The Towai Tavern's Creative Upcycled Decor

I have posted before here about the Towai Tavern - a lovely old character pub that our band plays at several times each year.
We played there again last Saturday, and I wanted to include some of their cool decor, which the new owners have created.

The decor in the Ladies toilet

Because everyone wants a fish tank in their piano

Bottle cap mosaic

Apologies for putting the urinals in - I didn't take that photo by the way.

Bottle cap tree sculpture

Pic of our band set-up, lead guitarist fine tuning the sound

You'd think I would have taken a better shot of my own instruments - sax just visible on the right.

oh, ok then my alto and tenor saxes and bongo drums

I didn't take photos of everything, but the pub is decorated with old bottles, old farm implements and lots of vintage pieces around the walls. 
The staff are friendly and the food is great - what more could you ask?

Keeping Rice Crackers Good, a Dinosaur, a Phone Holder...

Hi there. 

We were out for lunch a couple of days ago and it reminded me of a hack (that is a tip for the older generation) that I learned from my daughter. 
The grandson had these rice cracker type things, and it reminded me how quickly they go soft - but my daughter taught me that you store them in the fridge and they stay crisp - you don't even have to seal the packet! I thought maybe I was the last person in the world to know this, but seeing as my stepdaughter didn't know that - I'm sharing it.

Little grandson turned 2 a week or so back, and he's hugely into dinosaurs. We found him a dinosaur book appropriate for his age, and I made him a rice-stuffed dinosaur that can be heated in the microwave for him to snuggle. Their old villa is incredibly cold in Winter. 

I also made him a sleep sack out of scrap material with an inner of an old felted wool blanket.

While I'm on the sewing with scraps theme...
we end up with a lot of fabric scraps from using the overlockers when making boomerang bags. I don't like to throw them out, so here are a couple of things that I've made from them. 

One is just a lowly pincushion, but the fancy thing about it is that flat piece out behind -  it sits under the sewing machine so that it stays put.
The second is a prototype of a phone holder that I made by copying one I saw on Pinterest. I feel the design could be tweaked a little to get the phone to sit more steadily, but hey - it works.

And lastly, while we're still on the subject of sewing - I wanted to show you our SewGood Station.

Whangarei's SewGood Station - a community sewing machine

This is one of our donated machines, set up permanently in Ecosolutions, in Whangarei for anyone at all to use. So, if people need to do mending or want to sew their own reusable bags - it's free to use, although a koha (donation) is happily accepted. 
There is a stash of materials, threads, scissors - in fact about everything you'd need - right there. There's also an overlocker there for people to use, although it's only a 3 thread. A 3 thread overlocker is only good for finishing edges, whereas a 4 thread is strong enough to sew the seam.
I think it's great - but it doesn't get used much yet.

Oh, and do you like my new blog header? I've been meaning to do this for years, but have just had the incentive provided for me - something a bit exciting that can be revealed closer towards the end of the year. Sorry - going to keep you in suspense.