On average we spend 312 hours each year in our cars, yet cleaning our mobile home-from-home is one of the nation’s most-neglected chores, with a third of Brits only cleaning the inside of their car every six months or less! I was surprised to hear that men clean the inside of their car more than women – with almost half (48%) of men cleaning the interior at least once a month or more, compared to 37% of women. I was offered the loan of a team of Febrezers to come and clean our car ahead of spring cleaning season. However,…
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Many moons ago I signed up to host the BritMums Carnival and my time has finally arrived! Today I bring to you some brilliant posts from the best parenting bloggers about ….. potty training! Forgive me for the theme but potty training is currently headlining at the gingerbread house and I am in need of tips, advice and useful products to help ease the transition from nappies to big boy pants for my reluctant toddler. The parenting blogging community have generously shared some brilliant posts. Whether the potty years are far behind you or you are in need of some…
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I’ve been really lucky to attend both the Spring Knitting & Stitching Show as well as the Spring Country Living Fair in the last week. There was so much lovely inspiration and a fair few fabric purchases too. Grandmother’s Flower Garden doll quilt Lately I’ve been spending my precious free time making hexagons the EPP way. I just love the whole process, from making paper templates, to choosing fabrics and basting my hexagons. Somehow I’ve ended up with 4 patchwork projects on the go, all in various stages of completion. My current favourite is my doll size version of a…
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Following the theme of hand print fun, last week we got messy with the paints to create some Easter cards. Hand print animals are really easy to do and require few materials. We added a good dollop of yellow paint onto the paint tray and the toddler sponged it onto one hand before carefully pressing his hand down on to a sheet of paper. We left the hand prints to dry over night and then I added some legs, eyes and a beak with sharpies. As we wanted to make these into cards we then glued them onto blank cards…
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March has been a pretty hard month for us as we’ve all been ill and I’m fed up of playing nurse! I don’t care that it’s snowing again as I’ve been thinking about fun Easter breaks with the family so we have something to look forward to. There’s so much choice and lots of places we want to visit. Whilst the children are young we’ll be staying in the UK. I know lots of people take their children abroad but I don’t think you can beat UK breaks at Butlins. When I was growing up we always had a couple…
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My children adore Poppy Cat and already have a couple of board books so they were very happy to be sent two new paperback story books featuring their favourite animal and friends. Poppy Cat: Birthday Treasure and Poppy Cat: The Mystery Trail are two lovely books and a great introduction to Poppy Cat. The stories are beautifully illustrated and the perfect size for little fingers to examine and point out the details. These books have been designed to introduce toddlers to the idea of a story line. They are just the right length to keep my toddlers attention and he…
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Today the toddler turned 3. We just gave him a couple of presents to open before nursery, unfortunately one of them was a Buzz Lightyear which went off before it was opened, rather giving the game away! He was totally spoilt with some Disney Cars for his collection, a train for his train set, and a wooden bike. His name was read out on cBeebies and he was only a little bemused by the home made Lightning McQueen pinata. We made a special rainbow layer cake which was fun to make, if a little time consuming. Fortunately the weather was…
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As our moving date is edging closer I’ve been ‘pinning’ some products I would love in our new home. Fingers crossed we will have more wall space (more rooms must equal more walls right?) so we can display lots more photos. Ages ago I wrote about the vintage reclaimed picture frames we found under the stairs. They’ll be coming with us and hopefully I’ll find the time to update the pictures in them. I’ve also been making some doll quilts which I’d love to hang on the walls of Little Sis’ new room. Despite taking photographs of the children every…
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I’m on the look out for inspiration for our new home and finding plenty of it in craft books. I was recently sent a copy of Hand Knit Your home – 30 knitted projects for a modern home by Melanie Porter which is full of new ideas. Hand Knit Your home is a really interesting book as it presents a fresh perspective on decorating your home. The book is divided into three chapters and colour schemes – hot ideas, cool collection and pale palette. The projects are really inspired, ranging from a small flower vase cosy to a large floor…