• Mollie Makes Floral 'Let Love Bloom' Hoop Kit
    Crafts for adults - Mollie Makes crafts - Valentines Day crafts

    Mollie Makes Floral Hoop Kit

    January 6, 2018 - By 

    Regular readers will know that every month I challenge myself to make the Mollie Makes magazine cover gift. I’ve subscribed since it first came out and have had a drawer full of unopened kits – but no more! I’ve been making more time for grown up crafting and I love to make the kits and hopefully try something new. Mollie Makes Floral Hoop Kit Mollie Makes Floral ‘Let Love Bloom’ Hoop Kit from Issue 87 was designed by Amanda Bryde of Brynn & Co. It contained a plastic embroidery hoop, printed cotton fabric, embroidery threads and a sewing needle. I love a…

  • Family Life

    A sense of pride in your local community

    January 5, 2018 - By 

    Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash One of things I was most excited about when I became a parent was feeling part of a community. Living in London can be strange. It’s a huge city and it often felt that I spent more time commuting or at the office than I did at home. Once my maternity leave started, and I had a little baby at hand, I loved exploring my neighbourhood. When I was at home during the day I found it was a completely different place, and started to meet people and make friends within my community. A sense of pride…

  • Top tips for a healthy start to the New Year
    Family Life

    Top tips for a healthy start to the New Year

    January 5, 2018 - By 

    Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash I don’t know about you but I am struggling to feeling energised this New Year. I have a brand new diary, am de-cluttering like a mad person, but just feel a little sluggish and tired after a hectic Christmas. So I thought I would share my top tips for a healthy start to the New Year. Top tips for a healthy start to the New Year I’ve been following Slimming World for the last 10 months but had a break over Christmas. I really felt it. My diet suffered which has had a knock on effect on…

  • Updating a girls bedroom
    Family Life

    Updating a girls bedroom

    January 4, 2018 - By 

    Over the past few weeks I have been buying a few pieces for my daughter’s bedroom. She recently turned 6 and declared she hated pink. Unfortunately for her, we painted her room pink a few years ago. I love decorating so was happy to change her room around. I think she has one of the nicest bedrooms in our house. It is a long room, overlooking the garden and has the most awesome storage cupboard which holds a lot of toys. Last year we bought a lot of new white furniture to make it a nice place to hang out.…

  • BRICKLIVE Christmas at the Saatchi Gallery
    days out - Family Life - Lego - Local Review - London

    BRICKLIVE Christmas at the Saatchi Gallery

    January 3, 2018 - By 

    Yesterday was the last day of our Christmas holiday so we decided to head into London and visit BRICKLIVE Christmas at the Saatchi Gallery. We all love Lego. Christmas was spent building Lego BB8, Lego Boost and the Lego Nutcracker so we thought this would be a fun morning. BRICKLIVE describes itself as an interactive Lego-based Show for Lego fans. You can wonder at expert builder displays, build a mosaic, build a present and even meet Father Christmas. The show was split across four zones, the Christmas Zone, the Creative Zone, Minecraft and Star Wars. Each one offered a different…

  • Creating a Gingerbread Village with Morrisons
    Crafts for kids - gingerbread house

    Creating an edible Gingerbread Village

    January 2, 2018 - By 

    You all know that we love gingerbread and gingerbread houses. For us, it’s not just a Christmas thing – we love them all year round. In December we baked our first gingerbread house which only lasted a few days. So I bought a Gingerbread Village kit from Morrisons for us all to do over Christmas. Gingerbread Village from Morrisons We don’t have a Morrisons near us but when I popped into one I found they had some lovely products for Christmas. This year I could’t resist their Gingerbread Village. It consisted of 5 gingerbread house shapes with pre-made icing, jelly hearts, pucker…

  • Sylvanian Families Town
    Family Life - Friends of Sylvanian Families - toy review

    Sylvanian Families Town range launches in the UK in 2018

    January 2, 2018 - By 

    I love the start of a New Year. After a lovely Christmas and New Year I’m excited about what will happen in 2018. One thing I’ve been looking forward to is the launch of the Sylvanian Families Town range, launching in the UK in 2018. If you’re a fan of Sylvanian Families then you’ve probably heard about the Sylvanian Families Town range. Yep, the Sylvanians are coming to the big city! Expect there to be shops, hotels, houses and trams! I follow a few Japanese sites which had the Sylvanian Families Town range in April last year. I’ve seen quite a few sets…

  • Best of nine on instagram
    Family Life

    Monday mindfulness – 5 happy things

    January 1, 2018 - By 

    Happy New Year! I know it doesn’t seem very long since I wrote my Wednesday Happy Things post. I love this time between Christmas and New Year, although it’s difficult to know what day it is! Monday mindfulness- 5 happy things We went away the day after Christmas Day and visiting family and friends means it has felt like a bit of a holiday. We’ve actually had a few great days out and some lovely meals too. One thing I love at this time of year is seeing my ‘Best of nine’ on Instagram. It’s a bit silly but a…

  • crafts - Crafts for kids - New Year crafts

    Why you should create a New Year’s Time Capsule with your kids

    December 31, 2017 - By 

    This time last year I sat down and thought about how I wanted to celebrate the New Year with my children. They love a reason to celebrate and over the last few years we’ve made lots of New Year crafts from New Year bells to a paper bell garland and little confetti boxes. On New Year’s Eve we usually have a nice family meal and play a board game – pretty low key but a lovely way to mark the end of a year. Just like last year I’ll be printing out the Printable New Year’s Resolution for Kids 2018 from…