Category Archives: Writing

Bob the snail and other minibeasts

by

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Feelers out what’s about?

Joss loves Cbeebies’ Minibeast Adventure, so Daddy introduced her to Bob, our yarden snail!

She loved watching him crawl up the glass, chattered about his salad leaves and snail trails and commented on his shell “he’s got a hat on him!” – I’m slowly overcoming my creepy crawly fear, as she’s so fearless I have no worries about having passed on my fear yet!

If you have an inquisitive tot get yourself a large empty jar, this is a beetroot jar, add some soil and some edible leaves, pop holes in the lid of the jar and pop a small amount of water in gently each day, as snails like dark damp places try to keep the jar somewhere cool and shady, and never leave the jar in the sun. At night snails are more active so when your tot is sleeping look out for a few snails to pop in your jar and when you’ve had a good explore pop them back where you found them.

 


Ethans Escapades


Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

Cake Angels Ice Cream Cone Cupcake Review

by

Goodies

The lovely folk at Cake Angels sent us an exciting parcel this week, look at all those sprinkles, a cake lovers dream! Ice cream cone cupcake anyone? I was intrigued!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

How to

These cupcakes were so simple to make, just add water to the mix, fill the ice cream cones, and bake for 20 minutes. When they came out we let them cool, topped them with butter icing using the icing sugar from the pack, and then the fun part, decorations!

Sprinkles everywhere and a sticky child who really loved the vibrant colours! A stroke of luck that we had icecream themed cups from Polarn O Pyret’s party pack!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The proof is in the tasting of course, the cakes were light and airy and the chocolate flavour came through well, Joss loves icecream cones so that they stayed crispy was a big plus for her, and they were so simple for us to make together that I’d definately pick up another pack for a fun afternoon together!

What do you think?

Good enough to eat?

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

WP_005443

Thanks Cake Angels, we really enjoyed our treat!

Disclaimer: I received these goodies for the purposes of review, all views are my own.

Sweet William Photo Study

by

Sweet William

sweet wil·liam, noun

a widely cultivated Old World pink (Dianthus barbatus) with small white to deep red or purple flowers often showily spotted, banded, or mottled and borne in flat-topped cymes

http://www.merriam-webster.com

These are my absolute favourite flowers to have in the house and what better way to appreciate them than a short photo study? I’ve been motivating myself to read a little each day about improving my photos so this was a good starter for ten!

 

 




Sunday Grumps

by

Today we assembled our yarden bench, this expression says “sit with me NOW Mammy…”
Joss is perfecting her pet lip and it works on me about 50% of the time!
This one was closely followed by me sitting and being told “no Mammy, my bench!”

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Roughly ten minutes later when I finished prepping lunch (my reason for not sitting down NOW) she was back to smiley Jossy!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Expressions photos

Dressing a toddler for summer outdoors

by

With a fair haired girl I am really sun safety conscious, I prefer to stay in the shade myself but with an inquisitive tot it’s hard to avoid sometimes.

1) We both layer up with factor 50 and top up through the day especially after we’ve been in water

2) Hats are a must, protecting sensitive scalps, fine hair and keeping the sun out of little eyes…

WP_005434

3) …As with sunglasses. You can get stretchy straps to make sure they stay on, Joss lifts hers up a lot but generally they stay on if the sun is bright

WP_005432

4) Go for layers and try to keep them covered up

WP_005370

5) Go for comfort, I love these Polarn O Pyret leggings, comfy, light weight and with knee patches for my frequent faller!

WP_005219

Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

Natural Cleaning Products Part One

by

index

There are some eco-brands that I use for home cleaning, but as it’s the season of spring cleaning I thought I’d share some eco-ideas that have multi-uses and reduce the need for lots of different products using lots of packaging. This is a mini series so part one covers vinegar, lemon, bicarb and salt and part two will be back with borax and more!

Natural Cleaning

Vinegar – cuts through grease and limescale

Fill your kettle with a cup of distilled white vinegar and leave overnight to tackle limescale, rinse thoroughly the next day.

A mix of equal quantities of white vinegar and water make an effective floor cleaner

You can clean your windows with white vinegar and rub dry with a newspaper scrunched up to get rid of any marks

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Lemons are your friend!

They give a really fresh smell when you integrate them into your cleaning regime

When we moved in to our flat the taps were limescaley and nothing shifted it, I cut a lemon in two and jammed each half over the end of the tap and left for two hours, when I came back the scale just rubbed away!

