Projects, Pastimes and Proper Jobs to throw yourself into at home this month

There’s such joy in spending spring days at home when, as well as hunkering indoors, there is pottering in the garden, sewing that can be done into light evenings and the chance to really enjoy your home at its best.

With two long weekends to get stuck into this month (as well as, let’s face it, plenty of time at home), now is the ideal opportunity to do all those jobs and projects you never have time for and enjoy a bit of being busy doing nothing, too. And it’s a prospect to relish so take it slow and plan this well.

In our May issue, we have a special feature on Crafternoons, with delightful projects that will absorb you for just a few hours, but if an afternoon pleasantly whiled away isn’t enough for you, here are our ideas for whiling away an entire day or weekend productively.

Here’s our Simple Things Compendium of projects, pastimes and Proper Jobs that will make you wish long weekends could last all week.

Projects

Long weekends are made for good projects. The best sorts are fun to plan, absorb you completely and leave you with a glow of satisfaction. It’s a good idea to practise in advance your expression of nonchalance and an airy “oh it’s just something I knocked up at home” for when friends comment admiringly.

A simple project you can do in an afternoon is always satisfying and paper crafts are ideal for this timescale. An origami corner bookmark, homemade notebook, or dip-dyed stationery are good for paper craft beginners. For semi pros there is a plethora of paper ideas on the internet. We are coveting the paper sea scene under a little glass dome from Etsy maker My Papercut Forest. If you can repurpose some old paper for a project, award yourself an additional grown-up gold star - old maps, dressmaking patterns and tatty books or old newspapers can all look beautiful used to cover books, lampshades or even the walls of your loo.

We do love a kitchen table day. If you have a box of neglected essential oils lurking somewhere (who doesn’t?) you could spend a happy morning experimenting with scents to make room sprays (three parts water to one part witch hazel and your choice of oils), or even a cleaning spray for your yoga mat (a few drops each of tea tree, lavender and peppermint in distilled water). Neal’s Yard sells a range of ‘base’ products called Create Your Own if you want to branch out into lotions and potions.

In fact, how about dedicating a day (or even an entire weekend) to kitchen projects? We spend so much time in the kitchen on everyday food prep. How much lovelier to spend a day pottering in the heart of the home, radio murmuring, creating delicious things to store away for another day. We don’t think you can ever have enough jams and chutneys but if you fancy something different, try pickling vegetables or making green onion kimchi (pictured above) or turmeric pickled cauliflower, and you’ll always have something impressive to fancy up a cheese on toast lunch. A long weekend at home is the ideal time to get out those foodie kits thoughtful souls gave you for Christmas and you never got round to. They’re a fun way to try out a new kitchen project, from making your own cheese to brewing your own beer. Who knows, you could have a cottage industry started by Monday. And if you don’t have one in the back of a cupboard, make it a gift to yourself.

Keen stitchers might enjoy the opportunity to make the most of the light evenings, when fabric fun times need not be curtailed by 40-watt lightbulbs. How about stitching a hammock for the garden, re-covering a deck chair, or digging out your embroidery threads and customising a shopping bag with the name of your hometown? You might try a craft you’ve never tried to make something to you never knew you needed… needle-felted dachshund or macrame market bag, anyone?

Fancy a weekend spent making your garden a little lovelier? You could make a newspaper nursery for seedlings, by planting veg seeds in homemade paper pots, give your herb garden a complete makeover, or create one from scratch, planting them in something quirky, from the ubiquitous pair of old wellies to palettes, an old metal tub, concrete blocks or apple crate. And while you’re outside, if you can source some tins from the recycling turn them into garden tea light holders for the longer evenings: just clean thoroughly, spray-paint, fill with water and freeze and then punch hole patterns in them using a hammer and nails. Projects complete, we suggest you light your tea lights and spend the evening in the garden with something delicious you made earlier.

Pastimes

Is there anything nicer than being in a holiday cottage and having nothing but a pot of tea, and a book you found on the cottage’s bookshelf to occupy you? We think not. You can recreate that holiday cottage feeling by spending a day or two slowing down and whiling away a few hours on completely pointless things you love.

