London-Birmingham-Coventry-London.)

They will be travelling with a show Called The Alarum Theatre and an historic narrow boat called Trench. With the support of public funding by the National Lottery through the Arts Council England.

One of the places that they are looking at stopping at is Nuneaton due to the Griff Clara Number four Collieries that was once in Nuneaton.

For more information I have included the useful links and websites below. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

I look forward to hearing from you soon and hopefully seeing you on the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADjsDWKA4kY

Alarum and the tour on the website:
www.alarumtheatre.co.uk

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/idle-women-of-the-wartime-waterways-bermuda-phoenix-tickets-32893228532?aff=efbevent

http://www.bermudaphoenix.org.uk/

Where can you buy my art work and images from?

You can buy my art work and images from the following websites

https://www.madcowmodels.co.uk/katrina+slomczynski?referid=271463

http://www.redbubble.com/people/kabfa?ref=account-nav-dropdown&asc=u

http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/slomkat2013

For more information please contact me.

KABFA Art Work 1 By Katrina L Slomczynski Music (Sail away)

How its made - Organic Silk كيفية انتاج الحرير الطبيعي

How Its Made Silk

Packagaing Information and Guidance

Packaging Information and Guidance.

One of the main things that we pride ourselves in is trying to be a very ethical Company. This may sound ironic since we design and sell parts for European classic cars and Narrow Boats. It always reminds me of the Honda Diesel advert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K87m4gnHbAo

Where they advertise that diesal engines have been designed to be cleaner and help to reduce carbon admissions.

We at KABFA aim to do the same with any product that we make and sell; to help with our carbon foot print.

One of the main things that we do is aim to have everything that we produce to be made in the UK if possible. We are also very big on Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

At the moment, the packaging that we use to ship our products is plastic bags or tubs which can then be re-used by our customers. Wherever possible we try to use the minimal amount of packaging. So, at times your items may come in a reused corrugated cardboard box from our local shop.

I had someone attend the Packaging and Innovation Show at the NEC in Birmingham e on my behalf due to personal reasons. I am look for other ways that we could possibly package our products to make them more presentable for shops and shows.

http://www.easyfairs.com/events_216/packaging-innovations-birmingham-2016_71765/packaging-innovations-2016_72486/

We also intend to expand into Amazon to sell our products in addition to having the eBay store.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/b/?node=8670626031&ld=AZUKALLFooter

We look to use UK Companies wherever possible to stick with our belief that we should buy British whenever possible; and will continue to do so in order to achieve customer satisfaction and reduce our carbon foot print in the future.

At the moment I have products that can be brought though REDBUBBLE, with more companies/suppliers in the future.

https://www.redbubble.com/people/kabfa?ref=account-nav-dropdown&asc=u

Up dated RebBubble

http://www.redbubble.com/people/kabfa?ref=account-nav-dropdown&asc=u


I have updated my RED BUBBLE account today and in the hope to promote my own personal art work some more and hopefully start selling a few things in the future.


Please feel free to view my art work and photos that I have taken and can be purchased though RED BUBBLE.

For more information please full free to contact me.

W . Germany Jewlery

I have been going though the items that I am going to be putting on ebay fro sale this month and have found some necklaces that my be gold or gold plated.

The only question is how do you find out what something is made of so that you can look at how much someone may pay fro it.

Out of the four necklaces that I have for sale two are branded.

The first says DICINI and the second is stamped W. GERMANY.

So I have taken the time to look into these Items and their possible origin.

1. DICINI
2. W. GERMANY

DICINI INFORMATION

I found this very difficult to find any thing out about. If some one could give me some information about this jewellery it would be helpful. What I do know is that the make/brand is classed as vintage.

(I have not put it on eBay yet it is still in storage.)

W. GERMANY INFORMATION

what I found out about this necklace is that because it is stamped W. GERMANY. This means made in West Germany. It was also probably made after World War 2. Which would have been after 2^nd September 1945. This is due to in 1949 The Berlin Wall was built to split until 1989. The Berlin wall was finally pulled down on November the 9^th 1989 to help reunify Germany.

https://youtu.be/MM2qq5J5A1s

It is gold in colour and is probable made from an inexpensive metal, like most products made during this time.

Glass may have been used for decoration and to help imitate precious stones, this was due to the struggling economy. Many items would have been made be women after the war and “costume jewelry” became significant with international trade, including the USA.

The necklace is also a Herringbone Chain. This is a chain that has the greatest liquid effect, formed from v-shaped links to lie entirely flat. One side can be engraved for greater aesthetics, and thin strands of herringbone can be twisted or even plaited together.

A Shepard's Hook Clasp/ S Hook Clasp with a twisted link chain and W. Germany stamped into a small pendent on the end of the necklaces.

For more information and to view my Ebay page please follow the link provided.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/slomkat2013?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

Moments in History - The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Moments in History - The Fall of the Berlin Wall

KABFA Art Work 1 By Katrina L Slomczynski Music (Sail away)