We do what we can at self sufficient ‘ish’ to give you ingenious money and environment saving ideas.  This is why our resident cartoonist Spencer Hill was commissioned to draw this card. Click on either of the cards for a bigger versions and wait for it to load. Now print it off and glue it the front of an old card. On the inside glue another bit of paper and hey presto you have a valentines gift to give your loved one or some one you admire from afar. You could also cut the back off an old card recycle it and stick an new bit of card to the front. Alternatively if you want to download it, copy it and send it to someone via email then feel free just please don’t use for any profit. We would love to hear if the person you sent it to likes it lets us know on our forum.

If you want to see more of the character above Self sufficient Trish then have a browse around the site as she appears on some more pages, if you want her to return then let us know.

Personalised Oils

Buy some cheap olive oil and cut a few twigs of rosemary or a similarly decorative herb.

Put the herbs in the fanciest bottles you can find along with some garlic cloves.

Top up with the oil and print off your own labels with something like ‘Nothing says I love you more than garlic infused with rosemary…..’. This works with all kinds of herbs, basil, chili etc and you can do the same with pickles or jams you may have left over. Even though this is a cheap present it is highly personalised and original, I know I would be flattered to receive this.

Favour Cheque Book

Here is one I prepared earlier. Feel free to print this off and use it, but it is only really meant as an example, use your imagination and come up with some of your own.

Heart Shaped food

Exactly what it says cut the toast in the morning into a heart shape you could also try shaping my veggie burgers into heart shapes. Any food that can be manipulated really.

Plants

On a final note I will add that you don’t have to have a fortune to create a thoughtful gift. Why not get some paint and paint some old plant pots with a seed of your choice growing in it. February is a good time to start off some seedlings, whats more is that your valantine can eat your gift in the coming months. So why not say it with tomatoes?

Method 1: by Red
you will need:
a washing up bowl
washing soda crystals
washing up liquid
hot water
The method I use is to only work on a small part of fleece at a time, the advantage being that it’s not so daunting and you can keep the rest of the fleece ‘in the grease’, in your shed!
When you first [...]

Messing around in a bucket
Those somewhat fictitious “traditional” ancestors of ours made wine in anything they could find. Usually, they would have started it in a big bowl covered with a cloth and then finished it off in a salt-glaze earthenware pot – at which point they couldn’t see it any longer. And that’s the [...]

Getting rid of the fairy stories By MKG
If I said to a fairly representative group “Take some fruit juice, squeeze some lemon juice into it, empty a bag of sugar into it, top up to about a gallon with water from the tap and then stir or shake until everything’s dissolved” then I’d witness no [...]

A couple of years ago I wrote about Selfsufficientish Christmas ideas. This year I have given Christmas my own twist and called it Ishmas.  Ishmas is sustainable and thoughtful and it is more about the person than the gift, many of the ishers celebrate Ishamas (of course).
Free Wrapping paper.
For the last few years [...]

In the midst of winter you’d be fooled into think there isn’t much wild food around. It’s true that there is a lot less than at other times of the year but even on the coldest days something can be found, you just might have to look that little bit harder.
Unlike other times of year [...]

Spring greens wild foray – Saturday March 13th  2-4pm Totnes £35 per person, Booking in advance essential.
We kick off the year with our first wild food course in the Transition Town of Totnes. Meet by the train station before walking around historic Totnes town to see what wild food urban environments have to offer. Then a [...]

Home brewing – February 4th – 7-9pm – £5 per person – Bristol, Boiling Wells Lane – FULLY BOOKED
Learn how to successfully make ales and country wines without having to use kits and using ingredients and to some extent equipment available to yourself. We will be learning in a relaxed informal atmosphere and you will [...]

I love Middle Eastern food in all shapes and forms. Nothing satisfies me more than tucking into a mezze platter of falafels, domla (or dolmades), homous, olives and pita bread served up on a bed of salad leaves with perhaps a salsa dipping sauce on the side.
However, nearly all the ingredients have to be flown [...]

Why keep buying crackers when you can make them at home? Not only that these are well nice and pretty easy to make. They can keep for a while if you put them in a sealed container and away from sunlight.
Ingredients
100g Butter
150g plain flour
45ml Milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
A third of a teaspoon of salt.
Method
Sift [...]