Cooking a meal for friends and family can seem daunting and many people just buy ready cooked meals from a shop instead – but once you know the basics of cooking you’ll soon discover that making your own food can be easy. The same rule applies for a huge variety of other tasks, from decorating your home to making your own cleaning products. Cleaning your home Most people cringe at the thought of cleaning their car or home because the products needed to carry out these tasks can work out very expensive. But you’ll be surprised how effectively you…
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I’m so excited to be starting the year by working with Staedtler again. You may remember we teamed up last year and we had lots of fun with their products. They kindly sent me a bundle of products to use with my children, the first one we tried was one of the FIMO form & play sets. It can’t have escaped your notice that a pretty big film came out at the end of last year. My 5 year old loved The Force Awakens and now is a huge fan of all things Star Wars. I knew he would love…
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It’s been a beautifully quiet week. The children only went back to nursery and school on Tuesday and we all enjoyed a short week. After school clubs start this week so I’m glad we had a slow start to the year. My 5 year old has discovered hot chocolate so we treated ourselves to a loaded hot chocolate in a new cafe on the high street. I’ve spent the evenings working on my Liberty rainbow quilt. I’ve finished the top and backed it with a gorgeous Liberty print. This week I’ll be hand stitching the binding and hope to…
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I can’t believe we’ve been in our present home for a good couple of years now. I think the start of a New Year has made us finally sit down and talk about home improvements. This year we will be concentrating on the downstairs and I can’t wait to choose some colour schemes and get painting. I’m sure I can’t be the only person who found selling and buying property more stressful than getting married or having babies! Unfortunately it’s always going to be expensive and time consuming. As well as buying property there are all the associated fees including…
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January tends to be a quiet month for us. After the crazy, busy months of November and December it’s good to keep our weekends free to enjoy each others’ company and our own home. It was noticeably colder today, which is why it seemed like a really good time to experiment in the kitchen. Many moons ago when I was at University, I was a member of the Tunnocks’ Caramel Wafer Appreciation Society. Every week we would gather in the pub, I can’t quite remember what we did, but I made some great friends and went on a trip to…
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Every month I challenge myself to make the Mollie Makes magazine cover gift. I’ve subscribed since it first came out and have a drawer full of unopened kits – but no more. I’ve been making more time for crafting and I love to try something new with each of the cover gifts. Issue 62 of Mollie Makes came with a cool Mollie Makes Paper Gems Kit designed by Minieco. It contained a scary looking wooden template and 10 pretty papers. Tonight I sat down and attempted to make a paper gem. I read through the instructions and decided to cut out…
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It feels like it’s been a while since I shared a good book I’ve enjoyed reading. Just before Christmas I was looking for something new to read. It was a difficult time as I knew I would be receiving a few books for Christmas but I really wanted something to read. I was in my local Waterstones buying a few last minute Christmas presents and decided to purchase a copy of The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins. I’m probably the last person in the world to read it. I don’t have a commute, or much time to read,…
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We’re lucky to live in a beautiful part of Greater London surrounded by woods and forests. A short drive away is the outstanding Wendover Woods which is looked after by the Forestry Commission. Not that we need an incentive to visit the woods, but we do enjoy the partnership between the Forestry Commission, the wonderful books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, to create the fun family activity trails. There have been a couple of trails based on books and so far we’ve visited the Gruffalo Activity Trail, The Gruffalo’s Child Activity Trail and the Superworm Activity Trail. Stick Man trail at Wendover Woods A few…
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Happy New Year everyone and welcome to my weekly Monday Happy Things post where I record the five things which have made me happy in the past week. I’ve really enjoyed the Christmas holidays. I’ve had plenty of time to indulge my hobbies, written some long overdue blog posts and loved not receiving too many emails. One of my favourite Christmas presents was The Year in Stitches Calendar Kit from The Draper’s Daughter. I enjoyed stitching the first month and will look forward to making each one every month. On the way back from spending Christmas at my mum’s…