Price Points: Metric scale weights

Metric scale weights

For years, I’ve used electronic scales for baking and for weighing out the dog’s food. We have a lovely set of vintage scales that never get used because I only have Imperial weights to go with them. Most of the recipes I turn to use metric measures.

Our current electronic scales don’t suit our ‘country kitchen’ vibe, so they’re kept hidden out of the way. Our vintage scales sit on the counter-top… but never get used. The solution is to get myself some metric scale weights, and I’ve found three contenders.

Although they’re beautiful, the expensive set won’t suit the old fashioned looking scales; and at over £50, I’d want a 1kg weight for when I’m weighing out flour for bread. I really can’t decide between the other two – the hexagonal ones are suitably rustic and still have their original box. However, I love the design of the Robert Welch ones –  they’re attractive and unusual. Which ones would you choose?

  1. Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights 5g-1kg: £20.82, Etsy
  2. Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights: £30.00, Yester Home
  3. Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights: £53.99, Wayfair

shop metric scale weights

Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.

Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
£53.99
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
£30.00
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
£20.82
Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
£53.99
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
£30.00
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
£20.82
Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
£53.99
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
£30.00
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
£20.82
Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
£53.99
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
£30.00
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
£20.82
Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
Mechanical metric kitchen scale weights
£53.99
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
Traditional Robert Welch cast iron metric weights
£30.00
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
Vintage hexagonal cast iron & brass weights
£20.82

Price Points: Enamel soap dishes

Enamel soap dishes

We have a few enamel items – both new and vintage – in our kitchen and bathroom. It’s a beautiful and useful material.

We have a handy Emma Bridgewater enamel saucepan that we use for heating milk and making porridge on our induction hob. We have a vintage ‘chippy‘ white enamel jug that’s kept in the bathroom that’s used to rinse shampoo & conditioner from hair. We have a trio of graduated, enamel lidded containers next to the sink which hold food waste and the washing-up sponge. There’s a similar one to these in the bathroom where we store bath salts. Enamel is great for all these products because it’s a strong material that’s easy to keep clean.

We currently have a bronze soap dish next to the bath – we’ve had it for decades and it’s a beautiful thing. However, it looks out of place in a bathroom where the décor is white, grey and stainless steel. I’ve wanted to swap it for a white enamel soap dish for a while… and we finally have one!

The three enamel soap dishes above were ones that I looked at and, for me, they all have pros and cons. I prefer the round shape to the rectangular, but the John Lewis one (#1) doesn’t have the useful drainage holes. I hate soft, waterlogged soap! I think the wall-mounted one is sweet and it has the all important drainage holes, but we don’t have a practical or convenient place to hang it above the bath. That means that #2 is the winner for us – it’s not round, but we can live with that!

  1. Enamel soap dish, white: £8.00, John Lewis
  2. Enamel soap dish: £10.50, Trouva
  3. Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish: £24.07, Amazon

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Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.

Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
£24.07
Enamel soap dish
Enamel soap dish
£10.50
Enamel soap dish, white
Enamel soap dish, white
£8.00
Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
£24.07
Enamel soap dish
Enamel soap dish
£10.50
Enamel soap dish, white
Enamel soap dish, white
£8.00
Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
£24.07
Enamel soap dish
Enamel soap dish
£10.50
Enamel soap dish, white
Enamel soap dish, white
£8.00
Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
£24.07
Enamel soap dish
Enamel soap dish
£10.50
Enamel soap dish, white
Enamel soap dish, white
£8.00
Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
Wall-mounted white enamel soap dish
£24.07
Enamel soap dish
Enamel soap dish
£10.50
Enamel soap dish, white
Enamel soap dish, white
£8.00

Price Points: Glass spice jars

Glass spice jars

We’ve been having a little bit of a rearrange in our kitchen this week. We added some extra storage – in the shape of repurposed apple crates – behind our Esse range cooker. It meant that we now have some more shelf space for foodstuffs.

Something I’ve wanted to do for a while is get all our herbs and spices into uniform containers. At the moment we have a hodge-podge of ones from different brands and supermarkets – and it looks untidy, in my opinion. Thanks to the reorganisation, we now have the perfect display space for a row of matching glass spice jars.

