Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, but even I’m getting a bit sick of the word. The run up to Christmas is my absolute favourite part but once we get to this point in December, the excitement turns to stress and I start realising how much I still need to do before Christmas and how much money we are going to end up spending even though we almost certainly shouldn’t. With that in mind I’ve decided to put together this list of some amazing pamper products that I think we all need in our lives to take the edge off the stress that is Christmas preparation. These could make excellent last minute gifts for anyone in your life that you think deserves a little pampering or maybe you should just treat yourself to a pre Christmas pamper. Whether you’re a busy mum, an overworked teacher or a hardworking nurse, we all deserve a little pick me up pamper session some days. I’ve got a wide range of products here so I’m hoping there will be something here for everyone. (more…)

As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I knew exactly the sort of mum I wanted to be. I wanted to be doing crafts every day with my children, making all of my meals from scratch and living a totally eco-friendly and organic lifestyle in my Pinterest worthy family home. It is safe to say that I have fallen short on all of those things (as most of us do!) and as much as I try I will never be the Pinterest mum that I envisioned. One thing I knew I wanted to do at Christmas time was to make salt dough ornaments with Darcie. Last year was my first attempt and to be honest it was nothing short of a total disaster. She was only 7 months old and so she was too young to be involved with making the dough and she just wailed when I tried to get her chubby little hands to make a print in the decorations. Then when I put them in the oven, I must have had the heat too high because instead of coming out perfectly formed and ready to decorate, they rose and basically any trace of those chubby little hand prints that I’d struggled to get, disappeared.

This year however we had much more success, Darcie absolutely loved helping me to make the dough. She sat up on the counter and helped me mix it and then roll it out. She loved using the cookie cutters to make all the different shapes and then was thankfully distracted by putting them all in and out of the container so that I was able to get on with putting the salt dough shapes on the baking trays and into the oven. (more…)

Here we are again, another week has passed and so it is time for my weekly round up of things that have made me happy. I love writing these posts so I hope that you enjoy reading them.

1. Making salt dough decorations with Darcie
I tried to do this with her last year and it was nothing short of a total disaster. This year however was a completely different experience. Darcie loved sitting up on the counter and helping me make the dough, she rolled it out with me and loved using the cookie cutters to make different shapes and doing her little hand prints. Every time she put her hand in the dough she concentrated really hard, looked up at me and said ‘good?’ until I told her she was doing a great job, she just melts me! Last year they ended up rising in the oven but this time they have come out perfectly so the next job is just decorating! (more…)

You may remember that a few months ago I started doing monthly favourites posts, they were a good way to round up the month but the problem I found is actually having enough different things to put in the post each month. My lovely friend Caitylis has recently started a series on her blog which are posts called ‘Sightings From’ in which she puts her favourite photographs from the month and a little summary of how the month has been. She has invited other bloggers to join in with this and so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get back into doing a monthly round up post but in a more manageable style. I realise I’m a bit late with this as we are now nearly halfway through December but as I always say better late than never! (more…)