This morning I’m still catching up on sleep from attending the amazing event that was Blogtacular. I found it totally exhausting but fun and will hopefully write more about it another day. Back to my weekly Monday happy things post. As usual lots has made me smile this week. – Last week I took myself off to Chesham to scout out the local charity shops. I haven’t done it for ages and I loved every second, especially the tube journey through the beautiful Chiltern Hills. – The article I wrote on tips for creating a fairy gardens has appeared on…
-
-
It’s been a while since I’ve put together a fun bento lunchbox. However this weekend we planned a fun day out and I wanted to make the children a special lunch. We’re all excited about the new new Minions film and I thought this would make a brilliant theme for lunch. So today I’m sharing our Minion bento. Sweetcorn fritter The main component to our Minion bento was a yummy sweetcorn fritter. Sweetcorn fritter is a family favourite and I often make a few for dinner but they are just as good cold. I made ours with Green Giant sweetcorn.…
-
We celebrate Father’s Day with handmade gifts in our house. We’ve already been busy with decorating candles and drawing pictures. I thought I would try something a little more grown up with my stash of Scrabble tiles. Vintage Scrabble tiles 2mm cork sheet UHU POR glue Swann Morton scalpel How to make a Scrabble tile Father’s Day coaster We kept our Scrabble tile coaster simple with the words ‘I love you Dad’. We arranged the Scrabble tiles, using blanks to make each line the same length. We placed the tiles on a sheet of cork (purchased from eBay) and glued…
-
At the moment my daughter is a little Mini Me. As much as she has her own *big* personality she also loves to do what I do, especially around the house. This week she’s been reviewing the Casdon Little Cook Morphy Richards play set which she says is her “best toy ever” and playing kitchen. The Casdon Little Cook Morphy Richards play set contains coffee maker and coffee pot, kettle, toaster along with plates, cups, cutlery and play food. Little Sis was quite happy to open the box and see what was inside. She took everything over to the table…
-
A large part of my parenting journey seem to a full on nostalgia-fest, reliving with my own children some of my favourite childhood toys and tv programmes. Did you know the Clangers are coming back to children’s tv via CBeebies? The first episode will air at 5:30pm on Monday 15th June and will be on daily. We saw a brief advert for it yesterday and my children were intrigued by the little mouse-like creatures who live on, and inside, a small moon-like plane. My favourite character has to be Granny Clanger who is fond of knitting. Luckily for them (and…
-
I’ve had my Janone sewing machine for a couple of years now. I prefer to hand sew but often use my machine to finish off larger projects, especially my quilts. My sewing machine had a rather nasty plastic dust cover and I wanted to make something prettier to keep it clean. A couple of weeks ago I read about a fun competition where you could choose a piece of fabric and make anything you liked and I thought this was a great opportunity to make myself a new sewing machine cover. There were four fabrics from Hillary’s Roman blinds and…
-
I love to make quilts but always stick to the same, safe designs. Recently I’ve begun to experiment and tried my hand at jewel, octagon, triangle and diamonds EPP – baby steps! I was interested to hear about All Points Patchwork: English Paper Piecing beyond the Hexagon, for Quilts & Small Projects by Diane Gilleland, published by Storey Publishing. image credit I received a copy to review and read it in one evening. It’s a lovely book and I learned so much from it. I’ve taught myself which is why I’m always happiest following other people’s tutorials and patterns. All…
-
Every year we rent a gorgeous cottage on the beach in Devon. It’s the most amazing place and we would live there in a flash if we could. The children love to pick up sea glass and bits of pottery which has been washed onto the beach and we always bring back a pocketful to remind us of our holiday. We’ve already had our week by the sea and wanted to do something with our beach treasure. When I was in Hobbycraft I spotted the perfect receptacle – fillable wooden letters! How to clean sea glass First you need to…
-
I’m not sure why Monday always surprises me but it does. I had the laziest weekend possible as I really needed to recharge my batteries and now I’m ready to share my Monday Happy Things. Yesterday I finished piecing all the hexagons for my union flag quilt. My 3 year old really wants me to finish ‘her’ quilt and was keen to photo bomb my photographs this morning. I’m going to add a panel of solid to either side of the pieced union flag to make it large enough to cover her bed. I just need to find time to…
