• Kid-friendly lavender wands
    Autumn - crafts

    Kid-friendly lavender wands {A-Z Play at Home}

    October 6, 2017 - By 

    I’m the first to admit I’m not a great gardener but the one thing we do have is a good supply of lavender. It’s one of my favourite plants and makes the garden smell gorgeous. It has a very pretty flower but what do you do with it once it’s flowered and over for the year? We’ve experimented with homemade lavender playdough before but for our weekly A-Z Play at Home blog series I thought we would harvest the flowers and try making lavender wands – a kid-friendly version. It is quite easy to harvest your lavender flowers. Once they have…

  • Autumn leaves sun catchers craft for kids
    Autumn - crafts - Nature crafts

    Autumn leaves sun catchers craft for kids

    October 5, 2017 - By 

    It’s been a while since we made any sun catchers but, along with the conkers my children keep picking up, they’ve brought home a lot of leaves too. We have a very short walk to the school gates but it seems like we walk past a lot of different trees. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to learn more about trees and leaves. Autumn leaves sun catchers craft for kids We used: fallen leaves picked up on our way to and from school white card contact paper coloured cellophane sheets scissors First we picked the leaves which were whole and…

  • How to make conker caterpillars
    Autumn - crafts

    How to make conker caterpillars

    October 4, 2017 - By 

    Every day we walk past a beautiful horse chestnut tree. Actually we walk past it four times on the way to drop my son off at Junior School then go on to Infant school. We’ve been picking up conkers for about 6 weeks and have a huge collection of all kinds of shapes and sizes. Sadly, the conkers have done nothing to deter the gigantic spiders which keep coming indoors. I’m not sure if that’s a myth or not, but I would gladly keep a few conkers around the house if they kept spiders away. We have so many conkers…

  • Umbrella paper plate craft for kids
    Autumn - crafts

    Umbrella paper plate sun catcher craft for kids {A-Z Play at Home}

    September 22, 2017 - By 

    I can’t believe we’re already at the letter U in our weekly A-Z Play at Home blog hop. The letter U was an easy one for me as the weather is very autumnal and I’ve been carrying an umbrella with me at all times! Today I’m sharing our super sweet umbrella paper plate craft for kids. We used: paper plates contact paper coloured cellophane sheets scissors I drew the outline of an umbrella on the paper plate, making sure there was a generous edge around it. I cut it out and we covered one side with contact paper. Then my…

  • Autumn - parenting - shopping

    Getting dressed up this Autumn

    September 21, 2017 - By 

    Photo by Gabby Orcutt on Unsplash I love this time of year because there is so much to look forward to. Unlike the long 6 weeks of the summer holidays with endless warm and sunny days stretching in front of you, I actually prefer Autumn and Winter. I love to have things to look forward to and now there’s Halloween, Bonfire Night, my daughter’s birthday and Christmas to get ready for. It’s going to be a busy {xx} days before Christmas! Shopping for Autumn fashion I’ve recently given myself a bit of a fashion overhaul. I’ve been slowly losing weight so have been…

  • Crafts to celebrate the Autumn Equinox
    Autumn - crafts

    Crafts to celebrate the Autumn Equinox

    September 21, 2017 - By 

    Well it doesn’t seem that long since we celebrated Spring Equinox but somehow it’s already time to start thinking about and celebrating the Autumn Equinox, which takes place on the 22nd September. The Autumn Equinox marks the end of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the official first day of Autumn. I love the transition to Autumn. We’ve been noticing the signs for weeks and everything seemed to come early this year. We were picking the first blackberries at the beginning of August and the children collect conkers on the school run every day. Autumn makes me think of cosy…

  • Shopping for Autumn fashion
    Autumn - homestyle - shopping

    Shopping for Autumn fashion

    September 14, 2017 - By 

    Photo by Pineapple Supply Co. on Unsplash The other day I told you that I will soon be celebrating my Ninth wedding anniversary! Woo hoo! Nothing screams wedding anniversary like a date night in a fancy restaurant. Nights out are pretty limited as a parent living in the suburbs, so I’ve been planning my outfit and general autumn wardrobe with thanks to Lyst.co.uk I love shopping online and shopping around to find myself the best deal. Nothing beats gathering ideas from the comfort of my own sofa. There are some brilliant fashion trends for autumn and I’m excited about updating my wardrobe. Not…

  • easy Q tip blackberry craft for kids to make this autumn
    Autumn - crafts

    Q tip blackberries craft

    August 25, 2017 - By 

    I can’t believe we’ve reached the letter Q in our weekly A-Z Play at Home blog hop already. It took me a while to think of a fun craft or activity around the letter Q and eventually I picked Q tips or cotton buds – the ones that are used for cleaning ears. It’s something every home has and I’m sure has lots of crafting possibilities. For our Q tip blackberries craft we used: Q tips an elastic band white card black/purple/green paint We recently picked a load of blackberries and made them into a delicious apple and blackberry pie.…

  • Sycamore seed faces, a nature craft for kids
    Autumn - crafts - Nature crafts

    Sycamore seed faces

    August 12, 2017 - By 

    The signs of Autumn have been around for a while – conkers growing, blackberries and shorter evenings. I love Autumn so I’m pretty happy to embrace it all. I noticed lots of sycamore seeds around the park so picked some up incase we could craft with them. We actually came up with something very simple – sycamore seed faces! We used sycamore seeds and card face blanks from Baker Ross (although you could easily draw your own faces). We also used a glue stick, some coloured card and wool. First my daughter glued the sycamore seed on where she thought it…