Along with mince pies, jigsaws are a joy we think should be indulged in all year. They’ve enjoyed something of a makeover recently. No more puzzles of Labrador puppies posing with carnations: there are endless ‘cool jigsaws’ to purchase (we love Jiggy Puzzles and Piecework Puzzles), with images beautiful enough to frame afterwards. We’ve even created an online puzzle or two of our own you might enjoy.

If a jigsaw has you in the mood for more puzzles, spend a morning with the crossword. If you’ve done newspaper crosswords regularly in the past you’ll know the joy of getting to know the quirks and in-jokes of the various ‘setters’. If you’re new to them, try The Telegraph for a good cryptic crossword that isn’t completely outfacing, but you’ll find a paper and a setter you get on with. All you need is a decent ballpoint pen and a large cafetiere of coffee.

We all ‘read’ but when was the last down you sat down to do nothing but read for a whole afternoon? (It was in that holiday cottage we mentioned, wasn’t it?) With a whole weekend to waste wonderfully, you could read a book you’ve never got round to, one you read when you were too young to appreciate it fully (we see you, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca) or finish one you started and then put aside. And on that note, what happened to that novel you once started? Alternatively, get everyone in your house to pen a short story and read them aloud in the evening. You can see others telling stories at The Moth if you need a bit of performative inspiration.

Get out the board games, too, from old favourites like Cluedo and Battleship to the whizzier new board games, such as Sagrada, in which you build stained glass windows, or the spooky Betrayal at House on the Hill. And board games aren’t just for cold winter evenings; take them outside. There’s a plethora of garden games available, from Kubb to Giant Chess and, let’s face it, like tennis, Scrabble is more fun played on grass.

If you’re struggling to think of ways to pass the time on a slow weekend, cast your mind back to childhood. Chances are you’ll enjoy the same things now you loved then. Perhaps you have a neglected musical instrument in the loft you could get down and tune up? And when was the last time you spent an afternoon drawing, painting or doing calligraphy? You probably still had name tapes in your clothes, let’s be honest. Get out your pencils and a sketchbook and give it a go again. If you want a little guidance, try a Sketchbook Club online.

Talking of pastimes from past times, consider photography. Not the snap-happy stuff you do on your phone. Dig out your old camera and give it some love. Whether digital or analogue, the act of considering composition, light and shutter speed bring the skill and the joy back to taking a photograph.

A weekend at home is also a great opportunity to try something new - whether it’s scrapbooking, researching your family history online, or learning to play Mah Jong, whiling away some time never looked so appealing.

Proper jobs

We do like to bask in the glow of a job well done, but the best jobs are those that you can really get absorbed in at the time. How about making this the year you come over all Moley from The Wind in the Willows and do a proper spring clean?

Pop on our Spring Clean playlist and invest in some really lovely cleaning products you want to use then start at the top of the house and work down, dusting first, and doing floors last.

Alternatively, a couple of free days are a good opportunity to give a neglected spot a new lease of life. You could bottom the greenhouse; scrub the empty flower pots, sweep the spiders into a corner (but leave them somewhere to hang out), hang tools on walls so you’ve got some room to work, and voila, you have a sunny room of your own to escape to with a cup of tea and that crossword. Or treat your home’s exterior to a facial - wash down windowsills, scrub your front step (1950s housewife skirt tucked into knickers a plus but not a necessity) and Brasso your door furniture.

There’s something meditative about ‘enjoyable cleaning’. Decluttering your whole house, however, can feel like something of a chore, and we’re here for the fun jobs so we’d suggest choosing a small area to make lovely: sort out your coat cupboard, perhaps. Or what about your books? Would it make you happier to see them arranged by colour, author, subject matter or Dewey Decimal system? Imagine getting completely on top of your pantry… finding all those tins of weird things we all have at the back of the cupboard and actually making something with them, then sorting everything out with beautiful storage so a row of jars and tins greets you pleasingly as you open the door. Aaah… that’s better.

And there are a hundred small but enjoyable jobs to ‘do well’ on a weekend at home, from washing your cushion covers and polishing your cutlery to hanging that framed print that’s been standing in the hall for a year and finally, actually putting all your photographs into albums.

Don’t forget to reward yourself regularly with tea and cake for your efforts. And make it some decent Earl Grey and a proper homemade cake. If a slow weekend is worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, we think.

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