It's is exhausting being a mum. To be honest I'm finding having a four year old and a two year old more exhausting than the newborn days. There are still some sleepless nights, but there's also all the stuff that needs doing in the daytime. Masses of laundry, school homework, forms that need returning, pre-school visits to do, school run, nursery run, swimming lessons, playgroup, shopping, cleaning, school uniform to mend, school shoes to buy, the daily routine of getting through meals and bath and bed time. It can feel like an endless treadmill. Christmas just adds to the workload. There ... read more
Christmas Crafting with Bostik
We started our Christmas crafting early here this year, and by the time our Bostik Blogger box of goodies arrived from CraftMerrily we'd already made angels, cards and gift tags. It was therefore with a bit of hesitation that I gave Little Miss C what was possibly the best early Christmas present she'd ever had - completely free rein to do whatever she wanted with the box of craft goodies. Normally I'm a complete control freak when it comes to the boxes of goodies that arrive from CraftMerrily, planning out everything we can make before she gets a look in. I then left her and Mr C alone at the ... read more
Dog on Stilts – James Thorp and Angus Mackinnon
I do love discovering children's books from smaller publishers as often they have a freshness to them that makes them stand out from the crowd, and that seems to be the case with Dog on Stilts. Medium Dog is, well, ordinary. All the other dogs that he encounters seem much more interesting than he is, and that's making him a bit glum. Then, he comes up with a way to stand out from the crowd. Literally! The premise for the Dog on Stilts story is just bonkers - after all, as my four year old pointed out, dog's can't walk on stilts - but it made both my kids laugh like absolute drains when I ... read more
Have yourself a very thrifty Christmas
Christmas. Let's face it, it's an expensive time of the year. Well, at least it can be, but here are some of my top tips for having a thrifty Christmas in 2014. Save on Christmas presents If I'm honest here, the really serious thrifty folk will have already done the bulk of their Christmas back in the January sales! Don't despair though if you're reading this in December and thinking you don't have a chance of saving money - you do. Firstly consider who you have to get gifts for. Do they really all need a present? If there are a lot of family members then why not suggest doing a ... read more
Owl Advent Calendar
As anyone who knows me in real life will tell you, I'm brilliant at starting craft projects, but when it comes to finishing them it's another story entirely. The house (and cabin at the bottom of the garden) are full of unfinished projects (over 41 at the last count - but shhhh don't tell my husband) and the situation has been getting a bit out of hand lately. And I daren't even count how many project I've got everything for, but haven't yet started. It's not that I don't want to finish them, it's just that I either run out of time or something more exciting comes along and they're ... read more
Christmas Craft: Toilet Roll Angels
Sometimes Christmas crafts just need to be as simple as possible, especially when small children are involved and that's what I hope I've achieved with this simple toilet roll angel project. What you need: Toilet roll White paint Cardboard - a cereal box is ideal Scissors Pipe cleaners - silver or gold ideally Glue Glitter - silver or gold, or glitter glue Sticky tape Pink or flesh coloured paper Felt tip pens Something round to draw round Start off by painting the outside of your toilet roll white. You may need two coats of paint for this. Draw a circle on ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Coffee
I do sometimes wonder just how Ladybird decided which books to put in some of their series - in particular the Ladybird Leader series (737). Whilst they're all subjects where there is plenty to learn about, the list can seem a bit random when you first read it. From water to bridges, apes and monkeys to fruit, and deserts to coffee. Coffee is obviously a huge commodity in the world today and if anything the way people drink coffee has changed even more since 1977 when this book was first published. Now there are coffee shops every few meters (well in St Albans there certainly are) and it's ... read more
Embracing real ink #StationeryWednesday
I'm loving my current work with Bureau Direct. Not only do I get to choose what to review every month from a fantastic range of stationery goodies, but I'm also rediscovering how much I love writing with a pen - something that I suppose I've gradually stopped doing seeing as I spend so much time on a laptop or tablet. After embracing ink pens these last two months - both the Herbin rollerball and the the Lamy Vista - it seemed like there was just one ink challenge to overcome: real ink. Bottles of ink scare and thrill me in equal measure. At primary school I remember one boy Amit who ... read more
A Secondhand Christmas
I try to keep out of arguments on social media. Life's simply too short to go wading in every time you see something you disagree with. Last week though I saw an exchange which just left me speechless. Some blogger friends of mine are taking part in a campaign with the Salvation Army to raise the profile of doing your Christmas shopping in charity shops as a way of supporting charities at this time of year. One particular blogger tweeted about the things that she'd found this year for her family's Christmas presents and someone else (who I refuse to give a link to here - don't feed the ... read more
The Diggers – Margaret Wise Brown and Antoine Corbineau
One of Master C's favourite books over the last few months has been Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. Or Night Night Moon as he prefers to call it. I therefore sat down with him to read a copy of The Diggers by her with great interest especially since he instantly became very excited by the picture of a digger on the front cover. Margaret Wise Brown wrote hundreds of stories and poems for children and this particular one has been brought alive in this modern version by French illustrator Antoine Corbineau. Dig, dig, dig go various animals and machines as they dig underground to ... read more