You all know that I love to visit charity shops and upcycle the things I find in them. When I heard about a new book produced by The Children’s Air Ambulance it sounded absolutely written for me and I had to share it with you. The book is called New Wings for Old Things: Sew, Stick, Splatter and Salvage and includes over 20 projects to change preloved pieces into vintage visions for your wardrobe, home and garden. The ethos behind it is encouraging people of all levels of crafting experience to upcycle preloved (or just unloved!) items knocking about at home or in…
-
-
Today is a very special day for me as I celebrate 8 years with my husband. I think it’s 8, it might actually be 9, I’m not really sure anymore 🙂 Anyway, to celebrate, the lovely people at Zalando have kindly given me a £50 voucher so one of my readers can treat themselves to something special from their site. Zalando is a great place to look for clothes, accessories, sports items, beauty products and much more. They offer an extensive product selection, excellent customer service, an easy and secure online shopping experience and best of all, free delivery and…
-
As much as I love Halloween I never actually want to spend my time pumpkin carving. This year we’ve done things a little differently. We purchased our pumpkin from Waitrose along with a couple of cute munchkins (mini pumpkins) and they make a great display on our dining room table. The toddler has been going on and on about carving the pumpkin but instead of reaching for the knife I grabbed my washi tape collection instead. Easy No-Carve Pumpkin ideas How about using washi tape for a no carve pumpkin? No mess and you can change the expression as often…
-
We like to make sun catchers for our windows so thought we’d make something fun for Halloween. We already have munchkins on the mantlepiece and a Happy Halloween banner. The toddler has made Lego pumpkins and ghosts but there are still so many things to make and do! I cut out some spooky houses from black paper using a self healing mat and scalpel. I did this the evening before as I didn’t fancy using a scalpel with the children around. The children tore out pieces of coloured tissue paper and stuck them to the houses with glue. The tissue…
-
Did you know it’s Feed the Birds Day on October 24th? How about making a simple bird feeder and giving them a tasty treat? All you need is a cardboard tube, bird feed, peanut butter and string. Spread peanut butter all over the cardboard tube and roll it in the bird feed. We poured the bird feed into a plastic container so the seed didn’t go everywhere. Then we cut a length of string and threaded it through the tube and tied a knot in the two ends. Then we headed out to the garden and hung it on a…
-
After a very busy morning we came home and baked. We are a family who loves to bake so everyone helped making White Chocolate Chip and Vanilla Cupcakes. We were kindly sent a selection of products from Dr. Oetker so used their white chocolate chips and handy baking powder sachets. They smelled delicious and the children enjoyed licking the spoons whilst the cakes were in the oven. As the children were ‘helping’ they really wanted to decorate them with everything we had! We made a milk chocolate and white chocolate ganache using bars of the Fine Cooks’ Chocolate, covered the cupcakes and let the…
-
With an all-star cast led by Robert De Niro, Katherine Heigl, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Topher Grace, Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams, The Big Wedding is an uproarious romantic comedy about a charmingly modern family trying to survive a weekend wedding celebration that has the potential to become a full blown family fiasco! To the amusement of their adult children and friends, long divorced couple Don and Ellie Griffin (De Niro and Keaton) are once again forced to play the happy couple for the sake of their adopted son Alejandro’s wedding after his ultra conservative biological mother unexpectedly decides to fly…
-
If you’re the parent of a pre-schooler you are probably familiar with the magical world of Tree Fu Tom and Treetopolis. My son loves the programme and can often be found sending magic to Tom in his own unique way! He was pretty excited to receive a copy of the new Tree Fu Tom magazine which launched last month. The magazine is packed full of activities to keep little ones busy. My children enjoyed the stickers, colouring, learning about ladybirds and playing the games. There was lots to do so they kept returning to it and I think it represents…
-
Now the toddler is at school during the afternoons I find feeding him a little tricky. Although we live near school he starts at 12.25 so I need to fit in lunch, clean him up and get him changed into his uniform before leaving the house, it can be a rush! Sometimes a lie-in or just playing before breakfast means there are only a couple of hours between breakfast and lunch and he’s not very hungry. Fortunately he’s always really hungry after school so I ensure he has a really healthy meal for his evening meal. my dirty school boy!…