• SUMMER HOLIDAYS WEEK 3
    homestyle - Monday Happy List

    Monday happy things {Week 150}

    August 14, 2017 - By 

    Happy Monday everyone! Time for my weekly post, about the things which made me happy in the previous week. Today I bring you the Summer Holidays Week 3 edition! The last week of the summer holidays has been much more relaxing than the previous two. We’ve had family staying so had less days out. Despite this we managed two trips to the theatre! I finally reached my 2 stone award at Slimming World! I’ve been going to Slimming World meetings for a few months. I don’t find it too hard to follow, especially now I’ve cut back on the Chinese…

  • Somerset Lavender
    days out - holidays - parenting - Somerset

    Somerset Lavender {kids in lavender fields]

    August 13, 2017 - By 

    So today we finally made it to a lavender field. I’ve really wanted to go to the one at Hitchin but so far we haven’t made it. We’re visiting my mum for a few days so decided to visit Somerset Lavender. Lately my Instagram feed has been full of happy children standing in lavender. I was wondering what my children would think. I love lavender. We grow it and use it at home (lavender play dough anyone?) and a few years ago we visited Isle of Wight Lavender and stocked up on lavender products. I’ve also baked lavender shortbread which you…

  • Kawaii Cakes Biscuit Icing Workshop at Tatty Devine
    baking - homestyle - kawaii

    Kawaii Cakes Biscuit Icing Workshop at Tatty Devine

    August 13, 2017 - By 

    Last weekend I booked myself on a really fun workshop at Tatty Devine. Although they are known for their super cute acrylic jewellery, they were hosting Juliet Sear and a biscuit decorating workshop. It just sounded like the perfect workshop so I signed myself up. I love wandering around East London, which is lucky as it took me a while to find the venue! The Tatty shop is tucked away at the end of Brick Lace and I kept getting distracted by all the colourful street art. They were hosting a super sweet workshop in their Brick Lane store with…

  • Blackberry and apple crumble
    baking - homestyle - recipe

    Foraging for blackberries {Blackberry and apple crumble}

    August 12, 2017 - By 

    Last weekend we visited our local Farmers Market. On the way we spotted that the bushes were full of beautiful, ripe blackberries and we knew we would have to pick some. We picked up a spare bag whilst we were shopping to put our blackberries in. I’ve been meaning to get to a Pick Your Own farm all summer, finally this was our chance to let the children pick and make something with it. We’ve never actually been foraging for blackberries with the children before. It’s something I remember doing with my parents and grandparents and I can still remember…

  • 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…

  • parenting

    Coping with kids and chicken pox

    August 11, 2017 - By 

    Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash I love the school holidays. One of the biggest problems with school is how quickly my children pick up any bug which is going around. School attendance is marked on their end of term reports and I wasn’t really surprised to see how many days they had both off – never at the same time of course! They both caught chicken pox this year. I actually thought they had both had it a few years ago so when I heard that chicken pox was going round I wasn’t too worried. Unfortunately over Christmas I noticed my daughter…

  • Recipe for homemade slime
    crafts

    Recipe for homemade slime {A-Z Play at Home}

    August 11, 2017 - By 

    Hi everyone! As you know, every week we join up with some other bloggers to share crafts and activities by a different letter of the alphabet. Todays letter is the letter O and this was an easy one for us! Like most children, my kids love watching slime videos on YouTube and we finally got round to making some of our own. You may be wondering where the letter O comes in. Well we used Optical Lens Solution! Just in case the internet needs another slime recipe, here is ours. Recipe for homemade slime PVA Glue Optical Lens Solution 1…

  • Win a copy of Yoga Babies by Fearne Cotton
    book review - competition - homestyle

    Win a copy of Yoga Babies by Fearne Cotton

    August 10, 2017 - By 

    Meet the Yoga Babies in much-loved household name Fearne Cotton’s debut picture book.  Sometimes life is busy and tricky, but not to worry! Yoga can help everyone chill out. Follow these babies big and small as they practise yoga at home, in the garden and before bedtime, then you can have a go at home, too! Fearne Cotton is one of the UK’s most in-demand TV and radio presenters. She is on BBC Radio 2 regularly, and presents high profile shows including Children in Need and BBC Music Awards, and along with Holly Willoughby captains a team on Celebrity Juice.…

  • Peppa Pig's Family House review
    parenting - playing - toy review

    Peppa’s Family Home toy review

    August 10, 2017 - By 

    I can’t imagine a time when my daughter doesn’t love Peppa Pig. It’s one of her favourite characters and she loves watching the cartoon and playing with her Peppa toys. Although as a parent it feels like I’ve watched *all* the episodes, there were actually new episodes last month! Did you watch them? New episodes of Peppa Pig on Milkshake Yep, last month (finally) new episodes of Peppa Pig were shown on Milkshake (Channel 5 for the non-parents out there). It was quite a relief to watch them and meet the new character, Molly Mole and her family. Peppa’s Family…