A long walk to the post office

Figaro is getting ready to travel to the post office. Although he is most upset about having to get a bus to his nearest post office to post his weekly letters. The local post office has recently been shut down and replaced by a McDonalds. How upsetting. Figaro is going to write a letter of gentle protest, detailing his upset at the demise of one of his local amneities.
'I hope the local cardboard house shop doesn't close soon too.' Fabric mouse whimpers.



Figaro is a recycled paper and plasticine cat who lives in a recycled cardboard house found in a recycling bin. Follw his adventures at dollwithbigeyes.blogspot.com

My favourite day is Sunday

Today I actually got to do most stuff I want to do on a Sunday.
Previous Sundays seemed to be filled with stuff I don't want to do, but today was pretty neat.
First I had a sort of lie in, and I got to wear my lovely vintage nightie I bought yesterday from the new vintage shop on Ullswater Road in Lancaster. I had my coffee and vanilla soya milk and a green apple. I wish mum would put apples in the fridge, they obv taste fresher and crispier that way. I contemplated NOT going for my run as I had been for 5 runs this week totalling over a marathon. :O So I messed about on the laptop and emailed some whole-food companies to see what deals I could get for the food coop/veg box scheme I'm setting up at my uni. (Manchester Metropolitan) I would love it to be like the one they have in Leeds. They do vegan picnics and cookery lessons, cheap veg box scheme and vegan snacks and workshops. I then realised I left my usb pen in the library. Crumbs! So tried phoning uni, but they were closed. (Lazy) I then thought I should go for a run. So I did, I ran up a big hill and took five pounds so I could buy soya milk and a apple on the way back. The soya milk was 79p and the apple 40p. I then went back to buy the Independent on Sunday 5 minutes later. When I got back I tried practising my ballet stretches and slipped on my new ballet shoes. I think my balance is defiantly getting better. Over breakfast I read my newspaper outside with Weetabix and museli and honey and soya yogurt. I then started making my Madeline pinafore dress for Manchester children's book festival. The volunteers were told to dress up as their favourite story book characters. WEll I have so many so I am dressing up as Madeline as I look most like her. I spent most of the day fiddling about with the straps of the dress and my mum helped me with the box pleats. It is sort of finished and it has a matching cape. I'll wear my new boater hat with it also.
My dad phoned asking about some phone. We had a nice walk along Lancaster canal yesterday and saw a little frog and a canal boat cat.
I then roped my brother Harry outside to do some skipping. I purchased a skipping rope from The British Red Cross shop in Watercup where I am doing volunteer work at a Puppet theatre named The Boo. The rope has pinochio wooden heads on each end of the rope. I adore it. After some skipping I was hungry. But today I had to make tea again. Yesterday I made stir fry with peanut butter sauce. Today I made a vegan sausage shepherds pie sorta thing. It was pretty nice.
After tea I was bit bored so had some soya yogurt and Weetabix again.
I phoned a friend, then felt confused as usual and then played with my little sister.
I then put on my nightie and read The Old Curiousity shop with a cup of tea and two ginger biscuits.

find me on the radio

http://www.dandelionradio.com/rachael.htm

I'm doing a craft fair here this Easter Sunday!

Come along for vegan cakes, pumpkin muffins and mushroom shaped cupcakes :D Paddington bear vintage recycled handmade bags, russian doll badges and felt plushies! Fun bands and vege cafe too in the Lovely Islington Mill in Salford!

Vegan Shortbread

Few ingredients are needed to make this delicious and simply effective British biscuit.

Shortbread is an ideal biscuit to make as it is so simple to make and makes an ideal present as it has a long shelf life. (I put some in a mug, wrapped in cellophane and tied with a ribbon and gave to my mother, she was delighted). Shortbread originates and is most commonly associated with Scotland. Not surprising that the most notable shortbread manufacturer is the Scottish company, Walkers, specialising in providing shortbread and fine Scottish specialities. With this being my first attempt at vegan shortbread, the question was would it taste too dry without the essential ingredient of butter? Shortbread is named thus because of its reaction with the butter creating a crumbly (shortening) texture. Thankfully my experiment was a delicious success.

Ingredients:

8 oz Plain flour

4oz Icing Sugar

8 oz Vegan margarine

4oz Corn flour or rice flour

Preheat an oven to 200C

Sieve both and icing sugar into a large bowl and mix in margarine.

I like the next bit, use your fingers to make the mixture crumble like breadcrumbs. Then knead into dough. If your dough is too crumbly add a little water or Soya milk to bind the mixture or add more margarine. Don’t add too much water as the shortbread is supposed to be quite dry. Grease a cake tin and press the dough into the tin. Make sure the dough is quite thick to make chunky biscuits and to prevent breaking. You can press down the sides to create the petticoat tail effect and cut into triangles or cut into stripes for the classic shortbread fingers. You could even use a rolling pin and use cookie cutters to make adorable shortbread shapes! Use a fork to mark holes in the dough and pop in an oven at no more than 200 C. Shortbread needs to be cooked slowly so that it does not brown to maintain the classic smooth white colour. Keep checking on your biscuits to make sure they do not brown this should take about 30 minutes. When your biscuits feel slightly hard take out of oven. Don’t worry if they are quite soft they will continue to harden on a cooling rack. Dust with caster sugar and share with friends, or if you are greedy or have no friends eat all yourself hoorah!

An afternoon of Origami

This weekend I had a lovely afternoon of folding paper to make some lovely paper ornaments :) This was at Nexus Art cafe in Manchester and is run every Saturday 2-4. we are hoping to make a stop animation film with paper boats! how cute!
We made some paper boxes, a daffodill and some envelopes.
I bought a vintage Rupert bear book with a complicated elephant pattern, but I will tackle that when I'm more adavanced!
Origami is quite simple as long as you follow the steps correctly!
Apparantly I'm a natural at folding :D
Grab yourself some paper and have some folding fun!

Tick Tock Tick

Tick Tock Tick
Frosty Coloured Frock
Tick Tock Tick
A Mouse's nose twitch
Tick Tock Tock
eyes to the clock
A poem tucked in a pocket
Secrets in a vintage locket
Tick Tick Tick
Candle Flame Flick
Tick Tock Tick
Your time is up
Tick tick tock
A memory forgot