Apple Days seem to be growing in popularity over the last few years. I keep hearing about them, I’ve even tried a few kids crafts on my blog but we’ve never made it to an event – until today. In between ballet lessons and birthday parties we headed over to Hughenden Manor, a lovely National Trust property near High Wycombe for the afternoon. There is so much to do at Hughenden Manor. There’s a beautiful historic house, once the home of Benjamin Disraeli, gardens, woods, a walled garden, a lovely cafe and they hold some great events. Since our last…
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Regular readers know every year I take myself off to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally. Despite living in London I never feel that I have a good sewing shop near me so I love looking round all the different exhibitor stalls. Ally Pally is one of my favourite buildings in London and it makes a great venue for the Knitting and Stitching Show. There are lot of large halls- one for the exhibitor stalls, an area for workshops, galleries showcasing some amazing work as well as tea rooms. I’ve been every year for the last couple of…
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I don’t know about you but I’m determined to let my children have the one I remember. I remember bike rides, making fairy potions from my mum’s herb garden, sunbathing in the garden with my sister and building forts from deck chairs and picnic blankets. My childhood seemed uncomplicated but I’m not sure my children will be able to say the same. At 3 and 5 years old they love to play with their Sylvanian Families toys (her) and Lego sets (him). They craft, they make mud pies in our mud kitchen and ride their bikes. However they also love…
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I’m sure no child can resist collecting pocketfuls of leaves, acorns, conkers and pine cones at this time of year. My 3 year old can’t help herself and our nature table is overflowing with treasures. She really wanted to craft with some of them so we made a pretty Autumnal leaf luminary. DIY Autumn leaves luminary You will need – Mod Podge, selection of leaves and an empty glass jar How to make a DIY Autumn leaves luminary Choose a selection of leaves, smaller ones work best. Remove the stems from larger leaves as they are difficult to stick down.…
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Sylvanian Families are one toy which is always out in our house so I thought it would be fun to make a Halloween play scene for my daughter. Did you see the photo I shared on Twitter last week about the new limited edition Sylvanian Families Halloween Set from Epoch? This spooky set contains an orange and black slide decorated with ghosts and ghoulies, as well as two figurines – Baby Crème Chocolate and little Ambrose Walnut. There are also two little rabbit cuddlies to keep the tots company, as well as matching accessories for them to play with as…
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Halloween is all about pumpkins, ghosts and bats in our house. Thankfully we were challenged to create our own Halloween characters using a selection of Staedtler products. My 3 year old was excited to get creating and used pencils to design her special Halloween character. She decided to draw a scary spider. She gave it a body, 8 legs, 2 eyes and a smile – not very scary! Then she coloured it in with the highlighters. I love the fact the legs look like hair and it’s smiling. She was very proud of her spider I’m a member of the…
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What better way to start a new working week than for me to share the news that National Chocolate Week starts today! Not that I need an excuse to celebrate but the Candy Craft Chocolate Pen, some Divine Chocolate, as well as an easy to follow cupcake recipe from Amy Beth-Ellice definitely helped. Toffee Apple Cupcakes I really loved the sound of the Toffee Apple cupcakes and thought they would be the perfect Autumnal treat. I also knew we could make some fun decorations with the Chocolate Pen! I adapted Amy Beth-Ellice’s recipe slightly as I didn’t have time to…
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It’s that time of week again when I write my favourite post – my Monday Happy Things! On Friday I spent the day at London Zoo as a Keeper for a Day. I had an amazing experience and helped clean out cages, prepared food, fed the giraffes and got a great look behind the scenes at ZSL. Hopefully I will have time to write a full post about my day soon. I’m a huge fan of Orla Kiely so was pleased to hear of a new collaboration with Boots. She’s created two new toiletry scents; energising orange & caraway and…
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Did you know British Egg Week takes place between the 5-11 October? This year I’ve been a 2015 British Lion eggs ‘Shortcut Eggsperts’ and my latest challenge was to create a classic egg recipe with a twist. It has been 60 years since the famous TV adverts featuring Tony Hancock told us to “go to work on an egg”. Eggs are a staple of our family diet, they can be used in so many meals and are great value – just make sure sure they bear the British Lion stamp. British Lion Eggs have a great website packed full of…