We all love bringing the outdoors into our homes - whether it’s fresh cut flowers, indoor plants or a collection of treasures from a nature walk. But at this time of year there are definitely some things about the outdoors that I don’t welcome; muddy footprints, soggy leaves and wind-blown dust are currently top of my list of offenders. This can be a particularly annoying daily battle if you have children, pets or green fingers - or, like us, ...
Giveaway: TOAD personalised diaries
Welcome to a new giveaway on the blog, perfect for the run-up to Christmas and the New Year with two great prizes on offer courtesy of the lovely people at TOAD diaries. Two lucky winners will be able to choose £20 worth of personalised products from the TOAD website.TOAD stands for "Today Or Any Day", which is the key principle behind TOAD's products: you can create a diary that starts and ends at any time of the year via their online ...
Exploring family arts in Nottingham
Over the weekend we were invited to take part in a fabulous blogger event, celebrating the wonderful family arts venues in Nottingham. Today I'm sharing some of the brilliant things we got up to, hope it inspires you!The event was hosted by Family Arts Network Nottingham, to celebrate the launch of the Get Creative Family Arts Festival and showcase the family events and activities Nottingham's arts and culture organisations have to ...
Harvest time craft: making veggie creatures
We've been having lots of fun this season turning our allotment harvest into veggie animals, so I thought I'd share this fun craft activity with you.Every year my local horticultural society holds their annual show in September. There are lots of categories you can enter your produce into - things like 'heaviest pumpkin' and 'best floral arrangement' - and there is a whole section exclusively for children. The kids were planning to make ...
How well do you know your apples?
Is there a fruit that symbolises this time of year more than the apple?For me, apples go hand-in-hand with Autumn days; heavy fruit ready to fall from the tree in our garden, fighting the wasps for the juiciest ones, and of course cooking with our lovely harvest.I have to confess though, my knowledge of the hundreds of types of apples is limited to say the least. I suppose we’re all too used to the handful of varieties on sale in ...
Creating the perfect boy’s bedroom
I think it’s pretty typical to spend the warmer months developing your garden and outdoor space, but as the seasons start to change we tend to turn our attention to indoor projects. With Autumn around the corner we’re about to tackle a tricky room in our house: our eight year old son’s bedroom.I think kids’ rooms are so hard to get right. They’re often small and need to multi-task hard, providing space for sleeping, playing and learning as ...
Exploring Clumber Park
Visiting Clumber Park is one of those days out where the minute you arrive, you just know it’s going to be brilliant. We’ve been meaning to visit for such a long time and we finally managed it over the bank holiday weekend.Covering over 3,800 acres of parkland, heath and woods in North Nottinghamshire, Clumber Park was once the country estate of the Dukes of Newcastle. The original house is no longer there but there are lots of other ...
Imaginative outdoor play with Stick-lets
During the Summer holidays we've been trying out Stick-lets, a clever little product designed to take playing with sticks to a whole new level.Stick-lets are a very simple idea: they're silicone joints in a variety of sizes and shapes and you use them to lash sticks or wooden canes together. The idea is that they allow you to create more stable and imaginative structures than you would be able to manage without some sort of joint to hold ...
Nature Craft: making a journey stick
We recently spent a lovely morning exploring nature at the Skylarks nature reserve in Nottingham, which is part of the Wildlife Trusts. One of the activities was making something called a journey stick during a nature walk.I'd never heard of journey sticks before, but apparently they've been around for a very long time. A journey stick is essentially a memento of a nature walk, featuring items collected whilst on the walk; these might be ...
How to grow your name in courgettes
This may sound like a rather odd title for a post, but bear with me....If you're growing courgettes this year, right now you're likely to be inundated with them and busy trying to find new recipes to use them in or giving them away to friends, neighbours and any random stranger who'll take them. This makes it the perfect time to grow a name in one of your courgettes; it's dead easy, takes a couple of minutes and is an absolutely brilliant ...