When I get a bit of free time in the big smoke I love to head down to Liberty of London, hopping off at Oxford Circus into the buzz of the shopping streets is a total treat and on my most recent visit I took some snaps so that my lovely blog readers could see what the fuss is all about!

“Liberty is the chosen resort of the artistic shopper.” Oscar Wilde

Since 1875, Liberty has been synonymous with luxury and great design. This wonderful emporium was designed by Edwin T. Hall and his son Edwin S. Hall who designed the Tudor building at the height of the 1920s fashion for Tudor revival. It’s said that founder Arthur Liberty wanted to create the feeling that you were walking around your own home when you came to his store, so each of the three main light wells was surrounded by smaller rooms to create a homely feel. Many of the rooms had fireplaces and some still exist today. It’s a sight to behold with it’s grand front entrance!

The famous florist entrance is one of my favourite ever sights!

Liberty is a good old-fashioned department store with beauty and homewares aplenty but my heart lies in its haberdashery!

The displays are enough to keep any crafty blogger interested, I never want to leave as there’s so much to look at, the fabric, the buttons, the displays, did I mention the fabric?

This time I came away with Betsy Tana Lawn fabrics and gorgeous old school hankies in vibrant prints, more on what I’m going to make with them over the coming weeks!

In the meantime check out this gorgeous Liberty print watches to get a feel for their classic style with a twist!

And these Liberty washi tapes found on Etsy, amazing!

Real Life

Lately I’ve been too tired to pick up my hooks and this little granny square blanket was making me feel guilty, I couldn’t finish it, so instead I put down my lazy crochet hooks and turned it into a cushion cover, one work in progress down, two to go!

I used this method for afixing, from Knitting on Trains and it served me rather well, it seems I stopped crocheting at just the right time to fit my Ikea cushion inner!

Some new washi tapes arrived this week, so watch this space for more makes!

And finally Joss has been cracking us up with some hilarious phrases including

“it’s alright for some”

said randomly when we were talking about taking the bus to the beach! By the looks of it, it certainly is alright for some!

Blog life

Not much to report, I enjoyed writing a post about life as a no car family with kids and received my highest ever views for a single post after a kind soul tweeted it out and it got RT’d frequently over a few days much to my surprise and delight!

Inspiration

I absolutely love Wolves in London and was inspired by her posts on finding and printing vintage images, armed with a £1 transfer paper pack of two sheets and a printer I set to work and will be sharing the results next week, lets just say I’ll be trying this again and no fabric is safe from the printer and iron!!

- See more at: http://mumsdays.com/#sthash.7Qc32yIy.dpuf

This Clean & Fair from Traidcraft review comes to you after a two week trial period, and boy was it needed! We have had a busy spell here at Casa There and Back Again… I was away in London for three days, then we had a bout of family illness and then we had to get the place sorted out again, so the chance to put our elbow grease to good use with some new products was a welcome distraction from work and illness!

The lowdown

From left to right we have:

Lemon and lime multi-surface cleaner

Lavender breeze laundry liquid

Lavender and aloe handwash

Lemon citrus washing up liquid

Why Clean & Fair?

This review is part tried and tested and part awareness raising; we need to educate ourselves about the products we use in our homes, and palm oil is something I’ve been concerned about for some time, this graphic from Traidcraft shows how palm oil is used in our day to day lives, in short, it’s everywhere!

But it’s not fair trade, much of it isn’t sustainable and whole ecosystems are being destroyed to produce it.

Traidcraft are working to challenge the assumption that demand for this versatile product can only be met by mass-production. Instead Traidcraft’s Clean & Fair range sources palm oil from small-scale farmers in Ghana who are working with nature rather than destroying it. When we use Clean & Fair products we know the benefits will go to some of the poorest farmers in West Africa.

Clean & Fair is the UK’s first ever fair trade household cleaning range

Tried and Tested

We used Clean & Fair products for two weeks, actually we tested them for two weeks, we’ve been using them for longer owing to their generous size and muck-busting abilities!

The range is eco-friendly and made from natural and plant based ingredients which is a big green thumbs up with this blog!

First up the moisturising hand wash, made with fair trade coconut oil and palm oil with moisturising aloe and gentle lavender this was a treat for my hands and well as my senses after a few weeks of cleaning up after a family illness! Some lavender products can have a really synthetic floral smell, this was just like my freshly cut lavender instead and pepped me up! Joss is really into washing her hands at the moment and asks for ‘slippy dippy soap’ before meal times, she loved Clean & Fair – “smells ‘licious” – high praise indeed!

The lemon washing up liquid is a great grease-booster, easy to see how we will get 75 uses from this bottle as you need just a smidge to give great bubbles that cut through grime.

The lavender breeze laundry liquid was my favourite product, it scented my washing beautifully and cleaned really well at lower temperatures too, even on our cloth nappies! It left my towels really nice and soft and I found that I didn’t need to use as much as my usual liquid which was a pleasant surprise!

And finally the multi-surface cleaner, it gave a lemon and lime hit that cut through highchair grease and cleaned my sink a treat!

Clean and fair does what it says on the label and performs brilliantly in the home; some products like the laundry liquid way out-performed our current products, and the peace of mind from knowing we’re supporting producers and in our case supporting local too (Traidcraft is based just down the road from us in Gateshead!) makes this range a great choice for our family!

Check out the Traidcraftshop website to find out more. There’s currently 20% off the range until midnight Monday 14th July.

Disclaimer: Traidcraft sent me these items for review purposes, all views are my (and Joss’!) own