The basic Nutley’s jars will do the job aptly; they’re hexagonal so can be positioned snugly against each other as well as stacked upon each other. You get so many of them that we can get all our dozens of different herbs, spices, salts and peppers refilled. I can label each one using my nifty Dymo.

The bamboo lidded variety are very beautiful to look at and they’re available in two different sizes – so more bulky things like cinnamon sticks will fit the larger one nicely. They come with pre-printed sticky labels – but what about the less well-known spice mixes that we use such as panch phoron, za’atar and ras el hanout? Well, not to worry, you can specify the words that you want printed… as well as having the choice of three different fonts.

The Kilner jars are my favourite of the three here. I already have a range of glass Kilner jars that I use to store dry goods, make jams & preserves and to soak sloe berries in gin – so they’d be in good company. They have a nifty screw lid with different sized perforations – very practical – which means that, in many cases, you don’t even need to remove the lid to use the contents. Again, I could make my own little labels for each – there’s a little designated space on the jar under the Kilner name for just this purpose. If I could find these for sale in bulk – at a discounted price – they’d would be lining my shelves pronto!

  1. Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36): £32.50, Amazon
  2. Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml: from £30.00 for six, Etsy
  3. Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid: £4.00 each, Ocado

shop glass spice jars

Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.

Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
£4.00
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
from £30.00 for six
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
£32.50
Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
£4.00
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
from £30.00 for six
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
£32.50
Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
£4.00
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
from £30.00 for six
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
£32.50
Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
£4.00
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
from £30.00 for six
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
£32.50
Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
Kilner 250ml storage jar with shaker lid
£4.00
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
Spice jars bamboo lid 200ml / 300ml
from £30.00 for six
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
Nutley’s 190ml hexagonal glass jam jars, gold lids (pack of 36)
£32.50

Price Points: iPad cases

iPad cases

Last week I mentioned that, for Christmas, Justin bought me a selection of knives for gardening and foraging. I bought him a new iPad; well, new to him. His old was was getting… well, old. The operating system had became obsolete, so many of the apps couldn’t be updated and were unworkable. It had virtually ground to a halt. Added to which, the screen was so smashed, the text was unreadable.

The shiny replacement is a reconditioned, 2019 iPad 10.2. The machine is in fantastic shape and it does everything he needs it to do and more. To keep it looking pristine, I planned to buy him one of these iPad cases.

The wooden cover example (#2) is handmade and absolutely beautiful. It’s available in a range of woods; walnut, maple, lyptus and eco-friendly versions of rosewood, zebrawood and ebony. You can pay extra if you want a screen surround, a cutout to expose the Apple logo, custom text etc. The maker is based in the USA however, they ship to the UK.

The official Apple version (#3) is a sleeve rather than a case and is made from genuine leather. I wouldn’t have considered this one as an option because, at a hundred and fifty pounds, it costs more than half of what the iPad itself did!

The one I eventually decided to buy was the budget, faux leather rotating case (#1) in dark grey to match the colour of the iPad. If that’s a bit muted for your taste, it’s also available in a range of lovely bright hues. It’s very smart looking and well made considering the cheap price. The twisting mechanism allows it to transform into a stand – propping up the iPad in either landscape or portrait positions. Perfect for when Justin is reading the news in bed in the morning enjoying his first cup of coffee of the day.

  1. Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad: £7.49, Etsy
  2. Wood iPad cover: from $106.00
  3. Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro, black: £149.00, Apple

shop iPad cases

Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.

Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
£149.00
Wood iPad cover
Wood iPad cover
from $106.00
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
£7.49
Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
£149.00
Wood iPad cover
Wood iPad cover
from $106.00
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
£7.49
Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
£149.00
Wood iPad cover
Wood iPad cover
from $106.00
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
£7.49
Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
£149.00
Wood iPad cover
Wood iPad cover
from $106.00
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
£7.49
Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
Leather sleeve for 10.5‑inch iPad Pro – black
£149.00
Wood iPad cover
Wood iPad cover
from $106.00
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
Synthetic leather 360 rotating smart case cover for Apple iPad
£7.49