• days out - Gingerbread house finds - playing - pregnancy - shopping - toddler - vintage

    Gingerbread house finds

    Last week was a bit crazy. It started with Edward’s first trip to the cinema, his first photo shoot for Mother & Baby magazine, a trip to the Gurgle blog awards (where I came third in my category and won a £250 Mothercare voucher) and ended with lunch with Elmo. Crazy, amazing and quite tiring for a toddler and a mummy with a big bump. But somehow I managed to squeeze in a trip to the shops. Oops, I couldn’t help myself but I came home with two more vintage jigsaws at the weekend. I just couldn’t resist their round…

  • Local Review - London - shopping

    Shop ’til you drop

    I’m not a girly girl but I do enjoy a look around the shops so was very excited when I was invited to visit The Bentall Shopping Centre in south London. Edward and I regularly go to our local shopping centre where we are experts in navigating the shops with aisles wide enough to accommodate the buggy, clean baby changing facilities and great coffee shops with helpful staff. How would The Bentall Centre compare? Shop ’til you drop It’s a bit of a journey from our patch of London  so Edward and I set off on our epic journey early…

  • Cath Kidston - clothing - shopping

    Cath Kidston and Uniqlo Charity Project

    I’m sure you know I’m a huge fan of Cath Kidston. Only today I stopped off to buy a lovely business card holder for my new Moo business cards at the Cath Kidston on Marylebone High Street. Today was a bit of a shopping marathon and, whilst browsing in Uniqlo in Westfield, I spotted some very familiar prints. Cath Kidston has teamed up with Uniqlo to produce a range of tshirts using some of her most popular prints. Many of the tshirts are already sold out but I snapped up two as they are currently on offer at 2 for…

  • shopping

    Big Green Bookshop need your help

    I expect my local highstreet looks much like yours, same old supermarkets and pound shops with the odd Boots and WHSmith thrown in for good measure. It makes shopping slightly boring. However, Wood Green has one good shop that is all our own – The Big Green Bookshop – an independent bookshop that aims to inject some life, culture and uniqueness back into our high street, or High Road if you’re being picky. The Big Green Bookshop was opened in 2008 after the only bookshop in Wood Green, Waterstones, closed down. I’ve loved following the process of setting up the…

  • Christmas - clothing - maternity leave - NCT - shopping

    10 top tips for saving money whilst on maternity leave

    Whilst I love spending time with my little boy my maternity pay recently came to an end. I’ve been trying to save my pennies until I returning to work in a few weeks. I thought I’d share my 10 top tips for saving money whilst on maternity leave: Buy second hand toys Little ones go through toys quickly so buy second hand where possible. Ebay, NCT sales, charity shops and toy swaps are great places to find new to you toys. The toys are usually in great condition and your little one doesn’t care where they’ve come from. Make your…

  • homestyle - Orla Kiely - shopping

    I got my hands on one!

    Ok, so I had to visit three Tesco stores but I finally got my hands on an Orla Kiely Scribble Pear design reuseable shopping bag. I mentioned back in November that Orla Kiely has designed a range of bags exclusively for Tesco. They are made of juco (a material technology that combines jute with cotton). The bag is lovely and strong and cost £4. The Scribble Pear design is the first in the range.  For each bag sold a contribution of 50p of the sale price of each bag will be divided equally and paid to CLIC Sargent Cancer Care…

  • baby - Christmas - shopping

    Felt bird garland

    I was busy sewing, sewing, sewing…. I’ve taken part in a few handmade decoration swaps lately and made these lovely little birds for a garland from my favourite felt sewing book Fa la la la Felt. My partner asked for something red so I hope she likes it. We also managed a shopping trip for some more Christmas presents (see, I told you I was addicted to buying!). Edward now has some new socks, Christmas bibs and adorable suede booties.

  • shopping

    Happy Holidays

    Despite the constant rain and gusty breeze we are enjoying some time on the Isle of Wight with our family. Whenever we come down we fall into a bit of a routine which includes visiting Busy Bee Nursery and looking round the charity shops in Ryde. However this morning we set off for another reclamation yard in Ryde, looking for the elusive missing parts for our fireplace. We managed to find a couple of suitable looking pieces and snapped them up for the bargain price of £15 (unbelievably cheap compared to what we were told in London last weekend). Then…

  • shopping

    Day 17

    Well we braved the wind and rain and headed down to Brighton this morning. We walked down to the sea front and along the pier, had some dodgy food at ha ha bar and canteen (seriously, don’t go there), visited the wonderful Museum and Art Gallery and spent my pennies in the shops in the North Laines. I have some wonderful finds! I particularly loved Appendage on Kensington Gardens where I saw lots of lovely things by Poppy Treffry which I shall be saving up for. I picked up some great vintage embroidered handkerchiefs, a kitsch picture, vintage cribbage board,…