Lemon juice cleans stains from cutting boards rub the juice full strength onto the stain and let sit until the stain fades, then rinse and dry

You can clean hard water marks on glass shower doors with half a lemon

Bicarbonate of soda

Make a paste with a tablespoon of bicarb and water and pop it on a cloth to clean your sink, sparkling!

Repeat this to make a cleaning paste for pots and pans, to remove stains from cups and clean tarnished silver

A cup of bicarb in your fridge absorbs fridge odours

To clean grout make up a paste of 2 parts bicarb, one part vinegar or lemon juice (this will fizz!) apply the paste with a toothbrush, leave for 10 minutes and then rinse

Dampen the floor of your oven, sprinkle with bicarb and dampen again. Leave the mixture overnight then remove with a cloth and rinse with warm water

Table salt

Salt doesn’t scratch so it’s great for glassware, add some salt to a stain for extra abrasion and scrub

Pour salt mixed with hot water down your kitchen sink every few weeks to deodorize and keep grease from building up

A great one for coffee lovers, add salt and ice cubes to your stained coffee pot, swirl around for a minute and rinse, it scrubs away those stains!

 

Button Craft Tutorial Mumslist

by

Real Life

This week has been more relaxed but relaxing myself if something I find hard so I took to crafting again as I like to have busy hands to keep a busy mind calm! We’ve also been potty training but more on that later!

index

You can make this little button heart in less than half an hour with some fine craft wire and an assortment of buttons. Just thread your buttons onto the wire one after the other gently bending the wire to get the buttons to sit close to each other, then when you have a long line of say eighteen buttons bend the ends of the wire together to form a circle, then bend into a heart shape and keep moulding the wires til you’re happy with it. add a ribbon and admire your handiwork. This works really well with little crystal buttons or a mix of crystal and silver too!

heart

Blog Life

This week I have been joining in with some comment linky groups and have come across some lovely new (to me) blogs in doing so. I have also been working on my photography, still not great but I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve been trying here with my five photo tips for fellow non artistic bloggers!

Inspiration

I came across Keri-Ann’s blog through a blog comment linky Gingerlillytea is pure whimsy and gorgeousness you must stop by with a cuppa and have a good old read!

I am also hugely inspired by this pin and am looking at creating something similar in our little space!

c97e802db6ddd6a0e54116cabc3de6d1

- See more at: http://www.mumsdays.com/#sthash.afvKx888.dpuf
 

Very Berry Pavlova

by

A simple very berry pavlova jam packed with frozen raspberries and blackberries, thrifty but with no compromise on taste!

pavlova1

Ingredients

3 large egg whites
175g golden caster sugar
Large tub whipped cream
100g of mixed frozen blackberries and raspberries defrosted
One teaspoon golden caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees

For your meringue, place your egg whites in a large bowl and whisk until they form stiff peaks, you need to be able to turn the bowl upside down without the egg whites tipping out! Once at this stage stop whisking the egg whites will collapse

Whisk in the 175g sugar a tablespoon at a time, whisking until all the sugar is in.

Prepare a baking sheet with baking paper, spoon a third of the meringue mix on to the baking sheet and smooth out with a spoon to form a 6 inch circle

Take a large tablespoon of the remaining meringue mix and dollop next to the large circle spooning six smaller around the larger circle, this will form a ‘nest’ for the filling.

Put the baking sheet in the oven turning the heat down to 140 degrees and bake for an hour, then turn off the oven and leave the meringue in to cool and dry out.

Top with whipped cream with the berries gently swirled through, you can decorate with chocolate if desired.

pavlova

Tasty Tuesdays on HonestMum.com

Deckchair Stripe Lavender bags

by

I made some of these little lavender bags as a gift for my Mam; I’d booked a massage for her birthday and wanted her to have something relaxing to unwrap as I don’t like giving a gift token as a gift with nothing else, must be related to my wrapping paper obsession!

These are really easy to make up, if you have your own lavender plant as I do harvest the heads as they are drying at the end of their season, bundle and hang them together and then when they’re dry take the husks and store them in a dry place until you’re ready to use them. Stitch together two scraps of complementary fabrics insides facing, I liked a summery deckchair stripe, leaving a small gap to turn the right way round through, then fill with lavender and hand stitch the gap closed.

index1

So satisfying seeing something from your own garden brought back to life!

index